Thinking of Going for an MBA?

A big question a lot of people ask is are MBA's really worth the cost?

You can expect to spend anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000 (Typically these are the ivy league's) for the degree. While more compensation is one of the benefits of MBA's they typically provide more opportunities for higher corporate positions and leadership roles. Simply put, they can turbo charge your business career.

Recently there have been some criticisms of American MBA programs, specifically the lack of emphasis on ethics and perhaps an over emphasis on management theory.

I figured I would let the numbers do the talking and dug up this table that shows pre and post MBA compensation from top American business schools. I thought it might be of interest for others to see.

Rank	Business School	Pre MBA Salaries*	Median Total Pay Package	Percent Increase
1	U. of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$60,000	$156,000	160%
2	Northwestern (Kellogg)	$56,000	$142,000	154%
3	Stanford	$65,000	$165,500	155%
4	Harvard	$65,000	$160,000	146%
5	Columbia	$50,000	$142,500	185%
6	Duke (Fuqua)	$49,000	$128,500	162%
7	MIT (Sloan)	$55,000	$149,000	171%
8	Chicago	$55,000	$140,000	155%
9	Cornell (Johnson)	$50,000	$135,000	170%
10	Dartmouth (Tuck)	$50,000	$149,500	199%
11	Michigan	$50,000	$131,000	162%
12	NYU (Stern)	$45,000	$140,000	211%
13	UC -- Berkeley (Haas)	$50,000	$135,000	170%
14	Virginia (Darden)	$50,000	$135,000	170%
15	Yale	$45,000	$130,000	189%
16	UCLA (Anderson)	$55,000	$136,500	148%
17	Carnegie Mellon	$45,000	$125,000	178%
18	UNC -- Chapel Hill	$48,000	$125,000	160%
19	Texas -- Austin (McCombs)	$45,000	$107,000	138%
20	Indiana (Kelley)	$42,000	$114,000	171%
21	USC (Marshall)	$45,000	$112,000	149%
22	Purdue (Krannert)	$35,000	$101,500	190%
23	Rochester (Simon)	$40,000	$110,000	175%
24	Georgetown (McDonough)	$45,000	$116,000	158%
25	Washington U. (Olin)	$42,000	$109,000	160%

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