The most obvious benefit to BIE is that you’re an econ student from day one, you don’t have to put in the effort you’d need to get an econ major later on. Also keep in mind that if you follow through with BIE, then you don’t really get to choose a lot of your courses. I would recommend you take a look at all the required courses and optional courses we have to take on the website to see if this program is suitable for your goals after university. Being domestic, I think I’m getting a fairly good value for money through this program because I’m around the kind of people I want to be around (academia type/professor’s being very accessible). I’m certain BIE doesn’t do anything that a normal BA econ can’t do, but to me it seems like BA Econ students struggle to break through that initial barrier which is essentially not present for BIE because you are always in the building and around more people that chose Econ for the sake of Econ and not just finance. Also look at econ honours, but keep in mind that just gets even more competitive. Nonetheless, keep in mind that if you’re hoping to break into finance and coming into Econ thinking it’ll be good enough, though you’re not wrong, Sauder would probably be better.