Comments on No Debt MBA: MBA earnings, cost, and debt

LAL - Here are some reference points for me...

2011-07-20T05:40:07.242-07:00

LAL - Here are some reference points for median starting salary at big state schools:
University of Virginia (Darden) - $100,000
University of Minnesota (Carlson) - $90,000
University of Maryland (Smith) - $$85,625
For more data points see:
http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/bs_2010_US_FTMBA_TAB_1111.html

People go to lower ranked schools (my guess) because they can't get in elsewhere or they are offered merit aid. The ROI is sketchier but with significant aid or an employer sponsorship it may still make financial sense. However, I would bet that there are also students at these programs who haven't seriously looked at ROI or aren't concerned with it.

What does the average mba from these schools make ...

2011-07-19T17:09:13.138-07:00

What does the average mba from these schools make compared to the average school where they charge just as much to go to a lesser named MBA program? Why go to a lower ranked school full time?

JT - I was thinking it'd be cool to see...

2011-07-15T05:18:34.027-07:00

JT - I was thinking it'd be cool to see the 25th and 75th percentile data for each, standard deviation and mean. Then you'd really see the effect of start ups vs financiers vs non profits. I'm betting Wharton has a lower variance than Stanford or HBS for example.

Two observations: 1) The Harvard brand rocks. I...

2011-07-14T10:27:06.523-07:00

Two observations:

1) The Harvard brand rocks. It just does.

2) Haas is an "also ran" with Stanford. It's kind of like how Pepsi sells a ton of soda, but Coke still cleans their clock.

Also, there's probably some bias in the degrees at each university. Wharton, for example, probably has more finance MBAs than Stanford. Stanford's MBA grads are more likely to start their own businesses, which, assuming they do well, brings up the average, but hardly the median earnings.

Very cool post, NDM.

Danielle - Thanks for the feedback. I'...

2011-07-14T06:13:38.323-07:00

Danielle - Thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure what the issue is but I noticed the problem in Google Reader as well. Hopefully I can sort it out.

Anyone have it happen outside of Google Reader?

Anonymous - 8 is definitely a small sample size, but my guess would be that earnings would on average decrease as you went down the rankings. In general, I don't pay much attention to schools below the top 20 since the ROI gets sketchy. There's more thoughts on ROI and ranking in this Poets and Quants article:
/2011/06/27/when-is-an-mba-worth-it%E2%80%94when-is-it-not/

FWIW, I didn't mean this post as any sort of robust analysis, just wanted to throw the data together and see if anything stuck out. I think it might be hard to do a more robust analysis since a top school is so different from a school ranked around 100 and a lot of it is based on intangibles.

A sample size of 8 schools is pretty small. Do you...

2011-07-13T11:42:48.828-07:00

A sample size of 8 schools is pretty small. Do you think this correlation will still apply for lower ranked schools? What if you expanded the data to include 50 or 100 schools instead?

I couldn't see the graphs in Google Reader.

2011-07-13T07:19:55.920-07:00

I couldn't see the graphs in Google Reader.