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College of Business: It pays to study here

August 8, 2013
Barsema Hall, home of the NIU College of Business

Barsema Hall, home of the NIU College of Business

The best bang for your business-degree buck in Illinois is found inside NIU’s Barsema Hall.

According to the Bloomberg Businessweek’s “Top Undergraduate B-Schools for ROI” list, released this spring, no business school in the state can top the NIU College of Business when it comes to return on investment.

NIU ranks at No. 45 on the list with a return-on-investment of $4.74 in salary earned per annual tuition dollar spent.

“We have a long history of providing our students with an outstanding educational experience that also helps launch their careers,” said Denise Schoenbachler, dean of the NIU College of Business.

“It’s incredibly important and gratifying to learn how much our students, alumni and businesses value the education we provide,” Schoenbachler added. “This national recognition for having one of the strongest ROI directly reflects how committed we all are to the education of our students as well as to their career success.”

Since its founding in 1961, the NIU College of Business has provided the conceptual framework and opportunities to help students turn ideas into action. Its promise to combine thinking with doing is reflected in its brand statement: “where the classroom meets the business world.”

Nearly 55,000 NIU Business alumni shape the world of business in a variety of organizations, from Fortune firms to startups. More than 4,600 alums are CEOs, and 1,200 have created and operate their own businesses.

Denise Schoenbachler

Denise Schoenbachler

During their education, students gain important business knowledge along with the invaluable experience of testing ideas. Some of those learning experiences – in addition to the six majors – include:

Faculty members, meanwhile, possess a rare balance of firsthand business experience combined with impressive academic credentials. They are among the tops in their discipline and provide an exceptional education of the highest quality to undergraduates, master’s-level students and executives alike.

Building on a strong trend, NIU’s College of Business ranks third nationally for ethics education and has been ranked in ethics for each year of the Businessweek specialty rankings: third in ethics in 2013, second in ethics in 2012, third in ethics in 2011 and second in ethics in 2010.

Other Illinois schools on Businessweek’s ROI list include Illinois State University (No. 51), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (No. 64), DePaul University (No. 69), Bradley University (No. 75) and Loyola University (No. 88).