B-Schools With The Fastest Return on Debt

Columbia University - Ethan Baron photo

Columbia University – Ethan Baron photo

COLUMBIA AND WHARTON MBAs EARN THE MOST…AND PAY THE MOST DEBT

Stanford isn’t the only top flight MBA program to fare well in SoFi’s metrics. Harvard Business School MBAs earned 1.6 times their debt at a $149,925-to-$90,893 clip. There is also a 1.5 times difference between pay-and-debt for MBA graduates at MIT Sloan ($151,424 vs. $101,363), U.C.-Berkeley Haas ($151,201 vs. $98,647), Dartmouth Tuck ($150,433 vs. $102,363), UCLA Anderson ($141,033 vs. $95,664), and Emory Goizueta ($131,651 vs. $86,613).

Overall, Columbia and Wharton MBAs pulled down the highest average salaries at $173,888 and $171,671 respectively. That said, they also led the top business schools in average debt at $127,632 and $127,740 (again, respectively). The maxim that “you get what you pay for” is especially true with the top MBA programs, where all exceeded the $70,164 average debt by a range of $20,000-$50,000.At the same time, they also yielded the highest pay.

The worst salary-to-debt ratio? That honor goes to Michigan’s Davenport University, a private program that offers an array of MBA options…that result in an average debt of $147,016 compared to an $86,795 salary. SoFi cites several other programs where average debt exceeds average salary, led by Strayer University, Kaplan University, Benedictine University, and Baker College.

Go to next page to see how 2016 MBA pay data compares to 2015 numbers.

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