Which MBA programmes offer the highest ROI?

An MBA degree can further your career or catapult you into a different industry, but mainly it should significantly increase your salary. Given that high quality programmes can set students back several hundred thousand dollars this return on investment (ROI) should be one of the deciding factors when choosing and applying to business school.

Looking at the recent Financial Times’ Global MBA Ranking 2017, the tuition fees pay off if students study at the high-ranked schools. Most of these graduates were able to increase their salaries by 100 per cent. Graduates from the top 40 schools earned on average between US$ 120,625 (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University) and 195,322 (Stanford Graduate School of Business) three years after graduation. For many this is close to 100 per cent increase from their previous salary.

The highest salary increases were found in Asian and Latin American countries though with Ipade Business School in Mexico (rank 97) achieving salary boosts of 180 per cent and China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University of 172 per cent.

Looking at western countries it seems to particularly beneficial to study at the top 20 schools – all well-known and highly regarded schools across the globe.

An MBA at the top US schools Stanford, Wharton and Harvard yield graduates US$195,322, US$181,634 and US$178,113 respectively. This is an increase between 92 and 97 per cent. Columbia Business School graduates earn US$172,624 (103 per cent) and an MBA degree from the University of Chicago’s Booth pushes the salary up to US$168,200 (110 per cent).

Graduation from Insead – which leads the ranking table for the second time in a row – also proves to pay off. Graduates earn an average of US$167,657 three years after graduation and therefore boost their income by 95 per cent.

UK business schools like the University of Cambridge’s Judge School and London Business School manage to catapult their graduates to US$164,462 (107 per cent) and US$154,567 (92 per cent) respectively.

Spanish business schools IE Business School and Iese Business School also live up to their reputation. IE Business School graduates earn an average of US$168,923 three years after graduation, an increase by 108 per cent, and alumni from Iese Business School rake in US$147,596, an increase by 133 per cent.

Chinese business school Ceibs which ranked number 11 in this year’s FT ranking pays off big for alumni. The average salary after three years in the workforce has climbed to US$159,870, a 155 per cent increase.

Read more at Rankings FT