MIT Sloan School of Management – Ethan Baron photo
Everyone interested in a specialized master’s program at a U.S. business school runs into the same problem: the degrees have taken off so fast that information about them has not been consolidated into anything resembling the clearinghouses available for research into MBA programs.
Sorting out which U.S. B-school master’s programs are the best choices for a particular student can be difficult. No reliable rankings exist. U.S. News & World Report‘s rankings of specialty master’s programs are shallow and subjective, based only on survey responses from business school deans and directors of accredited master’s programs. The Financial Times rankings of finance and management master’s programs focus mainly on European schools.
And lest you stumble upon the host of specialized-master’s rankings at “TFE Times” and think they must be heaven sent, note the website’s other content, such as “Saving Your Pet With CPR,” “What If You Made Alien Contact?” and “222 Powerful Actions (sic) Verbs to Use in Resume.” (That type of distracting content, however, did not deter the Michigan State Broad College of Business from hyping, on its website, its No. 7 ranking from TFE for its business analytics program. Indeed, the Syracuse University Whitman School had its master of finance program director in October publicly salute his program’s No. 33 TFE ranking, and the University of Rochester Simon School lists its four spots in the TFE ranking among its placements alongside its rankings in U.S. News, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and the Financial Times.)
To fill that gap, Poets&Quants has compiled important data for specialty master’s programs at the top 50 business schools in America. For the top 25 schools, we list all programs, the years they were started, their durations, and total program tuition. For schools 26 through 50, we list all programs. In the near future, Poets&Quants will publish a comprehensive list of specialized master’s programs at the top 100 schools, including durations and tuition.
Specialized Master’s Programs at the Poets&Quants Top 25 Business Schools, by rank:
| School and Program | Start Year | Duration | Total Tuition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard Business School | None | N/A | N/A |
| Stanford Graduate School of Business MSx Program | 1958 (as Sloan Master’s Program) | 1 year | $121,040 |
| University of Chicago Booth School of Business | None | N/A | N/A |
| University of Pennsylvania Wharton School | None | N/A | N/A |
| Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management: MS in Management Studies | 2013 | 10 months | $48,000 |
| Columbia Business School MS in Financial Economics | 2011 | 2 years | $53,000 |
| Columbia Business School MS in Marketing | 2010 | 1 year | $55,800 |
| MIT Sloan School of Management: MS in Management Studies (MBA or equivalent students of partner schools only) | 2009 | 1 year | $65,750 |
| MIT Sloan School of Management: Master of Finance | 2009 | 1 year; 18 months | 1 year: $75,850; 18 months: $100,350 |
| U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business: Master of Financial Engineering | 2001 | 1 year | $66,082 |
| Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business | None | N/A | N/A |
| Yale University School of Management: Master of Advanced Management (MBA graduates from partner schools only) | 2012 | 1 year | $63,380 |
| Duke University Fuqua School of Business: Master of Management Studies (also, MMS in partnership with Duke Kunshan University, China) | 2009 (2014 w/Duke Kunshan University) | 10 months | $48,900 (160,000RMB for Chinese students in Duke Kunshan University) |
| University of Virginia Darden School of Business | None | N/A | N/A |
| University of Michigan Ross School of Business: Master of Management | 2014 | 10 months | In-state: $44,510; out-of-state: $49,510 |
| University of Michigan Ross School of Business: Master of Supply Chain Management | 2009 | 1 year | In-state: $56,590; out-of-state: $61,590 |
| University of Michigan Ross School of Business: Master of Accounting | 1983 (as 4+1 w/BBA); 1998 (standalone program) | 8 months | In-state: $44,800; out-of-state: $49,800 |
| UCLA Anderson School of Management: Master of Financial Engineering | 2008 | 13.5 months | $58,986 |
| Cornell University Johnson School of Management | None | N/A | N/A |
| NYU Stern School of Business: MS in Accounting | 2016 | 10 months | $51,500 (expected) |
| NYU Stern School of Business: MS in Business Analytics (part-time) | 2013 | 1 year | $68,750 |
| NYU Stern School of Business: Global MS in Risk Management (part-time) | 2009 | 1 year | $68,750 |
| NYU Stern School of Business: MS in Global Finance (executive) 60% in China, 40% in U.S. | 2007 | 1 year | $69,000 |
| University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School: Master of Accounting (also online version) | 1985 (2015 online) | 1 year (online: 15-36 months) | In-state: $41,988; out-of-state: $59,801 (online: about $60,000) |
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