High & Low MBA Salaries And Bonuses At The Top B-Schools

Seattle is home to the school with the most favorable salary and bonus landscape for international MBAs: Washington Foster

WASHINGTON FOSTER: WHERE FOREIGN STUDENTS GET PAID

Most programs continue to follow a familiar pattern: U.S. graduates of U.S. business schools get higher paydays, generally, than their foreign colleagues. Only four schools out of 27 reported higher foreign than U.S. salary highs in 2021. But look a little closer and the picture gets more complex: Fifteen schools had higher foreign than U.S. salary lows, and six schools had higher foreign salary averages. The biggest differential was lopsided in foreign students’ favor at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, where international graduates averaged nearly $20K more, $145,248 to $125,537.

Bonuses further complicate the picture. Ten schools report that a foreign student received its highest bonus, and a dozen more report that the foreign student low bonus was higher than the U.S. student low. Most schools — 20 — report a higher foreign than U.S. bonus average. Once again, Washington Foster had the biggest differential — and once again it was in foreign students’ favor, with an international bonus average of $55,789 to $32,314 for U.S. grads, a difference of $23,475.

  • Highest low salary: Michigan Ross $95K; USC Marshall and Georgia Tech Scheller both $90K (all U.S.)
  • Highest low in the top 10: Dartmouth Tuck $87,198 (U.S.)
  • Lowest high salary: Indiana Kelley $157K (Foreign); Vanderbilt Owen $160K (Foreign), and Washington Foster $165K (U.S.)
  • Lowest high in the top 10: Tuck $173,400 (Foreign)

A LOOK AT THE TOP 10 

In all, eight schools had more than 90% of their Class of 2021 graduates report salary information, led by 95.5% at Emory Goizueta and 93.9% at Virginia Darden. Duke Fuqua (93.2%), the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business (93%), Michigan Ross (92.4%) and Georgia Tech Scheller (92.4%) also had notably high rates of reporting. In the top 10, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management was the leader at 91.9%; two other top-10 schools, Columbia (65.5%) and Stanford (75.2%), had the lowest rates of salary reporting of any school in the top 27.

Overall, it wasn’t the best year for the top schools, with an average salary reporting rate of 82.6% and bonus reporting rate of 60.2%. More than that, salary and bonus growth compared to 2020 was sluggish. The average starting salary for MBAs from the top 10 schools was $147,925, up just 1.4% from $145,936, though it should be remembered that the latter figure represents only eight schools since both MIT Sloan and Wharton refused to supply U.S. News with average salary figures amid their pandemic rankings boycott. Top 10 average bonuses, too, grew only moderately, to $34,176 from $33,860 — an increase of less than 1%.

Overall in average pay, top 10 MBAs made $168,460 in 2021, up from $165,551 — an increase of 1.8%. See below for the median numbers, which also reflect minor growth.

BREAKING DOWN THE BONUSES

Foreign students may trail their U.S. colleagues overall, but in bonuses, they dominate on the low end, which is to say they get very high ones. The highest low, at Yale SOM, was $12,071, reported by a foreign grad, and the next five "high lows" were all $10K, and all foreign students, at Columbia, Virginia Darden, Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business, Vanderbilt Owen, and Georgia Tech Scheller. The highest low U.S. bonus was reported at Chicago Booth: $8K.

And what about the lowest high bonuses? Glad you asked. They were $30K, $40K, $50K, respectively, at Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business, Vanderbilt Owen, and Emory Goizueta — and all foreign MBAs.

Bonus reporting is an important element of our calculation of total pay. This year saw the percentages jump from previous years. The highest bonus reporting percentage was at the McCombs School of Business: 93% — which, usually, was the same percentage as those reporting salary. Following Texas McCombs was Michigan Ross (84.6%), Duke Fuqua (84%), Virginia Darden (82.6%), and Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management (79.9%). All eclipsed the highest percentage of a top-10 school, from Northwestern Kellogg: 78.6%.

In total, five schools out of 27 had higher than 80% reporting, and 10 had more than 75%. Five were below 60% — with the lowest at Poets&Quants' No. 1 school, Stanford: 39%.

See the next pages for tables on total pay, starting salaries, and sign-on bonuses, including comparisons between U.S. and foreign graduates.

DON'T MISS MBA SALARIES & BONUSES AT THE TOP 25 B-SCHOOLS and 2021 MBA EMPLOYMENT REPORTS & CLASS PROFILES

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