Is getting a college degree worth the cost when tuition prices are on the rise? The answer is yes but you have to think carefully about the area that you want to study so that your college ROI is worth it for you over the course of your lifetime. One terrific area to major in is finance. This degree will always be needed and offers a variety of lucrative career options upon graduation.
Finance is About Creating Value
When you study finance what you are really studying is the art of creating value. You study how individuals and businesses save, spend and invest their money. Ultimately the goal is to create the most value for the client. This is a need that every business has, a need that will never go away. It is especially important during times of economic difficulty. This means that there will always be work for someone who majors in finance and jobs are less likely to disappear because of the ups and downs of the economy. In other words, majoring in finance gives you job security that you won’t find in many other majors.
Types of Finance Jobs
So what type of job would you actually get if you chose to major in finance? Career options include:
- Investment and portfolio manager
- Financial analyst
- Member of a corporate finance team
- Bond broker
- Financial services for retail stores
- Consultant for individuals or businesses
- Bank employee
These jobs are all available to someone who majors in the general area of finance. However you also have the option of specializing in a specific area of finance and that can broaden your job opportunities even more. Examples of specific areas that can be studied include:
- Accounting
- Economics
- Insurance
- Real Estate
How Much Can I Earn When I Graduate?
If you are interested in finance then you are interested in numbers so let’s give it to you straight. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that median weekly earnings of full-time finance workers averaged $902 in 2010 for an average annual income exceeding $45,000. However the mean annual income has the potential to be a lot higher depending on what area of finance you enter. For example, the 2009 mean annual income for securities, commodities and financial service sales agents was more than $91,000.
Finance Skills Carry Over to Personal Life
What is really great about majoring in finance is that what you learn will always be valuable to you whether or not you end up working in the field of finance. Even if you decide later that your major was all wrong and you are going to become a doctor or get your Masters Degree in Fine Arts, the skills that you gained while studying finance will still be an asset to you. Financial tools help you in any type of job that you will pursue and provide you a leg up in your personal financial life as well.
This is a guest post by Kitty Vogen. She is a personal finance writer who is considering getting a masters in finance online to further explore the depths of this broad topic.