About Our Program

The Economics Program at Santa Barbara City College will provide you with a strong foundation from which you can build analytical skills. As a social science, economics draws on many other disciplines including history, politics, and mathematics to provide a systematic way of analyzing a wide range of societal issues. The arsenal of analytical tools students acquire by studying economics can be used to analyze anything from a household’s decision to buy a car to a nation’s policies on unemployment and the environment. Students will learn about the implications of scarcity on production, consumption, and the allocation of resources and how these affect everyday life. Courses in economics will offer the transfer student both theoretical and empirical foundations that will prepare you for further study in many fields, including environmental studies, global and international studies, sociology and finance, as well as economics.

One of the advantages of the economics major is that it allows students a great deal of flexibility as it provides an excellent background for many professions. While the career opportunities are virtually endless, most economics students find jobs in business, government, or academia. Economics majors end up using their skills to work for a broad range of organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency, investment banks, non-profits, and management-consulting firms. Whether you want to be a data scientist, a CEO, or a professor, economics will provide you with a solid understanding of “the ordinary business of life” (as one famous economist once put it) in order to better understand human behavior along your path to success.

The Economics program and major has its academic "home" in the Department of Political Science and Economics.

Program Student Learning Outcomes
1. Demonstrate knowledge of key terms and core concepts of economics.
2. Examine and analyze the market and non-market processes by which scarce resources are allocated.
3. Develop enhanced analytical abilities for the understanding and critical evaluation of relevant arguments.

Degrees We Offer
We offer both an Associate (AA) Degree in Economics, and an Associate for Transfer (AA-T) Degree in Economics.

Contact Information /Program Director  
Ruth Morales
Email: rmorales@sbcc.edu
Phone: IDC 350, ext.4045

For additional contact information and department faculty, please click on "Economics +" at the top of the page, and select the "Faculty and Staff" link.