High & Low MBA Salaries & Bonuses At The Top 100 U.S. B-Schools

If the big payday is the big motivator for pursing an MBA, the M7s are still showing the money. 

A 2025 graduate of Harvard Business School scored a base salary of $470,000 to start, the highest reported salary of any other graduate at any other business school, according to data collected in U.S. News & World Report as part of the magazine’s annual ranking of U.S. B-schools. 

At least two more graduates at Columbia Business School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania earned base salaries of $450,000. 

In fact, looking at averages for all M7 graduates from the class of 2025, the lowest average salary went to grads from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management at $167,151, which was the ninth highest average in the ranking. 

The payday party of the big elite U.S. business schools holds true despite a tougher job market for both offers and salaries at tiers below the M7s for both 2024 grads and those entering it in 2025.  

Average Salary of M7s 2022-2025
2025 P&Q Rank	School	Average Salary 2025	2023	2022	4-Year Change
1	Northwestern (Kellogg)	$167,151	$169,698	$158,938	5.17%
2	Harvard Business School	$180,889	171,740	$172,877	4.63%
3	Columbia Business School	$173,816	168,635	$162,099	7.23%
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$179,909	$175,828	$166,391	8.12%
11	MIT (Sloan)	$173,132	$168,095	$159,391	8.62%
12	Chicago (Booth)	$172,309	$173,310	$165,887	3.87%
26	Stanford GSB	$190,109	189,010	$182,272	4.30%

Source: U.S. News & World Report

Average base salaries at every M7 rose between 3.87% and 8.62% for the Class of 2022 to the Class of 2025, according to apples-to-apples U.S. News data. (Class of 2024 data was not available for this comparison.)  

U.S. News publishes salary data on everything from average salaries and signing bonuses, to high and low pay, to while also breaking figures down by industry, occupation, domestic and international. For this report, we compiled the average base salaries and signing bonuses for the top 100 schools in Poets&Quants 2025-2026 ranking of the best U.S. MBA programs.  

Outside the M7, one other school in P&Q’s top 10 posted high base salaries of $400,000 – New York University Stern School of Business which posted an average base of $168,970, the seventh highest base on the list. 

HIGHEST SALARIES AND SIGNING BONUES 

Stanford Graduate School of Business Class of 2025 graduates posted the highest average base salary in the U.S. news ranking at $190,109. U.S. News did not report data on its highest salary nor its highest bonus.  

A note about Stanford: The schools is widely regarded as among the very best – if not the best – business school in the world, and finished No. 1 in U.S. News’ MBA ranking. But, it dropped all the way to No. 26 (from No. 1) in our composite MBA ranking that considers how schools fare across a series of market-leading ranking lists.   

The drop was the result of Stanford falling off the Financial Times’ MBA ranking due to insufficient alumni survey responses. The FT is the most influential MBA ranking on the market today, and accounts for 30% of our composite score, making Stanford’s absence especially consequential.  

Nevertheless, Stanford’s signal in the job market remains the gold standard, evidenced by its sky high base salaries for its graduates. 

Class of 2025 Highest Average MBA Salary At P&Q Ranked Programs
2025 PQ Rank	School Name	Average Salary 2025	High Base Salary 2025	Average Signing Bonus 2025	High Signing Bonus 2025	Average Salary 2023
26	Stanford GSB	$190,109	N/A	$35,888	N/A	189,010
2	Harvard Business School	$180,889	$470,000	$36,740	$214,000	171,740
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$179,909	$450,000	$39,756	$200,000	$175,828
3	Columbia Business School	$173,816	$450,000	$41,016	$218,000	168,635
11	MIT (Sloan)	$173,132	$300,000	$40,192	$213,300	$168,095
12	Chicago (Booth)	$172,309	$400,000	$35,847	$300,000	$173,310
6	New York (Stern)	$168,970	$400,000	$41,007	$125,000	$168,182
4	Dartmouth (Tuck)	$168,328	$284,000	$36,638	$110,200	170,824
1	Northwestern (Kellogg)	$167,151	$250,000	$34,658	$140,000	$169,698
14	UC-Berkeley (Haas)	$164,930	$300,000	$35,829	$193,700	$162,831
5	Virginia (Darden)	$162,578	$235,000	$36,906	$110,200	$167,899
17	Yale SOM	$161,523	$239,000	$36,677	$135,100	$163,830
9	Michigan (Ross)	$159,272	$245,000	$33,386	$80,000	$162,946
7	Cornell (Johnson)	$158,426	$225,000	$39,795	$90,000	$162,808

Source: U.S. News & World Report

SIGNING BONUSES  

While base salaries set the bar for a prospect’s earning potential overtime, signing bonuses can jack up first-year total compensation at a time when new employees may be looking to find new housing or make a dent in hefty student loans.  

Some 2025 graduates secured sign-on bonuses that offset the cost of an elite U.S. MBA, even for schools outside the M7. That’s an enticing figure in any MBA ROI calculation. 

At least one graduate of University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business secured a $300,000 sign-on bonus for 2025, the highest from the U.S. News ranking. That’s about $50,000 more than the estimated $250,000 cost of the two-year Booth MBA. The average signing bonus for Boothies was $35,847. 

Select graduates from B-schools not in the P&Q top 10 also managed to negotiate flashy signing bonuses that eclipsed the average base salaries of their classmates. At least one graduate from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business (ranked No. 16 by P&Q) nabbed a $217,000 signing bonus, compared to an average bonus of $38,610 and an average salary of $154,846 for their 2025 classmates. 

On average, students from Northeastern University’s D’Amore McKim School of Business (No. 56 overall) received the highest signing bonus at $53,750.  

Class of 2025 Highest Average MBA Signing Bonus At P&Q Ranked Programs
2025 PQ Rank	School	Average Signing Bonus 2025	High Signing Bonus 2025	Average Signing Bonus 2023	2-Year Change
56	Northeastern (D’Amore-McKim)	$53,750	$57,500	$15,413	248.73%
83	Massachusetts-Amherst (Isenberg)	$47,500	$93,000	$14,300	232.17%
19	Washington (Olin)	$45,061	$193,700	$26,808	68.09%
3	Columbia Business School	$41,016	$218,000	$39,395	4.11%
6	New York (Stern)	$41,007	$125,000	$38,192	7.37%
11	MIT (Sloan)	$40,192	$213,300	$38,989	3.09%
23	Washington (Foster)	$39,917	$120,000	$44,537	-10.37%
7	Cornell (Johnson)	$39,795	$90,000	$38,826	2.50%
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$39,756	$200,000	$37,944	4.78%
47	Maryland (Smith)	$38,914	$82,400	$39,983	-2.67%
16	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	$38,610	$217,000	$40,139	-3.81%
31	Arizona State (Carey)	$38,138	$193,700	$22,819	67.13%
15	Duke (Fuqua)	$37,180	$110,000	$34,691	7.17%
5	Virginia (Darden)	$36,906	$110,200	$37,588	-1.81%
28	Notre Dame (Mendoza)	$36,847	$92,400	$35,591	3.53%
2	Harvard Business School	$36,740	$214,000	$36,629	0.30%

Source: U.S. News & World Report

Signing bonuses, particularly at lower-ranked programs, are far more volatile than salaries in terms of averages and year-to-year comparisons. Because few report them, one or two big numbers can boost the average significantly. 

Northeastern D’Amore-McKim, for example, only had two students report signing bonuses, one for $50,000 and one for $57,500, so the $53,750 average skews significantly higher than schools with more graduates reporting a wider range of bonuses. Compare that to Harvard where 280 2025 grads reported bonuses with a low of $3,000 and a high of $214,000.

The bottom line from the salary and bonus data released last month by U.S. News is that an MBA continues to be a lucrative investment, especially at the top of the P&Q ranking.  

Since 2022, salaries at P&Q’s top 10 schools have risen an average of 5.14%. They’ve risen 3.1% at schools ranked 11-25. Growth has slowed considerably, however, for schools ranked 26-50, at just 0.91%.  

P&Q’s Top 10 MBA Salary & Signing Bonus
2025 PQ Rank	School	Average Salary 2025	High Base Salary 2025	Average Signing Bonus 2025	High Signing Bonus 2025
1	Northwestern (Kellogg)	$167,151	$250,000	$34,658	$140,000
2	Harvard Business School	$180,889	$470,000	$36,740	$214,000
3	Columbia Business School	$173,816	$450,000	$41,016	$218,000
4	Dartmouth (Tuck)	$168,328	$284,000	$36,638	$110,200
5	Virginia (Darden)	$162,578	$235,000	$36,906	$110,200
6	New York (Stern)	$168,970	$400,000	$41,007	$125,000
7	Cornell (Johnson)	$158,426	$225,000	$39,795	$90,000
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$179,909	$450,000	$39,756	$200,000
9	Michigan (Ross)	$159,272	$245,000	$33,386	$80,000
10	UCLA (Anderson)	$153,566	$250,000	$34,027	$65,000

Source: U.S. News & World Report

See the next pages for data on high and low salaries and bonuses for graduates of the top 100 U.S. business schools. 

 

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