The Compensation Gap: Why U.S. B-Schools Dominate the Global Ranking
Geography proves to be the key even as international applications to U.S. schools decline.
Attendees mingle during the grand opening of the Knight Management Center at Stanford Graduate School of Business in Palo Alto, Calif., on April 29, 2011.
Photographer: Tony Avelar/BloombergThe only non-U.S. school to crack the top 10 in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best B-Schools global ranking is IMD, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Four schools outside the U.S. made the top 30.
Why? Mostly, it comes down to money. Survey respondents overwhelmingly identified compensation—the potential for high-paying work after graduation—as their No. 1 factor in choosing a business school. Compensation is weighted more heavily than other factors in determining the overall rankings. (Networking, Learning, and Entrepreneurship indexes make up the rest of the ranking.) The global survey found that currently employed MBA graduates from U.S. schools had median compensation of $145,000 a year, 16 percent more than the $125,000 for graduates of non-U.S. schools. IMD made the top 20 of our Compensation Index, at No. 17 (London Business School landed at No. 23), reflecting high pay and high employment rates for its alumni.