Hidden MBA Gems: Where You Can Earn A Top Quality MBA For Under $25,000

Where you can get a top quality MBA for $25,000 or less

The sticker price of an M7 MBA degree is, to put it bluntly, shocking. For tuition alone, without any fees, the bill can total more than than $150,000 over two years. And that sum doesn’t include the interest on your student debt, the earnings you have to give up to quit your job or any of your living expenses (see What It Now Costs To Get A Top 25 MBA).

At MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the annual MBA tuition is now a breath taking $77,168 a year. At Columbia Business School, it’s $77,376, not including the $3,973 in mandatory fees. And Wharton? Your annual tuition check would come to $80,432, with fees.

So it may seem surprising, if not shocking, to know that it is still possible to get a top quality MBA for less than $25,000, or about 16% of the cost of a degree from Wharton, Columbia or any of the other big brand full-time MBA options. At this point, you’ve got to be skeptical? Right?

The Most Affordable On-Campus MBA Programs In The World

School	U.S. News 2020 Rank	Total Tuition	The Catch
University of Florida (Warrington)	28	$25,474	In-State
Brigham Young University (Marriott)	30	$26,900	All Students
University of Georgia (Terry)	33	$27,174	In-State
University of Alabama	41	$21,560	In-State
University of Arizona (Eller)	46	$23,876	In-State
University of Tennessee-Knoxville	46	$22,936	In-State
Iowa State University (Ivy)	53	$24,988	In-State
Oklahoma State University (Spears)	92	$18,815	In-State

The Most Affordable Online MBA Programs In The World

School	P&Q 2021 Rank	Total Tuition	The Catch
University of Illinois (Gies)	NR	$22,000	All Students
Boston University (Questrom)	NR	$24,000	All Students
University of South Florida (Muma)	25	$24,750	All Students
University of Tennessee-Chattanooga	26	$25,212	All Students
University of North Dakota (Nistler)	31	$18,391	All Students
University of Massachusetts-Lowell	33	$19,650	All Students
Louisiana State University	37	$19,980	All Students
Oklahoma State University (Spears)	44	$20,947	All Students
Kennesaw State University	45	$24,470	All Students
Rogers State University	47	$10,880	All Students

THE BEST MBAS FOR UNDER $25,000

Sure. You’re not going to find a full-time, two-year residential MBA experience at a school with as big a brand as Harvard or Stanford for that kind of money. But you can still get a solid MBA education, with all the business basics and then some, in several other programs that are from well-known and well-respected universities.

Here’s the catch: Either you have to go your MBA online, during which you can still keep your job and keep earning a paycheck, or you have to be an in-state student at a program ranked highly by U.S. News & World Report. In fact, for in-state students, there are at least a half dozen MBA programs ranked in the Top 50 by U.S. News that cost roughly $25K or less in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and Tennessee. At Brigham Young University, the Marriott School of Management sets its tuition for all MBA students at just $13,450 per year for a total of about $27,000. Put another way, at any of these schools you would be paying less money in tuition the average MBA graduates with debt.

If you want to keep your job and maintain maximum flexibility, your two best options are at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois and the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. Both schools are fully accredited and have pioneered truly disruptive MBA programming. breaking the price barrier through digital delivery. Gies and Questrom didn’t merely put their existing MBA curriculum online. They designed these programs from the ground up, reimagine what an MBA education should be for the modern era, leveraging the latest technologies and research into how people learn.

TWO HIGHLY DISRUPTIVE ONLINE MBA OPTIONS AT BRAND NAME UNIVERSITIES FOR UNDER $25K

At Gies, the total tuition is just under $22,000 (see below table for how it breaks out). In fact, it’s a mere $21,744, including potential course materials, though that sum obviously does not include minor costs for case packets as well as travel if you participate in immersions or alumni and networking events. At Boston University, the total online MBA bill for tuition comes to $24,000, though the school recommends that student budget between $350 and $400 a semester for books and course materials.

Unlike many other schools, moreover, the dominant MBA program at Gies and Questrom is online. So these schools are pouring most of their resources along with the best faculty and staff into their online efforts. Gies, in fact, has eliminated its full-time, part-time and Executive MBAs to focus exclusively on its iMBA and other online graduate degree options along with its sizable undergraduate business program. At Questrom, the online MBA–which only entered its first class last fall–already is the largest graduate degree program at the business school.

When it comes to the less expensive online options, they tend to be purely online with few, if any, in-person classes or immersion trips, fewer electives, and less support in career management. The fully online MBA option with the lowest price tag is at Oklahoma’s Rogers State University at a mere $10,880. It can be completed in 18 months in eight-week courses, without the need for a GRE or GMAT test. But the MBA is not accredited by the AACSB, the primary business school accreditation agency.

Nonetheless, it’s hard to beat the cost of a quality MBA education at less than $25,000.