MIT’s MBAs Outdid Harvard On Pay This Year

ONE STUDENT REPORTS OTHER GUARANTEED FIRST-YEAR COMPENSATION OF $450,000 THIS YEAR

Sloan’s annual employment report contains far more detail than many of its peer schools are willing to give up, providing breakouts of salary by undergraduate major and work experience. And some of those details are surprising. You might, for example, assume that graduates with a STEM background would routinely earn more to start than grads with business undergraduate degrees. Yet, the data shows that MBAs who had major in business prior to going for their graduate studies did better, earning median salaries of $140,000 versus $135,000 for engineers.

You also might imagine that MBAs who racked up more work experience before getting their degree would earn more out of the gate as well. Wrong again. The highest median salaries went to MBAs at Sloan who had between a year and three years of full-time work experience before getting the MBA. They earned median starting base salaries of $147,000, copared to $130,000 for students with between three and five years of professional experience and $135,000 for those with more than five years.

Though many schools have stopped reporting other guaranteed compensation, MIT Sloan is about full disclosure here. Besides reporting the median ($27,000) and the mean $40,976 for the 19.6% of the class lucky enough to get this first-year guarantee, the school also reports the high and low numbers. Hold your breath for this year’s high: It’s $450,000. And Sloan also reveals the same range of data for signing bonuses by job function. At least two MBA in this year’s graduating class reported receiving $100,000 sign-on bonuses for jobs in product management/development and consulting/strategic planning.

2018 MBA Employment Reports

Harvard Business School

University of Pennsylvania Wharton School

MIT Sloan School of Management

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

Columbia Business School

Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business

University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Duke University Fuqua School of Business

University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Vanderbilt University Owen School of Management