The Economist Releases its 2018 MBA Ranking

US schools continue to dominate; Chicago - Booth leads this year's list

News magazine The Economist has released its 2018 MBA Ranking.

This year, the MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business leads the list. It's taken the top spot from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, which has fallen to number two. The MBAs from Harvard, the Wharton School, and Stanford hold steady at positions three, four, and five, in that order.

The MBA from Spain's IESE Business School has risen 11 spots to land squarely in the top ten of this year's ranking, taking position number six. The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business has also made solid gains in this year's ranking, rising five spots to land at spot number seven. The MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management has dropped two positions to take spot number eight, and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business is in position number nine. The MBA from Columbia rounds out the the top 10 in the 2018 Economist ranking.

The Economist MBA Ranking 2018: rising salaries, rising costs

Of the top 20 MBA programs in this year's Economist MBA Ranking, Stanford has the highest average salary of $144,455. That's a 68 percent increase on graduates' pre-MBA salary, on average. The largest boost between pre- and post MBA salaries belongs to HEC Paris (ranked 13), whose graduates, on average, increased their salaries by 152 percent after the MBA.

According to coverage by the Economist, All this comes at a price, the fees of the American MBA programs in the top 20 of this year's ranking now average $123,000, and are rising quickly. For those on a budget who want to do a ranked MBA, non-US schools look to be a good alternative, mainly due to their shorter length (usually one year, versus two for US MBAs), and currency issues. For instance, fees for the one-year MBA at the UK's Warwick Business School (ranked 18th in this year's Economist MBA Ranking), amount to just under $50,000 USD.

The Economist's 2018 MBA ranking (top 20 schools)

See below for this year's top 20 schools from the Economist MBA Ranking, along with each school's change from the previous year's ranking.

Economist 2018 Rank	Business School	Change from 2017
1	Chicago - Booth	+1
2	Northwestern - Kellogg	-1
3	Harvard	no change
4	Wharton	no change
5	Stanford	no change
6	IESE Business School	11
7	Michigan - Ross	+5
8	UCLA - Anderson	-2
9	Virginia - Darden	+1
10	Columbia	-1
11	UC Berkeley - Haas	-4
12	Dartmouth - Tuck	-4
13	HEC Paris	+2
14	Yale SOM	-3
15	Duke - Fuqua	-2
16	MIT - Sloan	+3
17	NYU - Stern	-3
18	Warwick	no change
19	INSEAD	+2
20	Cornell - Johnson	+6