HEC Paris & Cambridge Score Ranking Gains

Students gather on the campus of the London Business School

NOT SURPRISING, THE EARLY CAREER GAINS FROM ONE-YEAR PROGRAMS BEAT EVERYONE

Ultimately, some of the highest returns on investment came from one-year MBA programs. Forbes only measures these accelerated programs at international schools, though several highly prominent programs exist at such schools as Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. The reasons why these programs would naturally boast high ROI scores is because students only lose on year of earnings and the shorter programs cost less.

Forbes noted that Class of 2010 graduates from the best international one-year business schools posted median five-year gains of $125,500, compared with median gains of just $64,000 for the best international two-year programs. Either way, those results were better than the median gains of only $42,500 for grads of two-year programs in the U.S. Bottom line: It took only 2.6 years for the 2010 MBA class to pay off an international one-year program versus 3.4 years for two-year non-U.S. programs and four years for two-year programs at U.S. schools.

The undisputed ROI winner among all the U.S. and internationals schools? INSEAD. The school’s alums reported five-year gains of $171,200, resulting in a payback period of just 2.4 years to recoup their investment in the MBA degree. That compares with Stanford, the No. 1 U.S. school, where it took 4.2 years to get a payback on the investment, with a five-year gain of less than half as much, $89,100.

In capturing the top spot, INSEAD skipped over IMD which was No. 1 two years ago. Still, IMD grads reported very impressive results, including a median five-year gain of $163,600, If not for the school’s more pricey MBA program, $91,380 versus INSEAD’s $68,740, it’s possible that IMD would not have lost out to INSEAD this year.

DON’T MISS: YALE, HAAS, UT-AUSTIN SHOW BIG GAINS IN NEW 2015 FORBES MBA RANKING