MBA Rankings: Take With A Pinch Of Salt

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The MBA is a global phenomenon. From its humble beginnings with four students taking the Master of Science in Commerce at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School more than a century ago, it is now the world’s most popular postgraduate program.

In 2011/12, the latest year for which figures are available, 191,571 students graduated from U.S. universities with masters degrees in business, up 65% on a decade before and a 620% increase on the figure 40 years ago.

Business courses now make up more than a quarter of all masters degrees, compared with one in four as recently as 2000.

All this makes MBAs big business. Average tuition for a two year MBA is around $60,000, although factoring in living costs and other expenses can take the total cost from a leading business school up towards $200,000. Add the opportunity cost of quitting a job for two years and it becomes more eye-watering still.

Little wonder that prospective MBA students spend many hours scouring ranking tables to try to work out if that investment is going to pay off.

And when faced with such a bewildering choice of business schools, these rankings are invaluable. They allow students to compare business schools on a range of factors, from the average score in admission tests of new entrants to the salary bump for graduates…