London Business School Tops List Of The Best 2-Year International MBA Programs
The global financial crisis that took down legendary U.S. firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns, had an equally devastating effect on firms in London, which wrestles with New York for the crown of “financial capital of the world.” Royal Bank of Scotland RBS -2.51%, HBOS and Lloyds TSB all became wards of the state to help stave off bankruptcy. The U.K. unemployment rate jumped 2.5 percentage points over 12-months starting in April 2008.
It was an awful time to enter the job market, but London Business School grads were still able to thrive. Ninety percent of the Class of 2008 landed a job within three months of graduation. Those students entered school in 2006 with a median salary of $77,000, but five years out of school they were earning $214,000 (onlyStanford Graduate School of Business alumni earned more in 2012). The strong financial payback propelled LBS to the top ranking among two-year International M.B.A. programs.
Every two years, Forbes spends the year surveying alumni and schools as part of a business school ranking. We surveyed 17,000 alumni this year from the Class of 2008 on their finances and heard back from 27% of them. We compared their earnings in their first five years out of business school to their opportunity cost (two years of forgone compensation, tuition and required fees) to arrive at a “5-year M.B.A. gain” (click here for detailed methodology).
The median 5-year gain for LBS grads was $120,700. It marks the biggest 5-year gain of any two-year program in the world, topping the $99,700 gain at Stanford. Three one-year European programs had bigger gains, led by IMD, but they have a built-in advantage on ROI as 12-month programs because students only lose one year of compensation.
FULL LIST: The Best International Business Schools
LBS grads earn back their hefty investment to get an M.B.A. by landing jobs at some of the most prestigious banks and consulting firms in the world. The top five employers last year were McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Citigroup, Bain and Deutsche Bank. Those four firms hired one-quarter of the entire 397 graduating Class of 2012.
The U.S. and Europe have been the dominant locales for business schools for decades, but some Asian schools are starting to rise to prominence. National University of Singapore ranks No. 2 this year among two-year programs with a 5-year gain of $95,900. The graduates from the Class of 2008 saw their pre-M.B.A. salaries shoot up from $14,000 to $92,000 five years out of school. The low compensation levels entering school helped the typical NUS grad earn back their investment in just 2.1 years–second best behind only Insead.
Headquartered in Singapore with programs across Southeast Asia, NUS hopes to train the next leaders of Asia’s major companies. Its acceptance rate of 5.2% for the Class of 2014 was the lowest of any school in our rankings. For comparison, Harvard Business School’s acceptance rate was 13%.
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology offers a 16-month M.B.A. program and ranks third with a 5-year gain of $91,000. Earnings jumped from $31,00o to $131,000 for the Class of 2008 fueled by finance jobs. The school sent half of its graduates into financial services last year.
Founded in 1991, HKUST focuses on business in mainland China and its connection to the rest of the world. Half of the professors are from outside of the China with 16% being American. NYU’s Stern School of Business and Kellogg School of Management both have partnerships with the school.
Canada’s top-ranked school this year is York University’s Schulich School of Business. Salaries for grads rose rose from $39,000 to $115,000 resulting in a 5-year gain of $54,400. The school focuses on international business and draws most of its students from outside of Canada. Scotiabank, headquartered in Toronto, hired more Schulich grads than any other company last year.
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