After Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, the Stern School’s MBA program now is the most expensive in the world. The school’s estimated expense to attend its full-time MBA program hit a record $184,532, up from $165,340 only a year ago. That is even more expensive than its uptown rival, higher-ranked Columbia Business School. But New York is an expensive place to live and study.
NYU Stern’s massive part-time MBA program, which boasts some 2,106 students, tends to overwhelm the 784 full-timers. The school, in New York’s Greenwich Village, offers a 60-credit program; more than half of which are electives. The program begins with Pre-Term where students meet classmates, explore New York City, and learn about academics, career opportunities, and student life. To ensure that students have a solid foundation in all areas of business, the majority of the first year is comprised of Stern core courses: Financial Accounting & Reporting, Statistics & Data Analysis, and a flex core made up of seven course options. Core course waivers may be given to students who completed an undergraduate major in a core course area or hold a CPA. Students may also waive a course by passing a proficiency exam. The second year is comprised almost entirely of elective courses in addition to the final core course, Professional Responsibility.
Stern students graduate with an MBA in General Management and may select up to three specializations. The school offers more than 20 areas of specialization, each comprised of about three elective courses.
Rankings Analysis:
The Stern School had a relatively stable rankings year in 2012, with the school moving up one place in Poets&Quants’ composite survey to 14th from 15th a year earlier. What made the difference for Stern was some improvement in Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s ranking which placed the school at 16th in 2012, up from 18th in 2010. The school did less well in two other major rankings: U.S. News & World Report and The Financial Times. In the former ranking, Stern gained one place to finish 11th, up from tenth in 2011. In the latter FT survey, the school slumped three places to 10th among all U.S. schools, down from seventh in 2011.
The Economist ranked Stern exactly in the same place as it did in 2011: ninth. And Forbes, which did not publish a ranking in 2012, last put Stern at 18th place on its ranking which is based on return-on-investment.
It’s worth spending a little more time on the improved BusinessWeek ranking, which largely measures graduate and corporate recruiter satisfaction. Stern was ranked seven in graduate satisfaction by BusinessWeek, a very high score for an urban school where it is typically harder to create community spirit. That is a significant improvement over its ranking of 20 on this portion of the BW survey two years ago. But the school also had a strong showing in the corporate recruiter poll done by BW, rising to 14th from 22nd two years ago.
As a Class of 2012 graduate told BusinessWeek: “Unbelievable proximity to, and connection with, the rapidly growing New York tech community. NYU is the leading school in the New York technology scene, which is now the 2nd or 3rd best place to start a company in the world. NYU is also very strong in great New York-based businesses like finance, fashion, music, publishing and advertising.”
