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Why is this a metric that matters?
Colleges and universities with alumni under 30 who have already reached the executive level early in their careers demonstrates the institution's ability to create a confident and skilled workforce with qualities employers value. Growth-minded leaders and tech-driven innovators define a new era of executives that are on track to improve institutional outcomes even further for their educators.
If salary is your measure of success, the young executives in this population of 56,911 professionals under 30 living in the midwest earn an average of $92,527, compared to $54,229 across all job categories in the same group.
Here are 13 universities producing the most young executives in the midwest.
The Top 5 Midwest Universities for Young Execs
1. Indiana University
IU graduates working in an executive role have been trending up for the last decade. In fact, 8.3 percent of all recent graduates are in executive positions. With high average salaries and competitive programs it's no surprise U.S. News ranks this university No. 8 on their list of Best Undergraduate Business Programs.
In-state Tuition & Fees: $11,446 (2022-2023 academic year)
Out-of-state Tuition & Fees: $39,118 (2022-2023 academic year)
Undergraduate Enrollment : 32,986 (Fall 2020)
2. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Between 2011 and 2021, this university saw an increase from 2.4 percent to 5.9 percent of recent graduates working in an executive role. For the same graduation years (2011-2021), Capital One, PepsiCo and Apple are among the top employers trending up.
In-state Tuition & Fees: $15,442 (2021-2022 academic year)
Out-of-state Tuition & Fees: $32,892 (2021-2022 academic year)
Undergraduate Enrollment : 33,683 (Fall 2020)
3. The Ohio State University
Since 2020, Ohio State has seen a sharp increase from 4.1 percent to 5.9 percent of recent graduates earning executive level jobs. A top employer for this university is JPMorgan Chase & Co. with an average salary of $92,557 across all alumni.
In-state Tuition & Fees: $11,936 (2021-2022 academic year)
Out-of-state Tuition & Fees: $35,019 (2021-2022 academic year)
Undergraduate Enrollment : 46,984 (Fall 2020)
4. Michigan State University
Not only have executive roles been trending up for MSU graduates in the last 10 years, management functions are growing as well. One of the fastest growing industries for MSU alumni across all job functions is Automotive with an average salary of $74,480 for graduates between 2017 and today.
In-state Tuition & Fees: $14,914 (2022-2023 academic year)
Out-of-state Tuition & Fees: $40,726 (2022-2023 academic year)
Undergraduate Enrollment : 38,574 (Fall 2020)
5. University of Michigan
UMich is rated No. 2 on Niche's 2022 Top Public Universities in America with an overall grade of A+ for academics, athletics and value. We rank them No. 5 on this list for their ability to produce highly successful executives under 30 earning an average salary of $105,946.
In-state Tuition & Fees: $16,178 (2022-2023 academic year)
Out-of-state Tuition & Fees: $53,232 (2022-2023 academic year)
Undergraduate Enrollment: 31,329 (Fall 2020)
The Other Best in the Midwest
6. Depaul University
7. University of Missouri
8. Purdue University
9. University of Wisconsin-Madison
10. Miami University
11. Northwestern University
12. Ball State University
13. Wayne State University
How did we develop this list?
To understand how we developed this list you first have to understand our data. To obtain a comprehensive picture of education and workforce outcomes, we collect, organize, classify and analyze demographic, education and employment data from hundreds of sources. Our data then undergoes a rigorous process of validation for quality and veracity to ensure reliable, high-quality information on over 130 million people, over 25 million companies and over 1 billion data points.
To discover the colleges and universities making the greatest impact in any given category, we leverage our technology to explore the desired set of variables to return a list of top schools in seconds. For this analysis, we used geographic, demographic and employment filters to generate a list of universities producing the most young executives in the midwest. Here's how we sliced the data:
- Job Category: Executive
- Age: 18-30
- Location: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin
Who ranks No. 14? Maybe it's you.
Want to see where your institution ranks or to see how we developed these rankings in real time? Get a free consultation for student success, and we’ll show you a lifetime of graduate outcomes data in seconds.
Photo by Yuvraj Singh on Unsplash.
