If you’re considering majoring in business, management, accounting, marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, or some variation on these, start early. The latest surveys conducted by BusinessWeek show that employers are increasingly recruiting from top undergraduate B-schools at a rate similar to that at graduate B-schools. This means more employment opportunities with top-tier employers, and higher job offers. In fact, the employers such as Microsoft and Raytheon report increasing the number of recruiting visits to top undergrad B-schools, and as much as a 60% increase in the number of undergraduate hires. And, if that’s not enough, the average starting salary for an undergraduate business major is up 49% to nearly $44,000 (though grads from top schools are getting about $50,000).

This turn of events appears to be due to the intense competition for talent, a big increase in the number of undergraduate business programs that have cropped up to meet this need, and the significant improvement in the quality of undergraduate business schools. All of this is good news for those of you planning to set the business world on fire.

On the other hand, competition to get into undergraduate business programs is stiffer, and top schools are becoming more selective as we speak. In 2005, only 16% of the 4,200 who applied to top undergrad B-schools were accepted. Scarier than the tiny percentage is that fact that the average SAT score for these applicants was 1448 (The average score for all test-takers who intended to major in business was 1006).

This is not meant to discourage, only to prepare you. Like the senior statesman, the graduate MBA, the programs are more rigorous and more determined to get the country’s top high school graduates. So, if this is your dream, start working on it ASAP. These programs only stand to become more competitive as we all continue to jump on the millionaire-in-a-minute bandwagon.

Okay, without further ado…The Top 10 Undergraduate Business Schools.

1. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
2. University of Virginia (McIntyre)
3. Notre Dame (Mendoza)
4. MIT (Sloan)
5. Emory (Gorleta)
6. Michigan (Ross)
7. NYU (Stern)
8. Brigham Young (Marriott)
9. University of Texas (McCombs)
10. University of Indiana (Kelley)

Want more? Check out BusinessWeek’s 2006 list (PDF).

The most recent information on the U.S. high school graduation rate tells us that 72% of all U.S. high school students graduate, a figure that has not changed much in more than a decade.

However, the percentage of students who have the skills and qualifications to go to college has increased nearly ten percentage points to 34%.

The most interesting finding of the countless research studies is that very few students who are college-ready do not go on to college.

Several states and individual high schools have begun working to pass bills that would require that all high school seniors complete at least one college application in order to graduate. Several schools in Pennsylvania, Texas, Maryland and Maine already require that seniors complete a college application, create portfolios and transition to college/career plans, and/or be accepted to a community college in order to graduate.

Recently, House Speaker Glenn Cummings (D-Portland) of Maine proposed a bill requiring every school in the state to impose the college application requirement.

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States such as New York, Minnesota, Mississippi, Delaware, Michigan and Colorado offer low-income students financial aid to cover exam fees for Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalareate (IB) tests.

International Baccalaureate exams cost $54 and AP exams cost $83. While this seems like a small amount of money, consider that most students will take more than one of these exams, one for each subject area.

CSU will spend more than $8 million dollars on increasing scholarships designed to help low-income and middle-income students whose other financial aid isn’t enough to fully cover tuition and fees.

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BATON ROUGE –- A proposed new program at LSU is designed to assist low-income students by supplementing TOPS and other financial aid packages to help those students pay for more of their college costs.

The “Pelican Promise” program would provide additional funding to students already receiving TOPS, Pell grants, and various other fee waivers and grants available to low-income students.

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College students with drug convictions face financial aid restrictions under a current education act that will be up for revision this summer by Congress.

The Department of Education reported that approximately 198,000 college students around the country have been denied financial aid because they checked “YES” for the question on the FAFSA: Have you been convicted for the possession or sale of illegal drugs for an offense that occurred while you were receiving federal student aid?

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