Median Pay For Harvard MBAs This Year: A Record $172,090 To Start

Graduation at Harvard Business School brings highly lucrative jobs

17% OF THE CLASS WENT TO WORK FOR PRIVATE STARTUPS

Harvard said that roughly 17% of its graduates went into startup companies, defined as an organization that is still private and 10 years of age or younger. HBS adjusted this definition in 2018. That’s considerably higher than the 9% of the previous year’s class that joined a startup. Those firms paid the MBAs median base salaries of $137,000 in 2019, nearly $12,000 less than the class median. Not surprisingly, 47% of those companies were in the tech space, while 15% were in healthcare.

Some 65 members, or 7%, of the Class of 2019 chose to become entrepreneurs founding startups. That’s roughly the same as last year when the number of founders in the class was 64, down from 84 in 2015. Harvard said that 63% of this year’s founders have a co-founder on their teams and 22% of the founders connected with their co-founder on the HBS campus.

HBS said there were 928 members of the Class of 2019, of which 74% were seeking employment this year. Roughly 15% were sponsored by their employers and will return to them or are already employed. Another 7% started companies, while 1% decided to continue their education.