Schools in the United States were the first to offer MBA degrees, but its international counterparts are catching up. The advantage: a global experience thanks to classes and professors with varied international backgrounds. These are the top two-year MBA programs based on the return on investment they offer.
#1 London
Location: London, UK
5-year MBA gain: $102,100
Pre-MBA salary (class of 2010): $78,000
2014 salary (class of 2010): $210,000
London Business School is the top two-year MBA program in Europe. One in eight members of the 2014 class landed jobs after graduation with either McKinsey or the Boston Consulting Group. Other top hiring firms include Amazon.com, Bain and Citigroup.
#2 IESE
Location: Barcelona, Spain
5-year MBA gain: $84,800
Pre-MBA salary: $69,000
2014 salary: $159,000
IESE is centered in Barcelona but has locations in Madrid, New York, Sao Paulo and Munich. Students from 56 countries are taught by faculty of 30 different nationalities. English is the only required language, but IESE was the first business school in the world to offer a bilingual MBA degree.
#3 HEC-Paris
Location: Paris, France
5-year MBA gain: $77,800
Pre-MBA salary: $64,000
2014 salary: $152,000
Experiential learning is the heart of HEC's MBA program and most students engage in a fieldwork project during the customized phase. Roughly half of the class of 2014 stayed to work in Europe after graduation.
#4 Ceibs
Location: Shanghai, China
5-year MBA gain: $72,400
Pre-MBA salary: $35,000
2014 salary: $129,000
The school’s main campus is in Shanghai, but it has satellite campuses in Shenzhen and Beijing. Only 7% of its 2016 class came from Europe, and 81% hailed from Asia—most of them from Mainland China.
#5 Hong Kong UST
Location: Hong Kong, China
5-year MBA gain: $69,000
Pre-MBA salary: $55,000
2014 salary: $156,000
HKUST is a 16-month program focused on business in mainland China and its connections to the rest of the world. HKUST also offers a 12-month accelerated program. More than 80% of the school's grads work in Asia after obtaining their degrees.
#6 Manchester
Location: Manchester, UK
5-year MBA gain: $64,000
Pre-MBA salary: $46,000
2014 salary: $124,000
Manchester's two-year program focuses on international business through real-world learning. Students complete a 10-week internship and do three consultancy projects.
#7 Singapore
Location: Singapore
5-year MBA gain: $62,700
Pre-MBA salary: $18,000
2014 salary: $79,000
The business school was nearly impossible to get into in recent years with only 2.4% of 4,667 applicants accepted for the class of 2010. But applications are down 72% since then, pushing up the acceptance rate to 16% for the most recent class.
#8 Ipade
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
5-year MBA gain: $60,600
Pre-MBA salary: $27,000
2014 salary: $86,000
The school doubled the percentage of students from outside of Mexico over the past two years with 19% of the student body now non-Mexican. Ipade offers students exchange programs thanks to agreements with 70 schools around the world, including Ceibs, LBS, Kellogg and Tuck.
#9 York (Schulich)
Location: Toronto, Canada
5-year MBA gain: $59,200
Pre-MBA salary: $42,000
2014 salary: $103,000
Schulich focuses on international business and draws most of its students from outside of Canada in its program that lasts 16 or 20 months. Half of the 2016 class came from Asia. Two Canadian banks headquartered in Toronto, CIBC and Scotiabank, hired the most 2014 Schulich grads.
#10 Esade
Location: Barcelona, Spain
5-year MBA gain: $48,400
Pre-MBA salary: $57,000
2014 salary: $128,000
The four pillars of the full-time MBA program are Innovation, Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Leadership. Students can choose to take a bilingual course load in either English and Spanish or English and Catalan, the traditional language of Barcelona. The other option is all classes in English.
#11 Australian GSM
Location: Sydney, Australia
5-year MBA gain: $37,400
Pre-MBA salary: $59,000
2014 salary: $139,000
The MBA program at the AGSM @ UNSW Business School was the first in Australia accredited by the AACSB. The 16-month program is divided into the core phase and elective phase. Before the elective stage starts, students embark on a 2-3 week reflective practice program called Integrative Experience. Eighty percent of the 2016 class came from outside Australia.
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