At more than $85,000, the University of Melbourne MBA is most expensive in Australia. The Executive MBA (EMBA) will set you back close to $100,000. While it may seem a lot by local standards with the average MBA costing about $47,500 it is nothing compared to the top US schools.
Poets & Quants recently identified at least nine US MBA courses that will set you back more than $US200,000. That’s about $263,000 in the local currency. In comparing to Australian schools it is important to remember most US school fees include tuition, fees, room and board, and other expenses.
Most of the explosion in US fees has occurred over the last four years when New York University’s Stern School of Business became the first to crack the $200,000 barrier.
Four years on there are now nine schools; Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Poets & Quants identified five further school where the cost is more than $US180,000. The average percentage increase at those top 15 schools between 2016 and 2017 was just under 7%.
So how does that compare to Australian schools? Putting the most expensive MBA in the US (Stanford) next to the most expensive school in Australia (Melbourne) is difficult because one is a two-year degree the other takes a single year.
Total MBA Costs in Australian Dollars (FX rate = 0.76c)
| Stanford Business School (2 years) | Melbourne Business School ( 1 year) | |
| Tuition | 52,340 | 85,470 |
| Living Allowance | 27,198 | 30,160 |
| Books | 1,154 | |
| Materials | 878 | |
| Transport | 1,528 | |
| Medical insurance | 3,776 | 750 |
| Health fee | 479 | |
| Year One | 87,351 | 116,380 |
| Year Two | 87,351 | |
| TOTAL | 174,703 | 116,380 |
| FT Ranking | 2 | 76 |
| Average Salary (3 years after graduation) | 148,445 | 100,319 |
The comparison doesn’t take into consideration the income lost while you are out of the workforce. Gulp!
But remember an MBA is a ticket to boosting income by leaps and bounds. According to new figures from the Graduate Management Admission Council, projected median base starting salary for recent MBA grads in the U.S. is $110,000, up from $105,000 in 2016 and an incredible 83% premium over recent bachelor’s-degree holders, “who can expect to receive a median starting salary of $60,000 in 2017,” GMAC says.
For more on Stanford Fees visit: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/mba/financial-aid/cost-summary
For more on Melbourne Business School Fees visit: https://mbs.edu/education-development/degreeprograms/fulltimemba
