Business Schools - Financing your MBA

In the 2021-2022 MBA application cycle, only around 7,700 out of more than 40,000 applicants earned admission to an MBA program at one of the vaunted M7 business schools. About 4,700 enrolled that fall. That’s a 20.3% acceptance rate and a 60.3% yield.A year later, in 2022-2023, applicants to the M7 dropped by about 500, while admits grew to more than 8,000 — increasing the collective acceptance rate at Harvard Business School, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan School of Management, Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, and Chicago Booth School of Business to 21.8%. In two short years, the acceptance rate to an M7 had ballooned by more a third, up from an anemic 16.2%. Meanwhile, yield — the percentage of admits who actually enroll — fell at five schools, dropping collectively to 58.8%.The bottom line: In two short application cycles, M7 acceptance rate jumped 34% and yield dropped 10%. Is this the start of an era of greater accessibility at the most elite business schools in the U.S., which are among the most elite in the world — or the tail end of a short window, of a kind we have seen before? For the time being, it sure looks like the M7 are easier to get into now than they have been for many years.

If you want an elite two-year MBA from a top business school in the United States, and you don’t want to pay in excess of $200,000 for the privilege, you have very few options — and those options are dwindling every year.Twenty-two U.S. B-schools in the Poets&Quants top 25 charge admits to their full-time MBA programs at least $100K annually, according to a P&Q analysis, up from 19 schools at this time last year. In 2022, there were 15 B-schools whose MBAs cost that much; in 2018, there were only nine. The five most expensive MBAs in the U.S. carry price tags of more than a quarter million dollars.The only top-25 B-schools where an MBA can be earned for less than $200K over two years — a tally that includes tuition, living expenses and fees — are both in the same state: Texas. No. 18 Rice Jones Graduate School of Business carries an estimated two-year price tag of $195,789, while the full MBA experience at No. 19 Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business costs approximately $167,343.

There’s no getting around it. For many people, getting a prestigious MBA experience is an expensive proposition. It often leads young professionals into considerable MBA student debt.Just how much borrowing people do to obtain an MBA will likely surprise you. But the sums spent are an investment in yourself and your future. And the rewards, both tangible and intangible, do pay off over the course of one’s career.Even so, the MBA student debt numbers can feel like a difficult mountain to climb. The highest borrowing occurs at The Wharton School where graduates who borrow to get an MBA there leave campus with median debt of $161,635, higher than any other business school in the world. That’s more than the cost of a brand new Maserati Gran Turismo.

Not so long ago, many believed that online MBAs and other digitally-delivered degrees would democratize graduate business education, making it more accessible and affordable than their in-person counterparts.While those assumptions have played out in some disruptively priced programs, the cost of premium programs often tops six figures.In Poets&Quants’ seventh annual ranking of the best OMBAs, eight of 51 ranked programs charged tuition of $100,000. Just five schools charged that much in our two previous rankings.Business schools will argue that the curriculum, electives and even faculty are nearly identical to their full-time, in-person MBAs. Many also require in-person modules and residencies, and some offer trips around the country and abroad to supplement online learning.