U.S. Schools With The Most International MBAs

A multi ethnic group of graduates in graduation gowns

Which leading MBA programs at U.S. business schools have the most international students? And how are international graduates from the U.S. school paid compared to their domestic classmates?

The answer to these two questions can be surprising. First off, because many of the top 100 schools enrolling high percentage of students born outside the U.S. run very small full-time MBA programs. Secondly, many international students are very highly paid compared to their domestic counterparts because they bring highly valuable cultural and country-specific business experience to the game for multinational corporations.

Consider the #1 school, by percentage: the University of Kentucky, which has a program comprised of just 12 students.

Obviously, it’s the larger schools at the more highly selective MBA programs that have significantly larger international populations. Harvard Business School has some 651 internationals in its MBA program, while the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has 566, tops among all the business schools in the U.S. Chicago Booth (428), Columbia Business School (420), and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management (413) come up next, all with more than 400 internationals in their full-time MBA programs.

The next group: Duke University’s Fuqua School (346), Michigan’s Ross School (336), and MIT Sloan (329).

The vast majority of international students in domestic MBA programs hail from India and China, followed by Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and Canada. Some smaller countries make the top three at certain universities, with Israel comprising approximately five to ten percent of MIT (Sloan), Temple University (Fox), and CUNY Bernard M Baruch College (Zicklin). Chapman University has a unique international population, with Saudi Arabia representing some 44% of its entire international population.

And when it comes to pay, international students make more than their domestic counterparts in certain programs, while simultaneously making less at others. International students receive the highest base salary, $149,000, at UCLA (Anderson). The domestic base salary at Anderson is a much lower $111,416.

Unlike at UCLA (Anderson), international students at several other MBA programs around the country receive lower base salaries than domestic students. At the University of Connecticut, international students receive a base salary that is approximately $17,000 less than their domestic counterparts. The gap closes somewhat at MBA programs at such schools as Wake Forest University, George Washington University, and Babson College (Olin)

At most of the top 10 schools, namely Stanford, Harvard, and Wharton, international students also have an average base salary that is slightly lower than the domestic average.

Foreign Students In The Top 100 U.S. MBA Programs

School	Int’l %	Int’l #	Origin Nations	Mean U.S. Salary	Mean Int’l Salary
Kentucky (Gatton)	72.0%	9	China 50%	$75,206	N/A
Syracuse (Whitman)	69.9%	51	India 80% China 12% Canada 2%	$73,300	$57,144
Thunderbird	67.1%	190	India 23%	$78,177	$78,064
Babson (Olin)	65.1%	246	India 34.9% Thailand 9.3% Mexico 8%	$89,151	$77,344
UC San Diego (Rady)	54.9%	56	N/A	$79,656	$59,910
Connecticut	54.7%	41	India 30% China 2% Serbia 1%	$109,875	$93,250
Rochester Institute of Tech. (Saunders)	51.9%	69	N/A	$45,979	$66,650
Rochester (Simon)	50.7%	107	India 46%	$86,698	$94,235
Purdue (Krannert)	49.4%	88	India 20%	$91,689	$99,085
Case Western (Weatherhead)	47.2%	51	India 50%	$82,349	$66,400
UC Irvine (Merage)	47.1%	88	India 31% China 21% S. Korea 14%	$82,721	$85,969
George Washington	46.5%	86	China 25% India 22% Canada 5%	$89,260	$67,800
Iowa State	45.7%	32	India 63% China 9% Nepal 6%	$63,161	$52,750
William and Mary (Mason)	42.3%	80	India 12% China 6% Japan 5%	$81,670	$68,523
Illinois – Urbana-Champaign	42%	70	India 42% China 15% Taiwan 6%	$88,074	$91,796
Arizona (Eller)	42%	34	India 65% Canada 5% Mexico 5%	$79,681	$81,059
MIT (Sloan)	40.6%	329	India 10.3% Israel 8.5% Brazil 7%	N/A	N/A
Texas – Dallas	40.6%	52	N/A	$78,278	$82,578
Northwestern (Kellogg)	39.5%	413	N/A	N/A	N/A
Duke (Fuqua)	39.5%	346	India 16% China 16% S. Korea 7%	$113,897	$114,514
Michigan State (Broad)	39.3%	59	India 65.8% China 21% Mexico 6%	$94,856	$86,105
Emory (Goizueta)	38.5%	148	India 26% Korea 22% China 10%	$107,419	$106,625
Washington (Olin)	38.4%	108	India 13% China 9% S. Korea 4%	$98,687	$97,225
Yale	38.1%	225	China 22% India 18% Canada 9%	$109,381	$111,511
UC Berkeley (Haas)	38.0%	191	India 11% China 2% S. Korea 1%	$122,211	$121,121