Business Administration, Management and Operations at Generations College

This program's numbers are deeply troubling: graduates earn just $17,776 one year out—far below poverty level for a single adult in Chicago—while carrying $30,000 in debt. That's less than half what graduates earn from the median Illinois business program ($43,736), and it ranks in the bottom 10% of similar programs statewide. To put this in perspective, William Rainey Harper College and College of DuPage—both Chicago-area community colleges—produce business graduates earning $60,000 and $46,500 respectively.

The debt-to-earnings picture is particularly alarming: borrowers owe 1.7 times their annual salary, which would make even basic loan payments unmanageable on wages that likely qualify for public assistance. With 78% of students receiving Pell grants, this program appears to be serving a vulnerable population poorly. The sample size is small (under 30 graduates), which means these numbers could shift, but even generous margin of error wouldn't salvage the fundamental problem here.

Unless your child has specific circumstances we're not seeing in this data, there are demonstrably better options within Illinois—even at the associate degree level—that deliver significantly higher earnings with lower debt. Community colleges across the Chicago area consistently produce better outcomes for business students.