UW-Whitewater Business (Bachelor's): Tuition, Graduate Salary, and Debt
- Bachelor's in Business/Commerce, General
- Public university
- Whitewater, WI
- About 95 graduates a year
College Scorecard June 2026 release · BLS wages May 2025
The short answer
UW-Whitewater business graduates earn about what business graduates earn nationally, $49,965 in their first year. The typical graduate leaves with $25,675 in federal loans, close to the national median of $25,625. Two other Wisconsin programs report higher pay.
How it compares
Each figure is the median for graduates of the program. The Wisconsin and national columns are the medians across all business bachelor's programs that report the figure.
Five years out, UW-Whitewater graduates earn about the national figure and about the same as the Wisconsin median.
Debt and first-year pay at every Wisconsin business program
Programs in the upper left give graduates higher pay for less debt. Dashed lines mark the Wisconsin medians.
Hover over or tap a dot to see the school. Only programs that report both earnings and debt are shown.
What graduates earn over time
Pay rises about 27% between the first and fifth year.
Year 1 and year 5 figures come from different graduating classes, so the growth rate is an estimate.
Does family income change the outcome?
Graduates who received Pell Grants, which go to students from lower-income families, earned about the same in their first year as other graduates, but borrowed more: a median of $29,417 against $22,500.
Paying back the loans
On a standard 10-year plan, the median debt means a payment of about $272 a month, or 6.5% of a graduate's typical monthly pay in the first year.
The government publishes these as ranges to protect privacy. They were measured in 2018 to 2020, partly during the pandemic pause on federal loan payments, so the forbearance share may be higher than usual.
Where graduates work, and what the pay is worth
81% of graduates (82 of 101) were working in Wisconsin one year after graduating. Prices in the parts of Wisconsin outside metro areas are about 10% below the national average, so a $49,965 salary here buys what about $55,779 buys in a typical US city.
Careers this field leads to
These are the jobs that the federal crosswalk from fields of study to occupations links to business, largest first. Pay is the median across all experience levels.
General and Operations Managers
$118,730Median pay in Wisconsin. 36,910 people work in this job in Wisconsin. Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035, with about 285,000 openings a year. Typical education to start: bachelor's degree, plus 5 years or more of related work experience.
Project Management Specialists
$97,580Median pay in Wisconsin. 21,610 people work in this job in Wisconsin. Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 7% from 2025 to 2035, with about 76,500 openings a year. Typical education to start: bachelor's degree.
Management Analysts
$98,780Median pay in Wisconsin. 11,670 people work in this job in Wisconsin. Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 10% from 2025 to 2035, with about 94,100 openings a year. Typical education to start: bachelor's degree, plus less than 5 years of related work experience.
Sales Managers
$134,870Median pay in Wisconsin. 10,480 people work in this job in Wisconsin. Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035, with about 47,300 openings a year. Typical education to start: bachelor's degree, plus less than 5 years of related work experience.
About UW-Whitewater
Business ranks 8th of 35 bachelor's programs at UW-Whitewater by first-year earnings. The top three are Quality Control and Safety Technology ($70,016), Accounting ($61,926), and Finance ($55,874).
Other business bachelor's programs near Whitewater
Common questions
The median graduate earns $49,965 one year after graduating and $63,645 five years after. The median across business bachelor's programs in Wisconsin is $45,625.
The median federal loan balance is $25,675, which ranks 2nd lowest of 6 business bachelor's programs in Wisconsin. That works out to about $272 a month over 10 years.
On the numbers, yes for most students. Debt equals 51% of first-year earnings, against a national median of 54%, and the share of borrowers in default two years into repayment is 20% or less.
Most do. 81% (82 of 101) were working in Wisconsin one year after graduating.
About this data
- Earnings and debt only include students who received federal financial aid (grants or loans).
- Earnings only count graduates who were working and not enrolled in more school. Graduates who went straight to further study are not included.
- Debt only includes federal loans. Private loans and credit cards are not counted.
- Some schools with several campuses report one combined figure for all of them. We count each of those schools once, and leave them out of Wisconsin comparisons when their main campus is in another state.
- Scorecard figures describe graduating classes from several years ago. BLS wages are from May 2025.
- School-level numbers like tuition, admission rate, and graduation rate are for the whole school, not the business program.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, field of study and institution files, June 2026 release
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025 to 2035
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024
- NCES, CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 crosswalk, and IPEDS institution directory, 2024