Dublin, IE · 12 months
UCD Smurfit MBA: cost, salary and payback
A 12-month MBA in Dublin with a class that averages 9 years of work experience, and no employment report.
Paid back after graduation in
salary not published
Total cost $165,049
| Tuition and fees, whole program | $52,181 |
| Living budget | $22,868 |
| Salary given up, 12 months | $90,000 |
| Total cost | $165,049 |
| Salary after: salary | not published |
US dollars at the ECB rate of the last update. Raises of 5% a year with the MBA and 3% without, discounted at 5%, before tax. How this is calculated.
Fees and budget read on October 13, 2026 · employment: latest report (school standard) · Built by Radif Partners · Method
- Tuition and fees
- €46,640
- Total cost, salary given up included
- n/a
- Salary
- not published
- Payback, reference person
- not computable
The full-time MBA at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in Dublin charges €39,640 in tuition, the same for EU and non-EU students, and the school adds a €7,000 line for the global network week, study tours and visas, part of it discretionary. Its budget for living on campus over the 12 months is €20,440, for €67,080 in all, about $75,049. A person earning $90,000 today would also give up $90,000 of salary, more than all of those lines together. The total and the payback stop there: the school publishes no employment report and no graduate salary, so this site computes no payback and no ten-year value. What sets the class apart is its seniority: 9 years of experience on average, as high as at any school on this site, with 83% of students from outside Ireland.
A senior class, and what that does to the bill
No school on this site reports a more experienced class than UCD Smurfit: students arrive with 9 years of work on average, at an average age of 32. That matters more than the fees. A person at that stage often earns well above the reference salary of $90,000, and the pay given up during the 12 months grows with it, while the tuition stays at $44,349. For the reference person the year away already costs $90,000; for a manager earning twice that, it costs twice as much, and a one-year format keeps that line well below what a two-year program would take. Type your own salary below to see the figure for you.
The salary you give up while you study
Salary given up, net of the internship
$157,500
| Gross salary not earned | $157,500 |
| Per month away | $7,500 |
Pension contributions and raises you would have had are not counted here.
What the travel line and the living budget cover
The €7,000 the school lists beside tuition pays for the global network week, study tours and visas. It is part of the school's own estimate of the year's cost, but some of it is discretionary spending, so a student who travels less pays less. Textbooks are listed separately. The living budget of €20,440 assumes on-campus accommodation with utilities, plus food; the school's off-campus estimate is higher, so a student who rents in the city should budget above the figure counted here. Both figures come from the school's indicative investment table for a 12-month year.
No employment report to read
UCD Smurfit publishes no employment report and no salary for its graduates. The school quotes salary growth three years after the degree from the Financial Times survey of alumni, a measure of later careers that does not tell a new student what the first job pays. It lists employers that have hired its graduates over recent years, McKinsey, Google and Kellogg's among them, without hire counts or years. That is why the school is absent from our rankings, which need a salary and a share of the class by destination. Candidates should ask admissions for the most recent class's base salaries and the share that changed country before committing; the calculator at the top takes any figure you type.
A fee or a salary in US dollars
In US dollars
$111,880
| 1 EUR | $1.119 |
ECB reference rate of October 13, 2026. Prices on the ground do not follow exchange rates one for one.
Where UCD Smurfit stands in our rankings
Not ranked: UCD Smurfit does not publish a graduate salary or the split of the class by industry, which our ranking needs. Its cost is complete above.
Our fit score, reference person earning $90,000 before the MBA (method). Third-party rankings play no part in it. For reference, UCD Smurfit was ranked 73 in the FT Global MBA 2026.
What the UCD Smurfit MBA costs
| Item | EUR, and US dollars |
|---|---|
| Tuition, whole program | €39,640 $44,349 |
| Mandatory fees | €7,000 $7,832 |
| Living budget, whole program | €20,440 $22,868 |
Employers named by UCD Smurfit
McKinsey · Google · Kellogg's · EY · Grant Thornton · PwC · Amazon · HubSpot · Facebook · LinkedIn · Salesforce · Mainstream Renewable Power · KPMG · Novartis · Accenture · Roche · CRH · Glanbia
Names only: the school gives no hire counts.
The UCD Smurfit class
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| International students | 83% |
| Women | 49% |
| Average age | 32 |
| Average years of work experience | 9 |
Not published by UCD Smurfit in the documents we read: a graduate salary; the split of the class by industry; where graduates went to work; the split by job function. We leave these blank rather than fill them with an estimate.