More good news for America’s MBA students, who are now more likely to see starting salaries of $125,000 or more.
Between last year and this year, there was a big jump in the number of students who reported receiving offers of more than $125,000, according to a recent survey from corporate training firm Training the Street, which polled students from 25 MBA programs in the US.
Of the students who said they had received a job offer, 42.6% said that offer had a base salary of $125,000 or more. Only 26.1% could make the same claim last year, which was up from 9.3% in 2013.
And 79% of students with offers this year received offers of $100,000 or more, according to the survey.
The higher job offers make sense—firms are looking to hire more MBAs, according to a recent survey of company recruiters conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the group that administers the GMAT business school admissions exam. There are a number of potential reasons for the step-up in hiring: the financial sector’s strong recovery, the ongoing transformation in the power and utilities industry, and the recalibration of MBA programs to be more Silicon Valley-friendly, just to name a few.
The salary trends are no doubt welcome by students. According to a separate GMAC survey, released today, of about 2,500 MBA program participants worldwide, students consider total compensation to be to be the highest priority when considering a job.