The Student Room Group

Is BA(Econ) Accounting and Finance good at Manchester?

Hey guys , so I got into the University of Manchester in the 'accounting and finance' course as well as the 'economics and finance' course .

I was all pumped up until I saw the avg salary for bachelor was around 17000GBP , considering the tuition is 30000GBP it is starting to trouble me a bit.

Do you guys think the course is good at this uni , and what kinda salary can I expect?

Thank you
Congrats on the offers! the University of Manchester is undoubtedly a very respectable university.

To answer your question, I think it depends entirely on what you put in while you are there. How hard you work at getting spring weeks, a summer analyst position, and networking. From my understanding, Manchester is a good university, but not necessarily one that is targeted by employers in particular.

Still, perfectly good for the Big 4 route and I wouldn't be too concerned by the average starting salary. Your career is a 30+ year-long project and a degree is your way to break into one.

Out of curiosity, where else have you applied? I applied to Accounting and Finance too and have gotten some good offers!
Reply 2
Original post by Vesti La Giubba
Congrats on the offers! the University of Manchester is undoubtedly a very respectable university.

To answer your question, I think it depends entirely on what you put in while you are there. How hard you work at getting spring weeks, a summer analyst position, and networking. From my understanding, Manchester is a good university, but not necessarily one that is targeted by employers in particular.

Still, perfectly good for the Big 4 route and I wouldn't be too concerned by the average starting salary. Your career is a 30+ year-long project and a degree is your way to break into one.

Out of curiosity, where else have you applied? I applied to Accounting and Finance too and have gotten some good offers!


What universities have you applied to ?
Lol welcome to the UK you've been sold a false dream if you wanted a high paying job should have applied to america
Original post by shimmyjimmyfor3
Lol welcome to the UK you've been sold a false dream if you wanted a high paying job should have applied to america

This doesn't even make sense. The US is well known to have places where you need a college degree just to pump gas, and even worse social mobility and wider income gaps than the UK. Also you go bankrupt if you ever have a medical emergency or develop cancer (and I think currently the lifetime incidence rate of cancer is like one out of every two people will have some kind of cancer at some point?).

Not to mention that a degree costs about 10x as much as in the UK unless going to a state college as in-state tuition fees (which as an international student, none of you would be), and this is out of pocket since there's effectively zero funding available unless you go to a handful of top colleges or are a national/international level athlete.

As an American I find both the obsession with America that the UK has, as well as the completely unrealistic picture of it they hold in their minds, to be completely baffling.

Original post by tanish_ambati
Hey guys , so I got into the University of Manchester in the 'accounting and finance' course as well as the 'economics and finance' course .

I was all pumped up until I saw the avg salary for bachelor was around 17000GBP , considering the tuition is 30000GBP it is starting to trouble me a bit.

Do you guys think the course is good at this uni , and what kinda salary can I expect?

Thank you

In any event, it's as good as any other similar degree at a similar uni. Ultimately your salary outcomes are not dependent on what you study and are less dependent on where you studied, and more dependent on you and what you do to make yourself employable while at uni. If you aggressively pursue work experience and internship opportunities, network extensively, make a point of taking on leadership/committee roles in societies and similar to develop transferable skills, and prepare for assessment centre exercises, you'll have a good chance of getting a decent graduate role. If you just turn up to lectures and take exams for 3 years and expect that to get you a highly paying job, you are mistaken.

Also big 4 firms don't care what you studied (or where). Equally for a home student the tuition fee is a bit of a red herring, since if you do earn under the threshold you don't make repayments towards it, and either way it's written off 40 years after you take out those loans. It's really only applicable to students going into highly paying roles who will remain on a high salary consistently, as they are most likely to pay off the loan in full. Otherwise it's just an outgoing proportional to your income, like NI contributions or income tax - you'll never pay more than you can afford.
(edited 2 months ago)
Original post by artful_lounger
This doesn't even make sense. The US is well known to have places where you need a college degree just to pump gas, and even worse social mobility and wider income gaps than the UK. Also you go bankrupt if you ever have a medical emergency or develop cancer (and I think currently the lifetime incidence rate of cancer is like one out of every two people will have some kind of cancer at some point?).

Not to mention that a degree costs about 10x as much as in the UK unless going to a state college as in-state tuition fees (which as an international student, none of you would be), and this is out of pocket since there's effectively zero funding available unless you go to a handful of top colleges or are a national/international level athlete.

As an American I find both the obsession with America that the UK has, as well as the completely unrealistic picture of it they hold in their minds, to be completely baffling.


In any event, it's as good as any other similar degree at a similar uni. Ultimately your salary outcomes are not dependent on what you study and are less dependent on where you studied, and more dependent on you and what you do to make yourself employable while at uni. If you aggressively pursue work experience and internship opportunities, network extensively, make a point of taking on leadership/committee roles in societies and similar to develop transferable skills, and prepare for assessment centre exercises, you'll have a good chance of getting a decent graduate role. If you just turn up to lectures and take exams for 3 years and expect that to get you a highly paying job, you are mistaken.

Also big 4 firms don't care what you studied (or where). Equally for a home student the tuition fee is a bit of a red herring, since if you do earn under the threshold you don't make repayments towards it, and either way it's written off 40 years after you take out those loans. It's really only applicable to students going into highly paying roles who will remain on a high salary consistently, as they are most likely to pay off the loan in full. Otherwise it's just an outgoing proportional to your income, like NI contributions or income tax - you'll never pay more than you can afford.
Lol thats not true most Americans have the option to study in-state which is much cheaper on some occassions it rounds out to the same cost of doing a degree in the UK or some Americans attend a community college for 2 years then finish their degree at University once again making Uni cost cheaper. Still havent taken into account scholarships which can further bring price down. This is the difference with the UK and America there is no self determination in the UK everything is decided by the state because UK people dont have the means to pull themselves by their bootstraps.

In the UK you're given 1 option to reducing your uni cost which is staying at home lol In the UK I dont even think you can pay off your debt while studying meanwhile American Ivy students are landing $8k a month internships which they use to pay off their University fee
Original post by fzahid123
What universities have you applied to ?
I applied to LSE, Warwick, KCL, Bath, and Bristol. Haven't heard from LSE yet, but I've received offers from the other 4.
Original post by shimmyjimmyfor3
Lol thats not true most Americans have the option to study in-state which is much cheaper on some occassions it rounds out to the same cost of doing a degree in the UK or some Americans attend a community college for 2 years then finish their degree at University once again making Uni cost cheaper. Still havent taken into account scholarships which can further bring price down. This is the difference with the UK and America there is no self determination in the UK everything is decided by the state because UK people dont have the means to pull themselves by their bootstraps.

In the UK you're given 1 option to reducing your uni cost which is staying at home lol In the UK I dont even think you can pay off your debt while studying meanwhile American Ivy students are landing $8k a month internships which they use to pay off their University fee

Sure, there is always an in-state college. Most of them are garbage tier though. Also starting at community college is an option but it's much, much harder to transfer from a community college to a top 20 college. So again. Those aren't routes into those Ivy league colleges you are using as a comparison point anyway. Someone at a state college who started at community college is usually not going to be working on Wall street.

Anyway since you clearly haven't the foggiest what you're on about and are just fantasizing about America I would recommend you do so privately and not give other people misleading advice.
Reply 8
Original post by artful_lounger
Sure, there is always an in-state college. Most of them are garbage tier though. Also starting at community college is an option but it's much, much harder to transfer from a community college to a top 20 college. So again. Those aren't routes into those Ivy league colleges you are using as a comparison point anyway. Someone at a state college who started at community college is usually not going to be working on Wall street.

Anyway since you clearly haven't the foggiest what you're on about and are just fantasizing about America I would recommend you do so privately and not give other people misleading advice.
They've not even done their A Levels and are lecturing you, an American with first hand experience, on this.

I wish that I was young enough to know everything.
Original post by gjd800
They've not even done their A Levels and are lecturing you, an American with first hand experience, on this.

I wish that I was young enough to know everything.
I'm going throught the US application system rn surely I would know more 🤣
Original post by artful_lounger
Sure, there is always an in-state college. Most of them are garbage tier though. Also starting at community college is an option but it's much, much harder to transfer from a community college to a top 20 college. So again. Those aren't routes into those Ivy league colleges you are using as a comparison point anyway. Someone at a state college who started at community college is usually not going to be working on Wall street.

Anyway since you clearly haven't the foggiest what you're on about and are just fantasizing about America I would recommend you do so privately and not give other people misleading advice.
Idk about much harder many community colleges have transfer agreements with top schools so they pretty much are able to funnel students into top schools its more likely to happen if the community college and top school are within the same state or city. Forget top 20 schools Manny isnt even on par with those 💀. "Someone at a state college who started at community college is usually not going to be working on Wall street" You couldnt be more wrong schools like Berkeley and UCLA alone have enough rep to get a student into wall street despite being on the west coast instead of east.

Your last sentence is highly ironic
Reply 11
Original post by shimmyjimmyfor3
I'm going throught the US application system rn surely I would know more 🤣
No.

But it's not really a hill I want to die on and I can't really be bothered with such a pointless discussion.
(edited 2 months ago)
Original post by gjd800
They've not even done their A Levels and are lecturing you, an American with first hand experience, on this.

I wish that I was young enough to know everything.

Such is life. The irony is that they're using the exceptions to the rule (which any American knows, the UC system is in a tier of its own, and even then UCLA and Berkeley are outliers within that system) to try and prove their point as well....

Also their claim of going through the US application system making them more knowledgeable is puzzling since I also went through that (and then realised that based on where I was in state, I couldn't get into a better college there than any university I could get into here, and it was cheaper or comparable to study here. Not even beginning to look at the very different ways in which student loans are handled in each country...). Plus all my family went through both the application and the actual degrees there!

Unfortunately it could create unrealistic expectations for others if left without comment, otherwise I'd probably not bother! They also don't seem to have engaged with the fact that the labour market in the US is much worse even for actual US citizens (and are blithely unaware that as a non-US citizen, they legally cannot be sponsored for a working visa for a job where there is an equally or more qualified US citizen that could take it), not to mention the complete lack of any kind of social services or healthcare services (and terrible infrastructure in general) drastically pushing up living costs.

Hence my remarks about being continually perplexed by why people in the UK seem to have such an ardent fascination with the US...the reality is that life in the US is nasty, brutish and short (in relative terms certainly - average life expectancy is 3 years shorter there, and drops further if you're a member of literally any minority) if you aren't in the 1% - and if you aren't in the 1% here, you won't be there!
Reply 13
Original post by tanish_ambati
Hey guys , so I got into the University of Manchester in the 'accounting and finance' course as well as the 'economics and finance' course .

I was all pumped up until I saw the avg salary for bachelor was around 17000GBP , considering the tuition is 30000GBP it is starting to trouble me a bit.

Do you guys think the course is good at this uni , and what kinda salary can I expect?

Thank you
Are you a UK or international applicant?
Reply 14
Original post by artful_lounger
Such is life. The irony is that they're using the exceptions to the rule (which any American knows, the UC system is in a tier of its own, and even then UCLA and Berkeley are outliers within that system) to try and prove their point as well....

Also their claim of going through the US application system making them more knowledgeable is puzzling since I also went through that (and then realised that based on where I was in state, I couldn't get into a better college there than any university I could get into here, and it was cheaper or comparable to study here. Not even beginning to look at the very different ways in which student loans are handled in each country...). Plus all my family went through both the application and the actual degrees there!

Unfortunately it could create unrealistic expectations for others if left without comment, otherwise I'd probably not bother! They also don't seem to have engaged with the fact that the labour market in the US is much worse even for actual US citizens (and are blithely unaware that as a non-US citizen, they legally cannot be sponsored for a working visa for a job where there is an equally or more qualified US citizen that could take it), not to mention the complete lack of any kind of social services or healthcare services (and terrible infrastructure in general) drastically pushing up living costs.

Hence my remarks about being continually perplexed by why people in the UK seem to have such an ardent fascination with the US...the reality is that life in the US is nasty, brutish and short (in relative terms certainly - average life expectancy is 3 years shorter there, and drops further if you're a member of literally any minority) if you aren't in the 1% - and if you aren't in the 1% here, you won't be there!
PRSOM

Yes, half the reason I challenge stuff on here is because it can corrupt the viewpoint of a youngster that knows no better.
Original post by gjd800
PRSOM

Yes, half the reason I challenge stuff on here is because it can corrupt the viewpoint of a youngster that knows no better.

PRSOM also :smile: I know from experience having bought into some of the same things when I was younger, that it would've saved me a lot of time, money, and mental anguish if someone had challenged those things for me then!

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