What It Costs To Get An MBA From A Top Business School

Columbia Business School has the highest annual tuition among top U.S. business schools: $88,300

Columbia claimed the distinction of highest tuition in 2024 at $88,300, with MIT Sloan School of Management second at $86,550. Last year’s school with the highest tuition, Wharton, actually lowered its tuition from $87,370 to $84,830, one of only two schools out of 27 to do so.

Indiana Kelley ($55,695) and Washington Foster ($57,831) had the lowest tuition out of 27 schools.

In all, 12 schools are above $80K tuition, up from seven schools last year. As recently as 2021 there were zero schools at that price. Twenty-two schools are above $70K, up from 19 last year (and 13 in 2019), and three schools are below $60K, same as the last two years. In 2019, five schools charged less than $60K for tuition.

No schools kept their tuition flat this year, though that has been common practice for many schools, public and private alike, in recent years. HBS, for example, was flat for five years in a row at $73,440 until 2023; Dartmouth Tuck School of Business was flat at $77,520 for four years until last year; Texas McCombs was flat for three years ($58,270) for out-of-state students until last year. See the table at the bottom of this page for details.

But while no schools kept their tuition unchanged, three — Washington Foster, Michigan Ross School of Business, and Wharton — actually reduced tuition. Only Wharton did so meaningfully however.

Think Europe is a cheaper alternative? You may be right, though the euro has rebounded against the dollar after a mild collapse in 2022. At some European B-schools, you may be able to find a bargain — though you also could end up paying more for that high-end MBA than you would in the United States.

TUITION & COST AT TOP GLOBAL B-SCHOOLS

School	Two-Year Tuition ($)	Living Expenses Estimate ($)	Total Yearly Cost Estimate ($)
HEC Paris	$105,267	$26,666	$131,933
London Business School	$146,030	$50,000	$196,030
IESE Business School	$102,044	$25,134	$127,178
Toronto Rotman	$100,066	$40,388	$140,454
INSEAD	$106,858	$10,740-$13,961*	$117,598-$120,819

*Fontainebleau or Singapore

Source: Business schools

AVERAGE ONE-YEAR TUITION GROWTH AT 27 TOP U.S. B-SCHOOLS: 4.2%

From 2023 to today, the biggest increase in tuition occurred at UC-Berkeley Haas, up 11.7% and $8,973 to $85,406. The only other school analyzed by P&Q for this story with double-digit growth year to year was USC Marshall, up 10.2% to $79,893. Average tuition growth for top-10 schools was 3.9% and $3,030, with the highest jump in that group 4.5% at Columbia, from $84,496 to $88,300. The average across 27 schools was 4.2%.

From 2019 to today, the average tuition growth was 11.9% at top-10 schools and 13.7% at 25 of the leading programs. Nineteen schools saw double-digit tuition growth in that span. The smallest was at Michigan Ross, up just 2.8% to $73,030; the biggest was $16,962 and 24.8% at Haas.

Noteworthy is that public schools often charge higher tuition for students who are not residents of the school’s state — sometimes much higher. Indiana Kelley, for example, charges Indiana residents $29,573 and nonresidents $55,695, a difference of $26,122. Likewise, UNC Kenan Flagler Business School charges North Carolina residents $53,776 and nonresidents $71,956, a difference of $18,180; UC-Berkeley charges California residents $73,160 and nonresidents $85,406, a difference of $12,246; and the Ross School charges Michigan residents $78,030 and nonresidents $73,030, a difference of $5K.

TUITION AT THE TOP U.S. B-SCHOOLS, 2019 TO 2024

	Tuition At the Top B-Schools
2024 P&Q Rank	School	2024 Tuition	2023 Tuition	2022 Tuition	2021 Tuition	2020 Tuition	2019 Tuition	2-Year Change	2-Year %	6-Year Change	6-Year %
1	Stanford GSB	$ 82,455	$ 79,860	$ 76,950	$ 74,706	$ 74,706	$ 73,062	$ 2,595	3.2%	$‎ 9,393	12.9%
2	Harvard Business School	$ 76,410	$ 74,910	$ 73,440	$ 73,440	$ 73,440	$ 73,440	$ 1,500	2.0%	$‎ 2,970	4.0%
3	Dartmouth (Tuck)	$ 80,620	$ 77,520	$ 77,520	$ 77,520	$ 77,520	$ 75,108	$ 3,100	4.0%	$‎ 5,512	7.3%
4	Columbia Business School	$ 88,300	$ 84,496	$ 80,542	$ 77,376	$ 77,376	$ 77,376	$ 3,804	4.5%	$‎ 10,924	14.1%
5	Yale SOM	$ 84,900	$ 82,700	$ 79,000	$ 74,500	$ 72,350	$ 72,350	$ 2,200	2.7%	$‎ 12,550	17.3%
6	Duke (Fuqua)	$ 77,925	$ 75,000	$ 71,750	$ 70,000	$ 70,000	$ 70,000	$ 2,925	3.9%	$‎ 7,925	11.3%
7	Cornell (Johnson)	$ 83,106	$ 79,910	$ 76,690	$ 74,026	$ 71,940	$ 69,440	$ 3,196	4.0%	$‎ 13,666	19.7%
8	Virginia (Darden)	$ 81,700	$ 78,600	$ 75,200	$ 72,600	$ 72,600	$ 70,500	$ 3,100	3.9%	$‎ 11,200	15.9%
9	Michigan (Ross)	$ 75,392	$ 73,196	$ 73,196	$ 72,114	$ 71,048	$ 71,048	$ 2,196	3.0%	$‎ 4,344	6.1%
10	New York (Stern)	$ 84,180	$ 82,326	$ 82,326	$ 78,700	$ 76,780	$ 74,184	$ 1,854	2.3%	$‎ 9,996	13.5%
11	Chicago (Booth)	$ 84,198	$ 80,961	$ 77,841	$ 74,919	$ 73,440	$ 72,000	$ 3,237	4.0%	$‎ 12,198	16.9%
12	Northwestern (Kellogg)	$‎ 83,610	$ 81,015	$ 78,276	$ 76,368	$ 74,871	$ 73,404	$ 2,595	3.2%	$‎ 10,206	13.9%
13	UCLA (Anderson)	$ 78,268	$ 74,618	$ 71,071	$ 67,737	$ 65,124	$ 65,114	$ 3,650	4.9%	$‎ 13,154	20.2%
14	MIT (Sloan)	$ 86,550	$ 84,200	$ 80,400	$ 78,954	$ 77,168	$ 77,168	$ 2,350	2.8%	$‎ 9,382	12.2%
15	UC-Berkeley (Haas)	$ 82,059	$ 76,433	$ 76,187	$ 71,817	$ 68,444	$ 68,444	$ 5,626	7.4%	$‎ 13,615	19.9%
16	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	$ 78,362	$ 75,712	$ 72,800	$ 70,000	$ 70,000	$ 68,000	$ 2,650	3.5%	$‎ 10,362	15.2%
17	Washington (Foster)	$ 57,831	$ 57,846	$ 56,127	$ 53,601	$ 53,531	$ 51,531	$ (15)	-0.03%	$‎ 6,300	12.2%
18	Rice (Jones)	$ 73,500	$ 69,000	$ 66,000	$ 63,500	$ 60,940	$ 60,940	$ 4,500	6.5%	$‎ 12,560	20.6%
19	Texas-Austin (McCombs)	$ 59,684	$ 58,270	$ 58,270	$ 58,270	$ 56,924	$ 54,924	$ 1,414	2.4%	$‎ 4,760	8.7%
20	North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	$ 71,956	$ 71,364	$ 68,112	$ 66,840	$ 66,270	$ 66,324	$ 592	0.8%	$‎ 5,632	8.5%
21	Vanderbilt (Owen)	$ 71,250	$ 68,500	$ 65,500	$ 62,750	$ 60,750	$ 58,400	$ 2,750	4.0%	$‎ 12,850	22.0%
22	Southern California (Marshall)	$ 79,893	$ 72,501	$ 69,036	$ 53,806	N/A	N/A	$ 7,392	10.2%	N/A	N/A
23	Emory (Goizueta)	$ 74,000	$ 71,900	$ 70,200	$ 70,741	$ 69,339	$ 65,400	$ 2,100	2.9%	$‎ 8,600	13.1%
24	Georgetown (McDonough)	$ 67,184	$ 64,600	$ 62,370	$ 60,894	$ 60,894	$ 59,700	$ 2,584	4.0%	$‎ 7,484	12.5%
28	Washington (Olin)	$ 68,200	$ 66,200	$ 64,250	$ 64,250	$ 62,981	N/A	$ 2,000	3.0%	N/A	N/A
31	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$ 84,830	$ 87,370	$ 84,874	$ 76,000	$ 74,500	$ 74,500	$ (2,540)	-2.9%	$‎ 10,330	13.9%
37	Indiana (Kelley)	$ 55,695	$ 54,602	$ 53,553	$ 52,483	$ 51,454	$ 51,451	$ 1,093	2.0%	$‎ 4,244	8.2%

Source: Business schools & P&Q analysis

See the next page for a living expenses breakdown at 27 top U.S. business schools.