More bang for buck at IIM-A than Ivy League

Institute fourth on The Economist list of global B-schools in return on investment

Studying at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) gives you more bang for your buck than going to Harvard or Stanford does, according to a study conducted by The Economist magazine.

The new ranking has placed IIM-A much ahead of its Ivy League competitors such as Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg and Wharton. In fact, IIM-A is the world’s fourth best B-school when it comes to “Good-value MBAs”, the study says.

IIM-A’s two-year management programme offers a return on investment (RoI) of 44 per cent, as compared with Harvard’s 15 per cent and Stanford’s 14 per cent. Other top B-schools such as INSEAD, France (24 per cent), Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern Kellogg (10 per cent) and Pennsylvania Wharton (6 per cent) are ranked at 12th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th positions, respectively, according to the chart published by The Economist.

HEC Paris (67 per cent), Aston Britain (64 per cent) and University of Hong Kong (60 per cent) rank higher than IIM-A. The ranking is based on the cost of an MBA programme at selected business schools after taking into account tuition fees and forgone salary, The Economist stated. The RoI is calculated on the basis of the difference between pre- and post-MBA salary divided by the total cost of the programme.

So, for the fees that one pays at IIM-A and the previous salary that one foregoes, the graduate gets a higher return from the immediate compensation package earned through placement.

The Economist states that the RoI is calculated on the immediate return in less than two years.  "Still, Wharton alumni are more likely to top the greasy pole in the long run," the magazine says.

Two-year courses at prestigious US institutions are the most expensive, The Economist says. An MBA at Wharton costs $330,000 on average, in part because it enrolls well-paid executives. But the immediate return on such degrees is small. Graduates tend to land jobs just a few notches above the ones they left. Cheaper, shorter MBAs around the world offer better returns.

Students at HEC make enough extra money upon graduation to pay for their degrees in less than two years.