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Two full years go by before you take a marketing class. It also pays about the same as the general business degree it sounds more specific than.

Written by the Sidequest team. Reviewed 2026-09-05.

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Where it leads

Marketing manager is the top of it and pays $166,790 in the middle. Under that sit marketing research, which is the numbers end, brand and product work, and the advertising side, and they pay in that order.

The week

Fifteen hours in class and 30 on your own. For the first half of the degree those hours are accounting, economics and statistics. Marketing itself starts in your third year and comes with a required internship and a real client to work for.

What people earn four years after they finish
WEAKEST PROGRAMS$53,675TYPICAL$66,477TOP PROGRAMS$83,969

Where people end up

The work splits three ways and it pays in that order. Marketing research is the numbers end and pays most. Brand and product work is the middle. Advertising and the creative side pays least, which surprises people, because that is the part everybody pictures.

Marketing manager is the top of the ladder rather than a place you start: $166,790 in the middle and $293,610 at the best paid tenth. The years in between are spent doing the work underneath it.

The fastest growing marketing role right now is influencer work, which is the one that looks least like the degree and most like something you could start this week. The two shrinking fastest are writing content and getting pages to come up in search, and those are the two new graduates used to be hired for.

Top ways to become a content creator.

What a week is like

You take four to six classes at once, which comes out to about 15 credit hours a semester. It is that same load every semester for four years: 120 credits, eight semesters, done.

About 15 of those hours are spent sitting in class. The other 30 are work you do on your own, two hours behind every hour you spend in a room. Call it 45 hours a week.

It is spread across seven days rather than stacked into five, so you can keep your evenings or you can keep your weekends, not usually both. What it does not leave is much slack in the weeks when two big things land on the same day.

A waking week is about 112 hours. This is the share of it the degree takes.

  • In class15 hours
  • Work on your own30 hours
  • Yours67 hours

What those 45 hours are spent on.

  • with other people

    For two years these are accounting, economics and business law. After that they are about why people choose one thing over another, and what a company can do about it.

  • on your ownthe hard part

    Business statistics early, then marketing research and marketing analytics, which are both required. You are given real numbers about real customers and asked whether a difference in them means anything. This is the part people who pick this degree to avoid maths did not expect.

  • on your own

    Short write-ups of what a real company did and what happened next, which you are expected to argue with rather than summarise.

  • with other people

    Surveys, interviews and focus groups, where you sit a group of strangers down and get them talking about something. One of the first things you are taught is how to stop the loudest person in the room deciding what everyone else says.

  • with other people

    A real organisation with a real problem, a team of you, and a presentation to people who do this for a living. Most programs also make you spend a term working inside a company before they will let you graduate.

  • Marketing classes0%
  • Maths, statistics and economics29%
  • Everything else you still have to take71%
  • Classes you pick yourself0%

Two full years pass before you take a marketing class. This first one is a third maths and economics, and there is nothing in it you get to pick.

How much do you make?

Marketing sounds more specific than business administration, and it pays the same. $69,303 four years out against $68,257, which is about a thousand dollars a year between them.

  1. Right out of college

    $69,303

    Four years after finishing, the average marketing graduate earns $69,303, and that is the ones who were working, not back in school.

  2. Midway through

    $100,000

    Between 35 and 45, the average marketing graduate earns $100,000.

  3. At the height of it

    $293,610

    The best paid tenth of marketing managers earn $293,610.

The degrees down the same corridor do pay more. Finance reaches $83,343 and accounting $76,194, out of the same building and the same core classes. Naming the department you want does not buy you anything here. Picking the harder one does.

The other thing worth knowing before you choose this is what is happening to the first rung right now. One marketing team in three says it is taking on fewer people straight out of college, the average search has gone from about three months to over five, and the roles being cut fastest are the two a new graduate used to start in: writing content, and getting pages to come up in search. The one growing fastest is influencer work.

Marketing is also the business degree least likely to be followed by more school. Two in ten marketing graduates go back for another degree, against three in ten across the rest of the family, so what you learn in these four years is closer to being the whole of it.

The average money still owed on student loans

$22,628

The standard plan clears it in ten years.

Is this you?

Two full years of this degree go by before you take a marketing class. What you take instead is accounting, economics, statistics and the rest of the general business core, sitting in the same rooms as the finance and management students. That is also most of the answer to why this pays what the general business degree pays: for half the four years, it is the general business degree. What makes it different is the last two years and what you pair them with.

Tap any that sound like you.

This is probably you if

Probably not you if

What people who did it say

  • geo1113

    College Confidential, February 2012

    "The problem I see with a marketing major is this. You get a hodgepodge of classes - consumer behavior, product management, sales management, market research, advertising, but no real focus."

  • ThumperSD, arguing with the post above in the same thread

    College Confidential, February 2012

    "Marketing isnt as technical nor as focused as accounting because there are many areas you can go to in marketing like global marketing, IMC, supply chain management, etc. Relative to accounting, marketing is probably not as highly demanded. It still doesnt mean they arent sought after by employers."

  • BKSquared

    College Confidential, April 2020

    "Marketing is getting to be very data driven with the prevalence and low cost of obtaining data. Entry level salaries for marketing positions are not at the high end of the spectrum."

  • boysx3, writing about their son rather than themselves

    College Confidential, March 2014

    "My youngest son graduated with a degree in marketing last spring. He has a wonderful job with a tech startup helping them grow and loves every minute of every day. He loves that every day has new challenges that require him to think creatively."

Questions people ask

Is a marketing degree worth it?
It pays $69,303 four years out, which is within about a thousand dollars of the general business degree, and $100,000 by 35 to 45. What makes it worth it is what you pair it with: statistics, a second subject, or the internship and client work the degree already makes you do.
What can you do with a marketing degree?
Marketing research, which is the numbers end and pays most, then brand and product work, then advertising. Marketing manager is the top of that ladder at $166,790 in the middle, and it is reached after years rather than entered.
Marketing or business administration?
On money they are the same choice: $69,303 against $68,257. The real fork is between those two and the harder siblings, finance at $83,343 and accounting at $76,194, all four out of the same core classes.
Is there maths in a marketing degree?
Yes, and more than people expect. Calculus and business statistics come in the first two years, and marketing research and marketing analytics are both required after that. The best paid end of the field is the numbers end.
Is it harder to get a first marketing role now?
Yes, and it is measurable. One marketing team in three says it is taking on fewer people straight out of college, the average search has gone from about three months to over five, and the two roles new graduates used to start in, writing content and search work, are the two shrinking fastest.

Where these numbers come from

See the other majors