It’s time. It’s a fit. And you both want it to happen.

The process is winding down. The offer is ready. You just need to make the call. You’ll hear that a negotiation isn’t personal, but you’ve worked so hard to get here. On their side, there is a budget to guard and precedent to uphold. For you, it’s all about maximizing your earnings. And that creates risk on both sides. By countering on money, do you really want to lose all this momentum and goodwill you’ve built? For employers, who’ve spent months pitching flexibility and opportunity, taking a hard line undermines their carefully-formulated narrative.

It’s a narrow causeway that requires diplomacy to navigate. In MBA Negotiation courses, you’ll complete simulations that drive home the value of understanding the other party’s goals and constraints to craft win-win solutions. Before that, you need to know the facts. That starts with understanding what you’re worth, where the market pegs your value, and when you’re willing to walk away.

That begs the question: Just how much are your peers making starting out? Once you have a baseline, another question becomes equally crucial: How much flexibility do you have in negotiating?

KNOWING WHAT THE MARKET PAYS

That’s where U.S. News & World Report comes into play. Each year, U.S. News collects starting pay data by occupation and industry across the top American business schools. As a result, MBAs can learn base pay being doled out in areas ranging from Finance to Healthcare to Manufacturing. Not only does the data reflect how much MBAs are earning starting out, but it also includes high and low salaries by business school to reflect just how much leeway that MBAs have in various industries.

Take consulting, which carries a take-it-or-leave-it reputation, with firms presenting boiler plate offers with little room for negotiation. To start, top business school graduates tend to rake in higher bases. At top-ranked Stanford GSB, for example, 2025 graduates averaged $186,350 to start. Compare that to another West Coast MBA program, USC’s Marshall School, which is ranked 25th by U.S. News. Here, base starts at $167,736, a swing of over $18K. Neither number reflects the high end of the spectrum in consulting. For example, one Stanford GSB grad negotiated a $322,000 base to start, while a USC Marshall counterpart made off with $192,000. At the same time, a 2025 graduate of Rice University’s Jones Graduate School netted a $230,000 base, which beat out the high-end salaries given to graduates of Wharton and Chicago Booth that year.

In other words, there is some space for negotiation in consulting. All it takes is one hiring manager or company who is open to softening their stance.

That dynamic is even more pronounced in Finance. At the Wharton School, which ranks 2nd according to U.S. News, 2025 grads received $184,998 to start on average. However, one employer paid out a $450,000 base to land their Wharton candidate. While Stanford GSB grads averaged the highest pay in Finance at $202,294, there were 15 business schools among U.S. News’ Top 50 with one or more graduates who earned more than this benchmark. That includes a graduate from Miami Herbert ($260,000) and another from Texas A&M Mays ($212,600), which rank 39th and 36th respectively.

Bottom line: The U.S. News data projects where the market sits across a variety of industries, along with how far employers may potentially stretch to hire their top choices.

That said, the data comes with limitations. In particular, it focuses strictly on base salaries, eschewing potential negotiables like 401K match, sign-on bonus, performance bonus, insurance benefits, and tuition reimbursement. The data also targets industries as a whole, leaving out potential pay differentials by region. At the same time, there is no instrument that can measure the all-important intangibles that influence career pay trajectory, such as early responsibilities, formal training, and access to company leadership.

In the end, the data is a starting point. Not only can MBA applicants and students compare pay between different industries and schools, but also across three years to reveal compensation patterns. Call it a cheat sheet that indicates how various industries view job candidates across different MBA programs. In cases where pay data isn’t provided in certain industries, the data exposes where programs may lack strong programming or alumni networking to break into a particular field. If anything, this pay data provides the facts needed to make a case to employers and avoid being low-balled.

How much are different industries willing to shell out for talent from certain schools? What are their pay floors and ceilings? How has pay changed by industry and school over the past three years? Click on the links below to see school-by-school listings of high, average, and low pay by occupation and industry.

Click on the links below to access school-by-school MBA pay by region. 

OCCUPATIONS

MARKETING

OPERATIONS

GENERAL MANAGEMENT

FINANCE

CONSULTING

INDUSTRIES

CONSUMER PRODUCTS

HEALTHCARE

MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT AND NON-PROFITS

ENERGY

REAL ESTATE

TECHNOLOGY

MANUFACTURING

RETAIL, MIS, HUMAN RESOURCES, AND TRANSPORTATION & LOGISTICS

OVERALL PAY

TOTAL MBA PAY BY SCHOOL

OVERALL AVERAGE BASE BY SCHOOL

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