How Much Does A Top MBA Degree Cost?

What’s the most expensive two-year MBA program? 

It's not Harvard or Stanford, or Wharton or Chicago, or Dartmouth or Yale.

Its's Columbia Business School. Columbia estimates that the cost of its two-year, full-time MBA program in New York is $168,307.

Harvard comes in as the seventh most expensive MBA program among the top 20 U.S. business schools.

The total cost of the Columbia program includes two years worth of tuition, fees, books, and the estimated costs to live in New York City. But as often is the case, these numbers are often conservative. Yale’s School of Managment makes clear that its esimates assume a “modest lifestyle.” Cornell informs applicants on its website that its estimate of $11,250 a year for living expenses is “based on the cost of sharing a moderately priced apartment” at a cost of $700 a month rent and putting aside $425 a month for food.

Most MBAs at elite schools will find it hard to live on that budget, especially in New York, Boston, Chicago, or San Francisco. 

In almost all cases, these “total cost” numbers–taken from the school’s websites–are very conservative estimates. Wharton’s $168,000 pricetag, for example, fails to include the cost of its Global Immersion Program, which ranges from $5,800 to $7,800, or the inevitable cost to join clubs, attend conferences and “parties,” which Wharton estimates at $860 a year. 

Those two omissions alone add 6% to the total cost estimate of an MBA degree. Stanford’s estimate of the total cost of its MBA degree doesn’t include a required “global study tour” which costs about $4,000. In most cases, you can expect the “total cost estimate” to be 10% to 20% higher, given your lifestyle preferences and desire to take full advantage of the MBA experience.

The costs of non-U.S. MBA programs can vary widely, especially because in Europe one-year programs are especially popular. London Business School’s 21-month MBA program looks like a bargain if you believe the estimate: $134,152, with $77,854 of that going to pay tuition. The accelerated 10-month MBA program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, costs just $102,714 (with about $73,000 of that for tuition). Of course, that’s the estimate from INSEAD for living expenses, food, and travel. Could you live in France on $30,000 over those ten months? Perhaps if you lived in a trailer or a tent.

The least expensive program is at the University of Texas at Austin. At a total cost of $127,144–more than $40,000 less than a Columbia MBA.

The most expensive public university in the MBA game is UCLA. Higher ranked B-schools at Berkeley, Michigan and Virginia are less expensive in total costs than the Anderson school in Los Angeles–largely because of the highest cost of living in L.A. than Berkeley, Ann Arbor, or Charlottesville.

MIT Sloan is most generous school in terms of financial aid? The school puts together the largest average financial aid packages of the top schools: $130,418. That’s more than $15,000 more than Columbia and more than twice the size of Berkeley’s $67,052 (the lowest amount reported by any of our top 20 schools).

 Harvard effectively discounts the sticker price of its MBA by paying out some $22 million a year in fellowship money. HBS says that nearly half of every MBA class receives an average of some $25,000 per year in “need-based” HBS Fellowships that are granted only on the basis of financial need and not academic merit. The school makes these awards based on an analysis of an applicant’s income for the prior three years as well as the applicant’s assets.