Top US MBA graduates are still earning $175k in finance. Sometimes less, rarely more
If you want to start a career in finance, one of the most tried and tested ways is to get a top MBA. They can be expensive – up to $270k at some schools – but the upside is that you get to enter start a career in a high-paying industry with a high-paying role. Right. Right?
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Data compiled from the MBA employment reports of the top thirty schools in the USA – according to poetsandquants.com – shows that the average class of 2025 MBA graduate that works in finance earns a median salary of $175k.
That not bad, but it’s not exactly jaw-dropping. Salaries for MBA graduates in finance have been static for years now – three years ago, when we analysed starting salaries for Harvard’s 2022 MBA graduates, the starting salary for graduates working in financial services was… still $175k. At one point, one Harvard MBA graduate from 2021 who went into private equity earned $650k. The closest from 2025's class was someone who earned $470k.
US inflation since then (assuming a June graduation date) means that salaries should be around $190k now. The fact that they are still $175k indicates, effectively, an 8% pay-cut in purchasing power terms. US house prices alone have increased by around 20% to 25%.
There were a few exceptions to the $175k regularity. On the higher end, Stanford Business School MBA class of 2025 graduates earned $200k on average. On the lower end, nine schools’ MBA graduates earned below $175k – all the way down to the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, whose class of 2025 working in finance earned just $119k on average.
Additional bonuses varied, and data was patchy. The highest signing bonuses were for graduates from the Stern School of Business NYU, who received median bonuses of $56k. Only Harvard disclosed first year bonuses for finance professionals – a very tidy $119k.
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