2020 was a year full of uncertainties. COVID19 disrupted the global economy, the big MBA recruiters, and naturally the business schools and students. Despite the global changes that occurred, MBA grads continue to see high demand from all employers for post-MBA positions at high salaries. ARINGO anticipates this demand to keep increasing with the pandemic diminishing and the Biden-Harris Administration commencing.

When looking at the Top 25 US Business Schools and MBA Programs graduates, Stanford Graduate Business School’s base salary for alumni tops the list with an annual average salary of $159,544. This is the sixth straight year that Stanford tops this list. MBA graduates from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Business School and Chicago Booth graduates are following Stanford and making on average an annual base salary of around $150,000. The main reason for this difference, is the location of the alumni, as the salaries in California, tend to be higher than salaries in other states.

When looking at the salaries of alumni from the top 25 US MBA programs, 23 of them (all, excluding Wharton and Columbia), have reported a salary increase. Overall, the MBA graduates’ average base salary, in 2020, increased at a rate of 2.3% in comparison to the previous year. This is less than the 4.9% base salary increase MBA alumni saw in 2019.

The NYU Stern MBA alumni were the MBA graduates who saw the highest growth in their average base salary of around 6.3% growth in comparison to the previous year.

As you can imagine, in addition to base salaries, top MBA graduates also tend to receive high bonuses as part of their total compensation packages (as well as company stock and options). The highest average bonuses were given this year to NYU Stern graduates ($37,892), followed by Cornell Jonson ($36,391), Washington Foster ($36,380), Duke Fuqua ($35,032), and Georgetown McDonough ($34,707).

The highest growth occurred at Washington Foster, with a 26.6% increase in the average bonus rate of MBA alumni. Emory MBA graduates reported a 25.5% increase in their post-MBA average bonuses.

Alumni and the schools’ career management teams played a major role this year in getting their MBA graduates into new roles at the top companies. It was anticipated that MBA recruitment might be difficult during the pandemic, hence, the early planning ensured enough opportunities for the graduates.

We found some more interesting statistics in this article: https://poetsandquants.com/2021/01/17/still-rising-average-starting-salaries-kept-growing-for-mbas-in-2020/