Figures checked on
MBA schools: cost, salary and payback
75 programs, each read in its own fees page and employment report.
Best fit for any industry (whole class), on your salary
Wharton
87% of the class (about 773 graduates) · $185,000 · payback 3.9 years
Fit score: share of the class (40%), salary (30%) and ten-year NPV for you (30%), each as a percentile among the schools shown. Schools under 0% of the class are not ranked. Method.
| # | School | Share | About | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WhartonPhiladelphia · 21 months | 87% | 773 | $185,000 | 3.9 years | $312,208 | 91 |
| 2 | UVA DardenCharlottesville · 21 months | 89.3% | 322 | $175,000 | 4.1 years | $257,290 | 87 |
| 3 | Chicago BoothChicago · 21 months | 87.8% | 558 | $175,000 | 4.1 years | $260,413 | 85 |
| 4 | ColumbiaNew York · 20 months | 90.4% | 888 | $175,000 | 4.5 years | $223,915 | 85 |
| 5 | MIT SloanCambridge · 21 months | 87.1% | 377 | $175,000 | 4.2 years | $245,659 | 82 |
| 6 | HarvardBoston · 21 months | 84% | 792 | $185,000 | 4.0 years | $300,068 | 82 |
| 7 | Dartmouth TuckHanover · 21 months | 87% | 264 | $175,000 | 4.3 years | $234,883 | 79 |
| 8 | KelloggEvanston · 21 months | 85.5% | 457 | $175,000 | 4.3 years | $241,009 | 76 |
| 9 | Stanford GSBStanford · 21 months | 81% | 352 | $185,000 | 4.0 years | $296,469 | 74 |
| 10 | NYU SternNew York · 21 months | 86% | 289 | $175,000 | 4.7 years | $194,432 | 72 |
| 11 | Emory GoizuetaAtlanta · 21 months | 81.7% | 105 | $175,000 | 3.9 years | $282,532 | 70 |
| 12 | Michigan RossAnn Arbor · 21 months | 84.3% | 319 | $170,000 | 4.2 years | $236,467 | 69 |
| 13 | Cornell JohnsonIthaca · 21 months | 83% | 229 | $175,000 | 4.5 years | $220,137 | 67 |
| 14 | Berkeley HaasBerkeley · 21 months | 84.1% | 230 | $167,250 | 4.5 years | $196,335 | 64 |
| 15 | Yale SOMNew Haven · 21 months | 79.9% | 293 | $175,000 | 4.3 years | $234,097 | 59 |
Share: % of the graduating class (or of those who accepted a job) the school reports for this goal. About: that share applied to the class size. * no salary published for this goal: school-wide figure. Salaries in US dollars at the ECB rate of the last update; “average” marks a mean where the school publishes no median.
Placing graduates here but not ranked: AGSM UNSW 87% (no salary published) · Alliance MBS 94% (no salary published) · CEIBS 90% (no living budget published) · EDHEC 84% (no salary published) · Esade 90% (no salary published) · Fudan 94.4% (no salary published) · HKUST 95% (no salary published) · IESE 80% (no salary published) · IIM Ahmedabad PGPX 96.4% (no living budget published) · IIM Lucknow IPMX 92.6% (no living budget published) · Nanyang (NTU) 93% (no salary published) · NUS 93% (no living budget published) · Rice Jones 71.3% (no living budget published) · SDA Bocconi 79% (no living budget published) · SKK GSB 93% (no salary published) · SMU 80% (no salary published) · USC Marshall 71% (no living budget published) · WashU Olin 78% (no living budget published).
75 business schools are on this site, each with a page built from the documents it publishes itself: the tuition and fees of the coming intake, the budget it gives students for rent, food and insurance, and the employment report of its latest graduating class. 42 of them publish both a graduate salary and a living budget, so our model can compute their total cost with the salary you give up, their payback period and their ten-year net present value, and rank them for an industry or a region. The other schools keep their page with the cost they publish and a plain list of what is missing. The table above recomputes every school for your own salary today; the lists below group them by where the campus is, with the figures for a person earning $90,000 before the MBA, converted to US dollars at the European Central Bank rate of October 13, 2026.
United States
| School | City | Tuition and fees | Total cost | Salary | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University | Tempe, Arizona | $130,000 | $350,452 | $121,116 average base salary | 8.6 years |
| Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley | Berkeley | $185,510 | $397,263 | $167,250 median base salary | 4.5 years |
| Questrom School of Business, Boston University | Boston, Massachusetts | $148,944 | $358,420 | $115,000 median base salary | 10.0 years |
| The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | Chicago | $186,256 | $386,014 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.1 years |
| Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh | $177,156 | $370,964 | $160,000 median base salary | 4.9 years |
| Columbia Business School | New York | $201,382 | $436,060 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.5 years |
| Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University | Ithaca | $180,768 | $410,556 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.5 years |
| Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth | Hanover | $187,372 | $417,730 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.3 years |
| The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University | Durham | $177,088 | $385,168 | $160,000 median base salary | 4.8 years |
| Goizueta Business School, Emory University | Atlanta | $174,480 | $367,692 | $175,000 median base salary | 3.9 years |
| McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University | Washington, DC | $159,710 | $367,450 | $145,500 median base salary | 5.9 years |
| Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta | $92,944 | $278,004 | $137,500 median base salary | 5.1 years |
| Harvard Business School | Boston | $183,316 | $418,136 | $185,000 median base salary | 4.0 years |
| Kelley School of Business, Indiana University Bloomington | Bloomington | $116,236 | $306,258 | $127,900 median base salary | 6.4 years |
| Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University | Evanston | $195,172 | $412,012 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.3 years |
| Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan | Ann Arbor | $163,269 | $381,433 | $170,000 median base salary | 4.2 years |
| Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, Minnesota | $137,584 | $353,480 | $135,058 average base salary | 6.7 years |
| MIT Sloan School of Management | Cambridge | $184,624 | $401,913 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.2 years |
| Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame | Notre Dame (South Bend), Indiana | $157,620 | $350,078 | $136,000 median base salary | 6.6 years |
| Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University | New York | $187,356 | $436,796 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.7 years |
| Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University | Houston | $160,878 | n/a | $141,500 median base salary | n/a |
| Stanford Graduate School of Business | Stanford | $197,676 | $419,380 | $185,000 median base salary | 4.0 years |
| McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin | Austin | $123,928 | $307,731 | $150,000 median base salary | 4.8 years |
| UCLA Anderson School of Management | Los Angeles | $186,177 | $402,505 | $160,096 median base salary | 5.0 years |
| UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Chapel Hill | $148,384 | $364,724 | $139,637 average base salary | 6.4 years |
| USC Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California | Los Angeles | $183,536 | n/a | $142,184 average base salary | n/a |
| Darden School of Business, University of Virginia | Charlottesville | $178,680 | $395,900 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.1 years |
| Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University | Nashville | $159,252 | $349,416 | $142,800 median base salary | 5.5 years |
| Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington | Seattle | $123,428 | $338,181 | $142,800 median base salary | 5.7 years |
| Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis | St. Louis | $150,920 | n/a | $126,000 median base salary | n/a |
| The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia | $186,016 | $402,342 | $185,000 median base salary | 3.9 years |
| Yale School of Management | New Haven | $182,800 | $415,452 | $175,000 median base salary | 4.3 years |
Canada
| School | City | Tuition and fees | Total cost | Salary | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ivey Business School, Western University | London, Ontario | CA$141,310 | $204,605 | CA$100,000 median base salary | 29.2 years |
| Smith School of Business, Queen's University | Kingston, Ontario | CA$111,600 | $181,707 | CA$104,496 average base salary | 26.1 years |
| Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto | Toronto, Ontario | CA$144,770 | n/a | not published | n/a |
United Kingdom and Ireland
| School | City | Tuition and fees | Total cost | Salary | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester | Manchester | £51,500 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge | Cambridge | £86,250 | $231,671 | £71,216 average base salary | 13.2 years |
| Imperial Business School, Imperial College London | London | £81,000 | $227,396 | £84,210 average base salary | 7.7 years |
| London Business School | London | £124,350 | $364,753 | £91,928 average base salary | 8.0 years |
| Saïd Business School, University of Oxford | Oxford | £94,120 | $238,122 | £81,466 average base salary | 8.8 years |
| UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin | Dublin | €46,640 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| Warwick Business School, University of Warwick | Coventry | £62,500 | $190,849 | £93,393 average base salary | 5.0 years |
Continental Europe
| School | City | Tuition and fees | Total cost | Salary | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EDHEC Business School, Global MBA | Nice | €52,500 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| Esade Business School (Universitat Ramon Llull) | Barcelona | €82,600 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| ESMT Berlin (European School of Management and Technology) | Berlin | €50,000 | n/a | €100,000 average total pay | n/a |
| ESSEC Business School, Global MBA | Paris La Défense | n/a | n/a | not published | n/a |
| HEC Paris | Jouy-en-Josas (Paris area) | €102,000 | $262,424 | $123,170 average total pay | 6.6 years |
| IE Business School (IE University) | Madrid | €91,100 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| IESE Business School, University of Navarra | Barcelona | €117,000 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| IMD (International Institute for Management Development) | Lausanne | CHF 97,500 | $250,396 | $136,940 average total pay | 4.8 years |
| INSEAD | Fontainebleau | €109,860 | $231,475 | €100,000 median base salary | 7.6 years |
| The Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova (Nova SBE and Católica Lisbon SBE) | Lisbon | €34,900 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| Mannheim Business School, University of Mannheim | Mannheim | €49,650 | $163,450 | $110,264 average base salary | 6.4 years |
| Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) | Rotterdam | €70,254 | $192,766 | €78,504 average base salary | 15.6 years |
| SDA Bocconi School of Management | Milan | €86,000 | n/a | €110,281 average total pay | n/a |
| Vlerick Business School | Brussels | €44,000 | n/a | not published | n/a |
Asia
Australia
| School | City | Tuition and fees | Total cost | Salary | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AGSM (Australian Graduate School of Management), UNSW Business School | Sydney | A$86,760 | n/a | not published | n/a |
| Melbourne Business School, The University of Melbourne | Melbourne | A$120,384 | n/a | not published | n/a |
Questions applicants ask
Which MBA school costs the least in total on this site?
For a person earning $90,000 before the MBA, ISB has the lowest total cost among the 42 schools that publish a living budget: $134,621, salary given up included. A low total cost is not a fast payback: the salary after the degree decides as much, and the payback column shows both together.
Why are some schools missing a total cost or a payback?
Because the school does not publish a living budget or a graduate salary in the documents we could read. Some keep their employment report behind a sign-up form. We show what the school does publish, say what is missing, and never fill the gap with a figure from a forum or a third-party website.
How are schools in different currencies compared?
Each figure stays in the school’s own currency on its page, and the tables convert it to US dollars at the European Central Bank reference rate of October 13, 2026. Market rates do not equalize living standards, which is why the calculators work for one person at a time, with their own salary.
Can I ask for a school to be added?
Yes, through the contact page. A school needs a public tuition page and a public employment report of its latest class, with at least a salary or the split of graduates by industry. We read both, record every figure with its link and date, and open a page once the school file passes our checks.
Published by Radif Partners
Publisher of an MBA return calculator built on the employment reports of each business school
Figures checked on · Editorial policy · Contact
A model, not a promise: salaries are what a past class reported to its school, costs are the school’s published fees and budget, and growth, discount rate and the salary you give up are assumptions you can change. Scholarships, taxes, visas and your own offer move the result. Every figure is an estimate, not financial advice, and it does not replace the school’s own admissions and financial aid offices.
Fees, budgets and employment reports for 2026, read in the schools’ own documents on