Businessweek Publishes 'Global' MBA Ranking

US-based MBA programs dominate the first half of the ranking

For the first time, Bloomberg Businessweek has published a Global MBA Ranking, which ranks schools from all over the world.

The new MBA ranking, which is led by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is dominated by US schools. Only one non-US school—Switzerland's IMD Business School—has cracked the top-10, taking spot number ten.

Previously, Businessweek had offered two MBA rankings: one that included only US schools and one with non-US programs. This year, the US-specific MBA ranking was published separately from this new, commingled list. The US schools in the Global ranking are in the same order as those in the US-only ranking.

Other non-US schools to make the top 30 include London Business School, at position number 23, Insead (25) and IESE (28). More non-US schools can be found in the second half of the ranking.

According to Businessweek, US schools dominate the ranking for one main reason: reported compensation from MBA grads. According to the publication, the average reported income of those who graduated from US-based MBA programs was $145,000. For grads from non-US programs, compensation was $125,000.

Indeed, MBA graduates working in the US tend to make more than those working elsewhere.

Businessweek's Global MBA Ranking contrasts starkly with the Global MBA Ranking published by the Financial Times (FT). The FT's ranking—which includes salary data from graduates three years out of graduation, among other factors, and adjusts for purchasing power parity (PPP), tends to be much more balanced in terms of business school geography. (In the current FT ranking,16 of the top 30 MBA programs are US-based; Insead and LBS are ranked in the top five.

Here are the non-US schools in the new Businessweek ranking (along with their overall rank):