Even before he had finished the new online master’s program in Economics offered by UF, Noah Peterson found a way to apply what he’d learned to his day job. For his capstone project, the budget and policy analyst for the Idaho legislature began crafting a revenue forecast—something the legislature had never previously produced on its own.
New UF Online Economics Master’s Program Marks Successful Debut
“The legislature is dependent on the revenue forecast produced by the executive branch, so it’s something the legislature hasn’t had before,” Peterson said from his office in the state capitol in Boise. “I’m working on forecasting corporate income tax, sales tax and personal income tax, and giving the members a little bit more information to work with. I’m going to present it to legislators in the fall. It’s fun being able to take some of the skills I’m learning and apply them right away.”
Peterson is one of 18 students who comprise the first cohort of the online master’s Economics program, which launched in 2025 and celebrates its first graduates in August. The one-year program is designed for working professionals, builds expertise in econometrics, data analysis and applied economic theory, and prepares graduates for a wide range of potential career opportunities.
“I come from an economics background and was mainly educated in Zambia, so I needed something that would align with what I already have,” said Modester Tembo, a Tallahassee resident who works as an economic analyst for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. “When you look at the colleges in Florida, UF just stands out. So I was really glad that I was able to get into UF and do something that I’m really passionate about.”
It was a similar story for Russ Moore, a former destroyer captain in the U.S. Navy whose interest in economics was piqued by a job assessing budgets in the Pentagon. “I wanted to know what the broader impacts were economically across a range of industries, and not just defense,” said Moore, who is now retired from the military and lives in Jacksonville. “I wanted to better see behind the logic of market reports and Fed policy. I wanted to know, why does this matter, and what are the follow-on events that will occur as a result?”
Going online
A similar Economics master’s program has been available for UF on-campus students since 2019. Around three years ago, program director Dr. Thomas Knight pitched an online version of the master’s program, which was ultimately approved by both the university and the state, and debuted in the fall of 2025.
“One of the things that had always been on my mind was that we could launch this program fully online to reach working professionals around the state, the country, or even the globe,” Knight said. “We could launch this program online and reach people who were already into their careers, and did not have the luxury of stepping back from their careers or their incomes or relocating to a college town.”
The initial cohort of 18 students proved to be a diverse one, Knight said. Some were straight out of undergraduate school, others were five or 10 years into their careers. Two retired military members were looking to retool and pivot into the private sector. Some students wanted to level up with a graduate degree with an eye toward management roles, another wanted to teach economics at a local community college.
Knight, who has taught an online MBA program for several years, understood his students would be working professionals—many balancing jobs, families, or other factors. “I needed the online model because I’m working, and I’m a parent and a wife,” Tembo said. “The other option I had was to drop work for a year and go into school, and then get back into the labor force. But with the online program, I can do both.”
Tailoring the structure of the program to the lifestyles of nontraditional students was crucial to success, Knight said. “We had to make sure that a student who had a full-time job or had kids would be able to complete this around their schedule,” he added. “The workload is heavy, but it had to be manageable alongside a full-time job, and it also had to be asynchronous. There’s more limited student-to-student or student-to-instructor interaction, and that is a cost of asynchronous learning. But it’s absolutely essential for a student who has a full-time job.”
It certainly has been for Peterson, whose hours working with the legislature increase substantially when lawmakers are in session. “The legislative session in Idaho starts at the beginning of January and goes usually until the end of March or early April. Those months of the year are typically very, very busy—I’m working 50, 60 hours a week,” Peterson said. “So being able to log on whenever I’m able, to be able to watch the lectures and kind of work at my own pace, was really valuable.”
Goals far and near
While Tembo and her family have lived in the United States for several years now, her experiences in Zambia have stayed with her. After she completed her undergraduate degree, it was four years before she could find a job. People with business administration degrees take positions like janitors. “It’s degrading,” she said. “I know people have to start somewhere, but the mismatch is on another level. Zambia is not ready for advanced degrees, because the market does not offer the kind of jobs that align with them.”
Part of Tembo’s motivation for pursuing the online Economic master’s at UF was to deepen her expertise in econometrics and statistical analysis, so she could better understand labor market inefficiencies in her home country. “I was able to see what the mismatches are, and how the skills do not align with training,” she said, “and I decided to go with econometrics and data analysis to link those two. I can use numbers to make my points and influence policy, which is one of the things I really want to do.”
Moore’s goals are closer to home—he’s been working with a defense contractor since retiring from the Navy, he said, and would like to use his UF master’s degree to transition into another field.
“The core courses gave me a deeper understanding of not only micro-level economics, but also the macro level—both in here in the U.S. and globally, and the interactions between the two,” he added. “I better understand the second- and third-order effects across the broader economic spectrum, such as the impact of tariffs or the impact of increased U.S. exports on our Net Foreign Asset Position, beyond what you hear from talking heads in the media. I really enjoyed the theory, followed by the practical application of what we learned. The program exceeded my expectations. It was a lot of work, but the work was well worth it.”
Peterson, who said he may pursue a Ph.D. that combines economics with public policy, said that despite the asynchronous nature of the program he still felt very connected with Dr. Knight and all of his professors.
“While I was a little hesitant about the online format initially, I have enjoyed all my classes,” he added. “I’ve also appreciated the quality of the lectures—they were very clear and well-structured. And while this may sound dumb, the audio quality is tremendous, and the production is very, very good. That makes a difference. It was very, very professional, which makes the learning process a lot more solid, and makes me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.”
The end result
With the initial cohort headed toward graduation, Knight has begun thinking about the future of the UF online master’s Economics program. It’s on track for a second cohort of around 30 students, he said, with an eye toward expanding to accommodate 50 students in three years. And elements within the program are likely to evolve over time.
“I’m incredibly pleased. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I’ve been very careful in wanting to make sure everything goes well. But simultaneously, there are absolutely things we want to tweak,” Knight said. “The conversation among the instructors has not been, are we going to tweak this going forward, but how are we tweaking it? What are we learning from this first cohort, and how are we going to respond to it?”
One of those tweaks was a suggestion by students for an in-person experience, resulting in a February event at Emerson Alumni Hall in Gainesville across from UF’s main campus. About half the cohort showed up, Knight said, to chat about career options with professional economists ranging from local consulting firms to the Federal Reserve.
“Economists are keenly aware of the importance of the end result,” Knight said. “We’re keenly aware of the importance of jobs and earnings. That’s what we study, and so the importance of that is just always branded into our minds. There are all these kinds of things we want to develop in an academic setting, but we’re also incredibly mindful of the ultimate goal for most of our students, which is to get a job and be successful.”
Toward that end, the students in the first cohort of the UF online master’s program in Economics appear well on their way.
“The professors, all of them, were fabulous. If you had a question, they were always an email or a phone call away. I was really, really pleased with the quality of the program,” Moore said. “You have to be motivated and a self-starter, and you have to get down in the weeds and do the hard work. But I thought the program was next to flawless.”
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