Where Top Schools Send Their MBAs

scholarshipsThe conventional wisdom is that the highest salaries and bonuses for MBAs are paid by companies in financial services. And it’s true that schools that send substantial numbers of their graduates into investment banking, hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital tend to do very well on the pay front.

But here’s a big surprise: When we asked PayScale to look at income for MBAs at different schools over a 20-year timeframe, financial services isn’t the biggest destination for the MBAs of several of the Top Ten schools with big seven-figure numbers.

In fact, technology was the No. 1 industry for three of the top ten in the past year: Stanford Graduate School of Business, UC-Berkeley’s Haas School, and UCLA’s Anderson School, even though stock-based compensation was not included in the numbers. Consulting was No. 1 for two of the top ten schools:  MIT Sloan and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Here are the top five industry choices for the Class of 2013 from the schools that scored the highest 20-year cash compensation in the U.S.

  1. Harvard Business School — 20-Year Income: $3,233,000Top Five Industry Choices in 2013:

    Financial Services: 27%

    Consulting: 22%

    Technology: 18%

    Manufacturing: 7%

    Consumer Products: 6%

    2. Stanford Graduate School of Business — 20-Year Income: $3,011,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Technology: 32%

    Financial Services: 26%

    Consulting: 19%

    Healthcare: 6%

    Non-Profit: 5%

    3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) — 20-Year Income: $2,989,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Financial Services: 39%

    Consulting: 29%

    Technology: 11%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 7%

    Healthcare: 4%

    4. UC-Berkeley (Haas) — 20-Year Income: $2,858,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Technology: 33%

    Consulting: 17%

    Financial Services: 11%

    Healthcare: 11%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 7%

    5. Columbia Business School — 20-Year Income: $2,796,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Financial Services: 38%

    Consulting: 30%

    Technology: 12%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 8%

    Real Estate: 3%

    6. MIT (Sloan) — 20-Year Income: $2,858,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Consulting: 32%

    Technology: 19%

    Financial Services: 16%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 14%

    Healthcare: 5%

    7. University of Virginia (Darden) — 20-Year Income: $2,705,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Consulting: 27%

    Financial Services: 26%

    Technology: 14%

    Manufacturing: 12%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 13%

    8. Dartmouth College (Tuck) — 20-Year Income:2,703,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Financial Services: 30%

    Consulting: 27%

    Technology: 13%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 10%

    Manufacturing: 6%

    9. New York University (Stern) — 20-Year Income: $2,639,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Financial Services: 42%

    Consulting: 23%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 13%

    Entertainment/Media/Technology: 10%

    Non-Profits: 6%

    10. UCLA (Anderson) — 20-Year Income: $2,593,000

    Top Five Industry Choices:

    Technology: 26%

    Financial Services: 20%

    Consulting: 14%

    Consumer Products & Retail: 14%

    Entertainment/Media/Technology: 9%

    Healthcare: 6%

    DON’T MISS: THE MOST LUCRATIVE SEVEN-FIGURE MBA DEGREES IN THE U.S.

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