UVA Darden

Preliminary Reports Show Significant Increases for MBA Class of 2022 Starting Salaries

According to Fortune Education, preliminary MBA employment outcome reports for the class of 2022 show that MBA graduates’ salaries “are surging.”

New York University (Stern) announced earlier this week that median base salaries increased to $170,000, up $15,000 from last year. Average total compensation for 2022 graduates, including signing bonuses (median $35,000), averaged $196,143. This is an 8 percent uptick from 2021. Similarly, University of Virginia (Darden) reported last month that 2022 graduates obtained a record-breaking median base salary of $175,000, an increase of 21 percent from 2021. And, at Vanderbilt University, Owen graduates garnered a median base salary of $135,000, an all-time high, coupled with a median signing bonus of $30,000, which equated to a 12 percent increase from 2021.

Representatives from MBA Career Management offices noted that 2022 graduates reaped the benefits of a tight and competitive labor market. “The fiercest competition in the labor market is for ‘top talent,’ and consulting firms are competing for this top talent not just between themselves, but also more broadly versus Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and traditional corporate America,” said Namaan Mian, Chief Operating Officer of Management Consulted, when interviewed previously by Fortune Education.

MBA Program Announcements Roundup

We’ve rounded up and summarized the most recent MBA program announcements below. 

  • Duke’s Fuqua School of Business announced this week that its MBA degree has received a STEM designation. Prior to receiving the designation, the school’s MBA offered a STEM-designated second degree in Management Science and Technology Management (MSTeM). “We had been one of the first schools to offer a STEM second major or second degree for a certain series of courses that a student would take,” says Shari Hubert, Associate Dean for Admissions at Fuqua. “But now the entire MBA program is STEM-qualifying, which, for our students, is really game-changing because it gives them that additional two years of OPT, depending on the job that they take.”

  • Columbia University announced that it will offer a Global Executive MBA starting in May 2023. The program will take a hybrid format, relying predominantly on virtual instruction, with only about a quarter of the 22-month long program expected to take place in an in-person residential format. The content will be geared towards experienced professionals who have about ten years of professional experience and five years of management experience. 

  • Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business announced a new online MBA degree, available in August 2023. The program will include two in-person campus visits, but the large majority will be offered through synchronous and asynchronous virtual classes. This MBA will be the school’s third online degree offering, which currently consists of specialized masters programs in finance and business analytics. “More and more MBA programs and business schools are moving toward online degrees,” says Prashant Malaviya, Senior Associate Dean of MBA programs at McDonough. “We have two right now. Both of them have done well. So we know the model works, that there are students who are interested in this—and we also have a nobler goal, which is to increase access to the Georgetown education outside of the DMV region.”

  • UVA Darden’s first cohort of part-time MBA students based in Washington, D.C. kicked off classes at its Rosslyn, VA campus last month. The program is designed for working individuals in the DC area and is self-paced with students obtaining their MBA in between 28 and 48 months. “A part-time program adds flexibility and optionality to the MBA,” explains Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Senior Associate Dean for Professional Degree Programs at Darden.  “It allows some students who in the past couldn’t take the time off to have an MBA experience.”

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