What You Can Expect To Make With An MBA From A Top School

THE MOST HIGHLY PAID MBAS ARE FROM THE ELITE SCHOOLS

Of course, MBAs from the truly elite business schools remain the most highly compensated graduates. The top five? Harvard, MIT Sloan, Stanford, Wharton, and Dartmouth Tuck. At each of those schools, average salary and bonus topped $142,000, a number that does not include other year-end compensation, tuition reimbursement, stock options or restricted stock grants, or many other perks received by MBA grads. HBS led all schools this year in average salary and bonus at $144,750.

At Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, for example, slightly more than 22% of its graduates last year were given stock options. Wharton revealed that half of its MBAs received relocation money in 2014, but only 5% accepted jobs with reimbursed tuition. At Wharton, 65% pulled down signing bonuses, but only 15% got a back-end compensation deal. It generally depends on the industry in which an MBA accepts a job.

Indeed, a confluence is factors determine MBA pay, including the career paths followed by graduates, the location of a school, the previous work experience of MBAs, the strength of the career management function at the school, and the business school’s brand value. Nonetheless, what MBAs for individual schools fetch is pretty much what you could expect if you go to a school.

YEAR-OVER-YEAR INCREASES AT TOP TEN BUSINESS SCHOOLS AVERAGED JUST 2.3%

Year-over-year increases in average pay at the Top 10 U.S. schools was just 2.3% to $140,665 in 2014 from $137,474 a year earlier. UC-Berkeley Haas grads managed the best year-over-year increase, a rise of 5.1% to $140,935, while the smallest percentage increase was reported by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where average pay rose 0.4% to $136,357 last year from $135,838 in 2013 (see table below). For the Top 10 schools, average salary and bonus was up 11.3% from the recession-low of $126,355.

While most MBA programs reported higher year-over-year results, there were a few notable exceptions that saw average pay decline last year. They include the University of Southern California where average salary and bonus dropped to $114,129 from $116,011 and Boston College’s Carroll School where average pay fell to $94,963 from $96,915. The single biggest year-over-year decrease occurred at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School where average salary and bonus fell more than $5,000 to $112,828 last year from $117,972 a year earlier.

But generally it was good news for MBA pay all around. Career management directors, moreover, expect this year to set new records, partly due to more aggressively recruiting by Wall Street and the financial service firms which were hit hardest by the Great Recession.

Year-Over-Year Increases In Average Pay For The Top Ten Business Schools

Rank & School	Y-O-Y Increase	2014 Average Pay	2013 Average Pay
1. Stanford GSB	3.9%	$142,834	$137,525
2. Harvard Business School	4.6%	$144,750	$138,346
3. Pennsylvania (Wharton)	1.0%	$142,574	$141,243
4. Chicago (Booth)	1.2%	$137,615	$135,982
5. Columbia Business School	1.0%	$139,006	$137,654
6. Northwestern (Kellogg)	0.4%	$136,357	$135,838
7. MIT (Sloan)	4.3%	$142,936	$137,057
8. Dartmouth (Tuck)	2.5%	$142,489	$139,036
9. Duke (Fuqua)	0.9%	$137,154	$135,982
10. UC-Berkeley (Haas)	5.1%	$140,935	$134,078