If you are considering pursuing an MBA but haven’t decided on which school is right for you just yet, there are a few important factors to take into consideration. One would be rankings, which is an indication of how well respected a program is. Another could be how many students are employed within three months after graduation, or other factors like average test scores and yield. If you haven’t seen the 2017 US News MBA rankings you can find them here.
Getting an MBA is one of the biggest investments you can make in your future, and you want to make sure that taking two years off from work and potentially taking on student loan debt is a good decision. Thus, another extremely important factor to choosing an MBA program is what your compensation could look like after you graduate, and what the anticipated return on your investment (ROI) might look like over time.
To help you form a more comprehensive picture of what MBA post-graduate compensation can look like, we have pulled the numbers on the average salary of 25 of the top MBA programs in America, as well as what the ten-year ROI based on cost of tuition and average post-MBA salary.
| School | Average Salary of Grads | 10 Year ROI | |
| 1 | Stanford GSB | $125,000 | 325% |
| 2 | HBS | $125,000 | 320% |
| 3 | BYU Marriott School of Management | $97,000 | 320% |
| 4 | Berkeley Haas | $120,000 | 300% |
| 5 | Wharton | $125,000 | 297% |
| 6 | Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business | $117,860 | 296% |
| 7 | Chicago Booth | $120,000 | 290% |
| 8 | MIT Sloan | $119,639 | 285% |
| 9 | University of Michigan Ross School of Business | $115,315 | 284% |
| 10 | Columbia Business School | $119,400 | 279% |
| 11 | Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business | $114,000 | 277% |
| 12 | UVA Darden | $112,257 | 272% |
| 13 | Texas A&M University Mays Business School | $98,000 | 271% |
| 14 | Emory University Goizueta Business School | $107,220 | 269% |
| 15 | Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management | $111,000 | 268% |
| 16 | UCLA Anderson School of Management | $111,000 | 268% |
| 17 | Duke University Fuqua School of Business | $111,000 | 268% |
| 18 | Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business | $103,454 | 266% |
| 19 | University of Texas Austin McCombs School of Business | $107,272 | 263% |
| 20 | UNC Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School | $109,390 | 262% |
| 21 | University of Washington Foster School of Business | $102,722 | 260% |
| 22 | Penn State University Smeal College of Business | $100,000 | 256% |
| 23 | Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management | $113,000 | 255% |
| 24 | NYU Stern Business School | $112,096 | 250% |
| 25 | Arizona State University Carey School of Business | $98,093 | 249% |
- Source: SLT Jobs
It is great to see average post-graduation salaries laid out so clearly. It is also comforting to see that for all of the top 25 programs listed here, the 10-year ROI comes out to between 249% (Arizona State) to 325% (Stanford GSB).
When considering post-graduation compensation, also keep in mind that many schools offer loan forgiveness for anyone entering the nonprofit or public sectors. This may be important for you if you are considering taking a job outside of traditionally high paid sectors like finance or consulting.
Financial aid, post-graduate compensation, and school rankings are all important factors to consider as you build your application strategy. Sometimes it can feel daunting to balance all of this information with your own unique profile, and decide on which are the best schools to apply to. If you would like help thinking through some of these important questions, please feel free to reach out to us at Info@TranscendAdmissions.com.