Aug 29, 2025
3 min read
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MBA Pay By Occupation & Industry: Here’s How Much You’re Worth by: Jeff Schmitt on August 29, 2025 | 104 Views August 29, 2025 Copy Link Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email Share on LinkedIn Share on WhatsApp Share on Reddit You made it. You’re here. You’re one of the chosen. Welcome to business school! What does that mean? To employers, you’ve been pre-screened. Admissions put you to the test. They evaluated your pedigree and achievements. They’ve observed your soft skills to see if you were a likeable team player. Your GMAT and GRE scores showed you could hack the core quant courses. Not to mention, your recommenders trumpeted all of your virtues. You’re low risk with a high ceiling – a potential cornerstone and difference-maker. Business school just adds the final polish. In a year, employers know you’ll be ready. Then, you can cash in. Question is, what are you worth – and what can you negotiate? NOT EVERYONE GETS THE SAME PAY STARTING OUT That’s where U.S. News & World Report comes into play. Each year, U.S. News collects base pay statistics from hundreds of graduate business schools. Believe employers are lock-step in their offers with no room for negotiation? Think again. Take consulting. Which 2024 graduate earned the highest starting base salary? Had to be a Harvard Business School grad, right? No – it was a proud graduate of Georgia Tech’s Scheller College at $312,000 – $42,000 higher than the biggest paycheck from an HBS alum. Staying in consulting: expecting Wharton grads to average more in starting pay than its counterparts? Actually, the school finished 8th in base pay for first-year hires at $178,217, behind the likes of Duke University’s Fuqua School and UC Berkeley’s Haas School (though just roughly $4,000 less than #1 Dartmouth Tuck). Is it just consulting, you wonder? Fair question, so check out finance. Not surprisingly, Chicago Booth and Harvard Business School raked in the highest individual bases at $400,000 and $375,000 respectively. That said, a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Ross School collected $300,000 to start – $75,000 higher than the best base doled out to a grad at NYU Stern – supposedly a Wall Street darling. And the numbers fluctuate substantially between years at the high end. Case in point: MIT’s Sloan. In 2023, a MIT Sloan grad started out at $550,000 in finance. A year later, the highest-paid Sloan grad came in with a $250,000 base. The same could be said for Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, where the highest-paid grad plummeted from $450,000 to $225,000 in finance from 2023 to 2024. A SCHOOL-BY SCHOOL LOOK ACROSS 19 INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS Bottom line: there is wiggle room in what MBAs can earn starting out – regardless of industry or alma mater. Call it a puzzle piece that can alert you to when you can apply those frameworks you absorbed in your core Negotiations Strategy course. Looking at school numbers side-by-side, you can identify where you fall (and how much extra you might be able to squeeze out). Even more, you can see just how much pay has increased over the past year as you prepare for the 2026 and 2027 hiring cycles. The year-over-year base pay averages may set parameters, but there are other factors to consider. Notably, base doesn’t inducements like starting and performance bonuses, let alone differences in 401K, health insurance, profit-sharing, tuition reimbursement, travel, and vacation pay – which can vary wildly between company packages. Of course, there are accelerators that can’t be measured strictly by numbers: greater responsibilities, unique experiences, and access to leadership. As always, there are regional pay differences baked in across the board. Still, industry pay provides a starting point for devising a data-driven strategy that enables you to maximize your worth early in the process. What are various industries willing to shell out for talent from certain schools? What are their pay floors and ceilings? How has pay changed by industry and school over the past two years? Click on the links below to see school-by-school listings of high, average, and low pay by occupation and industry. OCCUPATIONS MARKETING OPERATIONS GENERAL MANAGEMENT FINANCE CONSULTING INDUSTRIES CONSUMER PRODUCTS HEALTHCARE MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT AND NONPROFITS ENERGY REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING OTHER: RETAIL, MIS, HUMAN RESOURCES, GOVERNMENT, AND TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS OVERALL MBA PAY BY SCHOOL Editor’s Note: Class of 2025 pay data will begin to trickle out during the fall. DON’T MISS: MBA PAY BY U.S. REGION: HERE’S HOW MUCH YOU’RE WORTH Continue ReadingPage 1 of 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
