Business school is expensive — especially at a top-notch school. At the20 best business schoolsin U.S. News & World Report’smost recent ranking, you’ll shell out at least $100,000 to earn your MBA. At Harvard Business School or The Wharton School — the highest-ranked programs — you’re looking at $150,000 in tuition and fees.
Thankfully, you get a pretty good return on that investment. At most top business schools,the average starting salary and bonus for graduates more than covers the cost of the degree.
Business Insider used U.S. News’ business school ranking to highlight the 15 programs where MBAsearn the highest salaries after graduation. We’ve also included the school’s overall numerical score,with 100 representing the best possible result. (You can read a full breakdown of U.S. News’ methodologyhere.)
Each school in the top 15 sets the average graduate up to earn at least $140,000 in salary and bonus in their first year of employment after graduation.
Read on to check out the business schoolswhere MBAs earn the highest salaries after graduation
Note: Tuition figuresreflect annual costs for out-of-state students.
15. Carnegie Mellon University — Tepper School of Business
Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon/Facebook
Location:Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Average starting salary:$140,289
Annual tuitionand fees:$62,230
The Tepper school prepares graduates topursue careersinmarketing, finance, consulting, technology, entrepreneurship, oroperations. The career center helps students connect with companies, meet with potential employers, and build their networks.Students are directly recruited bysome of the biggest names in business, including Goldman Sachs, IBM, Google, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.
14. University of California at Los Angeles — Anderson School of Management
Facebook/UCLA Anderson School of Management
Location:Los Angeles, California
Average starting salary:$140,457
Annual tuitionand fees:$59,290
UCLA’s Anderson School of Management prides itself on “looking to the future to discover and chart what will be.”To that end, the school recently established an academic marketing partnership with Google to provide students with insight into Google’s pioneering approach to marketing measurement and storytelling. Many graduates accept jobs in the tech industry, where notable alumni include YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and a number of Google executives.
13. Northwestern University — Kellogg School of Management
Location:Evanston, Illinois
Average starting salary:$141,694
Annual tuitionand fees:$67,792
Northwestern’s business schoolwas established in the early 1900s, but it wasn’t until 1979 thatthe school took the Kellogg name followinga $10 million donation from the John L. and Helen Kellogg Foundation —heirs of the family that started the famedcereal company.
The school emphasizes international experience. Its International Growth Lab pairs its students with those at ESADE in Barcelona and theHong Kong University of Science and Technology to develop strategies for solvingan international business’ real-world problems. Kelloggalso offers anaccelerated, one-year MBA degreefor top students who already have a business background.
12. Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Sloan School of Management
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Location:Cambridge, Massachusetts
Average starting salary:$143,565
Annual tuitionand fees:$68,250
The Sloan School of Management, which celebrated its 100-year anniversary last year, offers three MBA tracks: enterprise management, entrepreneurship and innovation, and finance. Sloanreportedthat 93% of 2016 graduates accepted job offers within 90 days of graduation at companies like Amazon, Google, McKinsey & Co., and Microsoft, and 6.1% of grads went on to start their own businesses.
11. Duke University — Fuqua School of Business
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Location:Durham, North Carolina
Average starting salary:$144,799
Annual tuitionand fees:$65,760
Ninety-two percentof full-time MBA students at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business landjobs within three months of graduation. The top-five recruiters from the school are Deloitte, McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group,Amazon.com, and Microsoft. Deloitte alone hired 39MBA students during the 2015-16 academic year for jobs and internships. Fuqua also offersa number of joint MBA programs, including JD/MBA, MD/MBA, and MPP/MBA.
10. New York University — Stern School of Business
Location:New York, New York
Average starting salary:$145,413
Annual tuitionand fees:$69,110
Stern’s MBA program heavily focuses on individuality, and students canchoose up to three specializations,with options including everything from banking to real estate to luxury marketing. Post-graduation,students end up at a range of companies, including Boston Consulting Group, NBCUniversal, Morgan Stanley, and Burberry.
The school takes its name from billionaireproperty mogulLeonard Stern, who earned his MBA from NYU in 1959 and donated $30 million to construct a new building for the business school in 1988.
9. University of Michigan — Ross School of Business
The Ross School of Business/Facebook
Location:Ann Arbor, Michigan
Average starting salary:$145,926
Annual tuitionand fees:$64,678
The Ross School of Business strives to provide each student with opportunities to advance their career, anditfacilitates a team of over 50 peer coaches to help them along the way. Hundreds of well-known companies visit the schoolto interviewMBA candidates, andtop recruitersfor the class of 2016 includedAmazon, Deloitte, Google, McKinsey & Co., andMicrosoft.
8. Cornell University — Johnson Graduate School of Management
Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University/Facebook
Location:Ithaca, New York
Average starting salary:$146,252
Annual tuitionand fees:$64,584
Students in the one- and two-year MBA tracks participate in the Johnson Graduate School of Management’s uniqueimmersion program, in which students spend a semester focusing solely on a specific career path, such as digital technology or investment banking, through electives, site visits, and live case studies.
The school itself takes its name from a business legacy — S.C. Johnson, founder of the global household-product company of the same name. The school adopted the name in 1984 after theJohnson family gave$20 millionto it, the largest amount ever given to a business school at the time.
7. University of Chicago — Booth School of Business
University of Chicago Booth School of Business/Facebook
Location:Chicago, Illinois
Average starting salary:$147,475
Annual tuitionand fees:$67,668
Ninety-fivepercent of students fromthe 2016 classhad secured employmentwithin three months of graduation, and the top-five employers were McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group,Amazon.com, Bain & Co., and Accenture.
Booth’s full-time MBA program focuses on training students for real-world business scenarios through experiential learning andlab courseswhere students work with actual early-stage startups. The school also brings in guest lecturers from private-equity and venture-capital companies, and some Booth students intern with the companies and help them evaluate new market and business opportunities.
6. Dartmouth College — Tuck School of Business
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth/Facebook
Location:Hanover, New Hampshire
Average starting salary:$148,997
Annual tuitionand fees:$69,690
After their first year in the program,a full 100%of Tuck’s class of 2017 gained hands-on experience through summer internships.
Within three months of graduation, 96% of the class of 2016 had accepted job offers, many of them atbig-name companies,including Bain & Co., Goldman Sachs, Samsung, Deloitte, and Barclays Capital.
5. Columbia University — Columbia Business School
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Location:New York, New York
Average starting salary:$150,229
Annual tuitionand fees:$71,624
Students begin crafting their network and community within the business world the minute they arrive at Columbia, thanks in part to the school’scluster system, which places first-year students in “clusters”of 65 to 70 people who take all their core classes together. Columbia also counts some of the greatest minds in financeamong its alumni, including Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and former Bank of America executiveSallie Krawcheck.
4. University of Virginia — Darden School of Business
Location:Charlottesville, Virginia
Average starting salary:$150,823
Annual tuitionand fees:$63,500
The Darden School of Business offers one of the topMBA entrepreneurship programsamong b-schools, awarding over $1 million in scholarships annually and offering highly specialized training likeVenture Capital Bootcamp,a three-day workshop focused on early-stage investing. More than 90%of Darden grads accept job offers within 90 days of graduation, with a many landing in at consulting firmslike Bain & Co. and A.T. Kearney.
3. Stanford University — Graduate School of Business
Location:Palo Alto, California
Average starting salary:$153,553
Annual tuitionand fees:$66,540
Oftenranked as a top-two business school, Stanford failed to reach the summit this year inthe overall rankingin part due to lower job placement figures than competing schools. Sixty-three percent of theclass of 2016were employed by graduation, and 82% were employed three months after graduation — each figure well below the marks reached by the top-3 MBA programs.Stanford attributes the drop tostudents becoming more patient and selective.
Butgraduates whodid accept a job commanded compensation packagesthat more than cover the entire $133,080 price tag for the two-year degree.
2. Harvard University — Harvard Business School
Location:Cambridge, Massachusetts
Average starting salary:$153,830
Annual tuitionand fees:$75,353
Theworld’s oldest— and most expensive — MBA program, Harvard Business School is also oftenconsidered the best. When it comes to graduate compensation, it’s second only toThe Wharton School.
The high average-starting salary its graduates command, the school’s reputation with employers, and the HBS network ofmore than 46,000 living alumnimake it one of the most coveted businessschools for students. HBS’scadre of successful alumni— littered withpoliticians, CEOs, and billionaires — is unrivaled: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former President George W. Bush, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, and HP ChairmanMeg Whitman all graduated from the institution.
1. University of Pennsylvania — The Wharton School
Location:Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Average starting salary:$155,058
Annual tuition and fees:$73,634
The Wharton School tied with Harvard Business School for the top spot inthe overall ranking, but it stands alone when it comes to salary. It’s the second-most expensive program in the country, but Wharton’s high average starting salary, stellar reputation, and96% job placementwithin the first three months of graduation make it a worthwhile investment.
The first business school in the US, Wharton was established in 1881 from a $100,000 donation by industrial tycoon Joseph Wharton. The institute now boasts one of thelargest alumni networks among b-schools, includingnotable figureslike John Sculley of Pepsi and Apple, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, and billionaire financierRon Perelman.
