Great News On The MBA Job Front: Higher Pay & Job Offers

Most business schools are tallying up the final career stats for the Class of 2014 and won't release their pay and placement data for another month or so. But this week two highly ranked schools--one private and one public--published their stats and they are among the best ever endorsements for the value of the MBA degree.

At Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business starting salaries were up, along with job offers and acceptances this year at levels not seen since before the Great Recession. The reports are a likely harbinger of good news to come from the nation's top business schools.

Tuck reported that 91% of the class that graduated on June 8 had offers–exactly the same as last year–but that number zoomed to 98% three months later, up by three percentage points from the 95% rate in 2013. “That is as high as I have seen it,” said Jonathan Masland, director of Tuck’s counseling and recruiting in career development. “But the economy is continuing to recover, the students worked hard and the recruiters and alumni really wanted our students. It was a very strong year.”

Average starting salaries hit $117,860 this year, up 2.5% from $115,031 a year earlier. Average signing bonuses–reported by 87% of the class–were $28,712, while other guaranteed compensation averaged $34,431. For a graduating student who collected all three forms of compensation, the average would have totaled a whopping $181,003. Tuck’s median base salary this year was $116,000, just $4,000 less than last year’s median at Harvard Business School which has yet to report its numbers.

For the 502 MBA graduates in Ross’ Class of 2014, it also was a very good year. Median starting salaries rose 2.8% this year to $115,000, from $112,000 in 2013. Average starting salaries were slightly higher, rising 3.5% to $115,309, from $111,417 in 2013. Median signing bonuses were the same at $25,000, while other guaranteed first-year bonuses was $16,750, up from $15,000 a year earlier.

Some 89.2% of the class received job offers by graduation, up from 85.1% a year earlier, while 93.0% had job offers three months after commencement, up from 88.7% in 2013.

The highest starting salaries at Ross were achieved by MBAs who went into consulting, which attracted slightly above a third of the entire class at 34%. The median base salary for consultants this year was $135,000, with 98% of the MBAs reporting that they had also received median signing bonuses of $25,000 and 60% reporting other guaranteed median bonus of $25,000. Students who collected all three forms of compensation in consulting–clearly the majority–would have left Ross with starting median pay packages of $185,000.

Nice work if you can get it--and further validation that the MBA degree is among the most valuable graduate degrees anyone could get.

For more detailed analysis of the Tuck and Ross employment reports, check out PoetsandQuants.com:

Amazon Displaces Deloitte As Top Employer Of Ross MBAs

This Year's Tuck Career Stats Among Best Ever