MBAs are the most common master’s degree program in the United States, and they are the degree of choice for many professionals who want to boost their careers, increase their earnings, and expand their networks.
MBA graduates are the most highly sought-after among global employers in 2023, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s corporate recruiter’s report. The report surveyed companies and found that 90% of them expect to hire MBA graduates in the coming year.
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This is good news for MBA graduates, as it means that they have a lot of job opportunities available to them. Employers are willing to pay MBA graduates more than candidates with other types of business master’s degrees or a bachelor’s degree. The median salary for MBA graduates in 2023 is expected to be $125,000. That compares with a projected median salary of $85,000 for graduates of other business master’s degree programs, such as management, business and data analytics, or finance.
If you are considering getting an MBA, now is a great time. Demand for MBA graduates is high and the salaries are good. That’s why for the third year in a row, Fortune has constructed a ranking of the Best MBA programs, to help prospective business school students navigate this competitive landscape.
In total, we ranked 81 MBA programs.
Among the 75 schools that were featured in this ranking and in 2022, the median salary reported among students three months after graduation was $118,000, compared to $111,500 last year.
Our final ranking is made up of three components: Outcomes Score, Fortune 1000 Score, and Brand Score. To participate in our ranking, business schools were requested to complete a questionnaire. If a notable, qualified school didn’t complete the questionnaire, Fortune pulled key metrics from the program’s website. In this ranking, this was the case for two schools.
Outcomes Score (65%)
The largest consulting firms, financial institutions, and Fortune 500 companies battle annually for the best and brightest new MBA grads. These companies are willing to pay more for grads of particular programs, while they skip some campuses altogether.
That’s why we made starting salaries such a big component of our ranking. We equally weighted median base salary and mean base salary for each program’s 2022 MBA class. We did not factor in pay like signing bonuses. Additionally, our Outcomes Score looked at the school’s job placement rate for its 2022 class. This is the percentage of new graduates who accepted a job within three months of graduation.
For earnings and placement questions, schools followed the MBA CSEA Standards for Reporting MBA Employment Statistics.
Brand Score (25%)
Fortune partnered with Ipsos to survey thousands of business professionals and hiring managers to get their thoughts on specific B-schools. This metric looks at business school brands, not just their full-time MBA program.
Ipsos deployed a survey methodology similar to the one it would use if a consumer brands company asked it to evaluate the company’s brand strength. For this research, Ipsos interviewed a total of 2,500 professionals. These professionals work in a corporate role, have attended college and/or an institution of higher education, and know at least two of the schools in our selection.
Ipsos completed the fieldwork between March 16 and March 24, 2021. The total length of each interview was 13 minutes. The results yielded a 95% confidence interval, which gives us a maximum ±1.96% margin of error. This analysis was done on a regional basis. The exception being the nation’s top 20 business schools (according to U.S. News & World Report’s latest ranking), which we also measured on a national basis.
The final score produced is a business school’s Attitudinal Equity (AE) measurement. That tells us, according to Ipsos, “how much a group of people want to recruit from the university. It is the university’s share of mind.” (For more on Attitudinal Equity scores, go here.)
Fortune 1000 Score (10%)
Good business schools help grads get good jobs, while elite programs help develop the future leaders of business. We sought to find schools with a good track record doing the latter. That’s why Fortune looked at the number of each school’s MBA alumni who are executives (C-suite only) at Fortune 1000 companies. The Fortune 1000 are the 1,000 largest U.S. publicly traded companies ranked by revenues, as compiled by Fortune. We evaluated the education history of everyone from CEOs to CFOs to CIOs and CTOs. The more Fortune 1000 C-level placement, the higher the school’s Fortune 1000 Score.
A school’s score includes Fortune 1000 C-levels who graduated with an MBA from the school, regardless of the type of MBA program.
Harvard Business Analytics Program
Earn a certificate that includes the Harvard nameThe Harvard Business Analytics Program is an online certificate program designed for established leaders in any industry. The program leverages a rigorous cross-disciplinary curriculum to help students not just analyze data but understand it, translate it, and incorporate it into strategy at the top levels of their organizations.