Maine Perspective Front Page
New Financial Economics Degree Program Approved
In response to student requests, the Economics Department will offer a major in financial economics at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
The new program will begin this fall. Some students have been preparing for this degree and may graduate as early as this December with a Bachelor of Arts in Financial Economics.
"The demand for this program was very clear. As soon as we proposed it, students came in and began to ask what courses they needed to take now to get this major when it was approved," says Ralph Townsend, chair and professor of economics.
Senior Marc Dupuy of Ellsworth is one of the students who has been waiting for the financial economics degree program so he can change his major.
"In 1977, I started as a computer science major with a business minor. With that minor, I took economics classes," says Dupuy. "That's when the classes started to mesh.
"After my degree, I had planned to take outside classes in finance, something I've always been interested in. Especially investment strategy," says Dupuy, who is already applying his coursework in his job with Nova Foods Inc., where he has worked for seven years.
"When I found out the University was combining finance and economics into one degree, I was very excited. For people like me interested in both aspects, business and economics, this degree is a good blend of the two."
In the past, students who were interested in the economic analysis of financial markets had to choose between bachelor's degrees in economics or business administration. Townsend says the financial economics major incorporates the strengths of both programs.
The undergraduate degree will require eight courses in economics, offered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and two courses in accounting and four in finance, offered by the Maine Business School. The graduate degree will require graduate courses in economics and finance that include a significant amount of quantitative analysis.
"The undergraduate degree is more quantitatively demanding that our regular economics degree," says Townsend. "It requires calculus and econometrics, which some of our students certainly take, but not as a requirement for their major."
No new courses need to be created in order to make this degree possible. All the courses required for a degree in the new program have been offered at UMaine in the past year.
Townsend says students who graduate with the new degree can take a job where both types of knowledge are necessary, such as banking, insurance, investing or credit card management.
The degree will give students an edge in the job market because they will be in a position to understand how the broad theoretical constructions of economics can be applied to the financial services sector of the business world.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers study of job opportunities for students surveyed career planning and placement officers at more than 300 colleges and universities for information about base salary offers for entry-level positions. The study showed that finance companies and banks are willing to offer starting salaries of at least $31,000 for students with both finance and economics backgrounds.
Townsend says this will be the only program of its kind available at a public institution in Maine. Only Colby College offers a degree program that is comparable.
The undergraduate program is expected to graduate 15 to 20 students a year, says Townsend, and the graduate program is expected to graduate five.