Finance

Whether your goal is to become a leading financial professional on Wall Street or go into business on your hometown’s Main Street, the Widener School of Business Administration’s new finance major is the best degree for you.

Our finance program offer two tracks of study: a traditional finance track for students bound for positions with financial institutions and investment houses, and a financial planning track for students with the goal of becoming financial advisors.

The Profession

Finance is a broad discipline that affects all aspects of business, and the impact of financial market changes are felt worldwide. At Widener, you will learn how to be analytical, how to budget, how to be a problem solver, and how to be a leader in the financial arena.

Banking and finance has long been an industry with job growth and security. Financial analysts and financial planners, in particular, will be in strong demand due to an aging population relying on individually managed retirement accounts. Widener students specializing in financial planning will be perfectly positioned to meet the challenges of this growing sector.

Opportunities

From investment bankers, financial analysts to financial planners, there are many job opportunities for finance graduates, and growth is forecast in various financial related positions. In fact, the demand for personal financial advisors is forecast to grow over 40 percent within the next decade, and the number of financial analyst positions are expected to grow by 30 percent.

Students with finance degrees consistently rank among those with the highest-paying college degrees. For example, starting pay for students with a finance degree averages $47,000 annually, and mid-career pay averages $91,000.

The Program

Widener’s School of Business Administration holds accreditation from the prestigious Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the premier accrediting body for business education. Our experienced and accomplished faculty members emphasize real-world learning and not just textbooks, offering many opportunities for internships and cooperative education programs to help you get a jump-start on your career. Within several months following graduation, an overwhelming majority of our graduating seniors are either employed as business professionals on a fulltime basis.

Coursework in the finance major emphasizes two options:

Faculty

The finance and tax faculty members are highly qualified with significant real-world experience.

The faculty includes:

• Professor Kenn Tacchino, a nationally recognized expert in retirement planning who has published extensively in this area including numerous text books that are used for Certified Financial Planner certification exams. He also serves as the editor of the Journal of Financial Service Professionals.
• Professor Monty Mansur, recipient of the Widener University Outstanding Researcher Award, has published work in the Journal of Banking and Finance and the Journal of International Business Studies. Dr. Mansur also serves as an Independent Director of FundVantage Trust, a multi-product mutual fund complex, housed under BNY Mellon Asset Servicing in Wilmington, Del.