Finance and Financial Management Services at Austin College

A $38,592 starting salary for a finance degree in Texas should raise immediate red flags. This lands in the 5th percentile nationally for finance programs—meaning 95% of comparable programs produce better outcomes—and even among Texas schools, where it reaches the 25th percentile, it's trailing the state median by $14,000. When top programs in the state like UT Austin and Texas A&M are launching graduates at $70,000-80,000+, this gap represents real money lost over a career.

The $26,000 debt load isn't catastrophic by itself, and the 0.67 debt-to-earnings ratio stays within manageable territory. However, the issue here isn't affordability—it's opportunity cost. Finance is typically a high-earning field that justifies college investment, but these outcomes look more like general business administration numbers than specialized finance training. For a moderately selective school (47% admission rate, 1272 SAT average), these returns fall short of what similar students achieve at peer institutions.

The critical caveat: this data reflects fewer than 30 graduates, so a few outliers could skew the entire picture. If your student is genuinely committed to Austin College for fit or merit aid reasons, investigate whether finance majors connect to Dallas-Fort Worth financial services firms and what recent graduates are actually doing. Otherwise, Texas offers dozens of finance programs with proven track records of much stronger earnings outcomes.