Columbia University Reports Robust Pay but Fewer Job Offers for 2023 MBA Grads

• Columbia University 2023 master of business administration (MBA) graduates landed jobs with a median salary of $175,000.
• That figure is the same as in 2022, although job offers ticked down year over year.
• As of three months after graduation, 84% of 2023 MBA graduates had received job offers, and 81% had accepted an offer.
• In 2022, 95% of graduates had received job offers, and 92% had accepted an offer in that same time frame. In 2021, those figures were 94% and 92% respectively.

Columbia University's 2023 master of business administration (MBA) graduates earned a median base salary of $175,000, although fewer received job offers three months after graduation compared to previous years.

That median base salary was the same as for 2022 graduates, according to Columbia's 2023 and 2022 employment reports, as was the median signing bonus of $30,000, although fewer 2023 graduates received a signing bonus than in 2022.

Columbia Business School Dean Costis Maglaras underscored the importance of tech in Columbia's MBA curriculum in the report and noted that the business school has vastly expanded our course offerings to meet the needs of a rapidly changing business landscape.

Our curriculum offers a comprehensive range of business courses that delve deeply into fields such as tech fundamentals, applied AI (artificial intelligence), digital product management, blockchain/crypto, and climate technology, Maglaras wrote in the report.

Experiential courses leverage our state-of-the-art campus and co-working spaces, fostering opportunities for students to collaborate in the kinds of cross-functional teams that are essential to modern organizations.

More 2023 Columbia MBA graduates went into consulting than in 2022, with 36% heading into consulting with a median pay of $190,000 in 2023 compared to 33.2% in 2022, when the median pay was $175,000 for that field.

Fewer 2023 graduates, 34.8%, went into finance fields than in 2022, when that figure was 36.7%. Slightly more 2023 graduates went into management and real estate than in 2022.

2023 graduates who landed jobs reported high satisfaction in those roles, with 94% rating their job satisfaction as a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1-5, according to the report.

Job Offers Tick Down for 2023 MBA Graduates

Job offers for 2023 Columbia MBA graduates were lower than in previous years.

As of three months after graduation, 84% of 2023 MBA graduates had received job offers and 81% had accepted an offer. That figure is lower than in previous years: In 2022, 95% of graduates had received job offers, and 92% had accepted an offer in that same time frame. In 2021, those figures were 94% and 92% respectively.

Those 2022 and 2021 figures were similar to before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, for example, 93.9% of MBA graduates had received a job offer, and more than 90% had accepted an offer within that same time frame. In 2018, those figures were 94.1% and 90.1% in that same time frame.

Columbia added a year-end metric for 2023 graduates, reflecting increased employment figures: 92% of 2023 MBA graduates had received job offers, and 91% had accepted an offer by the end of the year.

Other top business schools also reported a decline in job offers for 2023 MBA graduates.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business, for example, despite reporting a year-over-year salary increase for its 2023 MBA graduates, also said the number of job offers three months after graduation declined.

Of 2023 Stanford MBA graduates, 89% had job offers by three months after their graduation, and 82% had accepted a job offer in that same time period. In 2022, 93% of graduates seeking employment had received a job offer by three months after their graduation, and 84% had accepted an offer in that same time period.