Top MBA Schools breaking the $200K Total Cost Barrier

• Stanford University is the costliest of all U.S. elite MBA programs at more than $225,000. 

• The average percentage increase at those top 15 schools between 2016 and 2017: just under 7%. 

• The median price tag of the degree at a Top 25 school is $185,747, up big from about $171,000 last year, which itself was an increase from about $168,000 the year before.

Schools with a total program cost of over $200,000

1. New York University’s Stern School of Business, 
2. University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School,
3. Columbia Business School.
4. Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business
5. University of Chicago Booth School of Business
6. MIT’s Sloan School of Management
7. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. 

Schools with a total program cost of over $180,000 

1. UCLA’s Anderson School of Management
2. Yale University’s School of Management
3. Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business
4. University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business
5. University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. 

Scholarships

At Stanford, the average yearly scholarship grant is about $35,000. At Harvard Business School, scholarship support to MBA students hit an unprecedented $34 million in 2016, up from $32 million a year earlier. In 2016, UC-Berkeley spread $5.8 million in scholarship money to its relatively small class of about 250 MBAs.

Income boost

According to new figures from the Graduate Management Admission Council, projected median base starting salary for recent MBA grads in the U.S. is $110,000, up from $105,000 in 2016 and an incredible 83% premium over recent bachelor’s-degree holders who can expect to receive a median starting salary of $60,000 in 2017.

Stanford GSB boasts about the $140,553 average salary and the $136,000 median for the Class of 2016; UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, the costliest public-school MBA program in the U.S., promises a 137% increase in salary six to eight years after graduation.

Rising Costs

- UCLA’s Anderson School cost rose 13.6% from $170,982 last year to $194,220

- Wharton up 9% to $218,900

- Duke Fuqua up 9.6% to $184,476
- Harvard up 8.5% to $213,600

- UC-Berkeley Haas up 7.6% increase to $183,342.