What Are the Average Salary and Career Options With an Online MBA Degree?
Many people choose to return to school to get an MBA because they hope it will open up new career options and give them a little more earning power. While an MBA isnít a guarantee of either of these, it certainly doesnít hurt and the majority of MBA grads find that they are enjoying the new opportunities afforded to them by their degree.
What you can do with your MBA and how much youíll make doing it will depend on several central factors. First, the prestige of the school youíve chosen to attend. Some schools have extremely high post-graduation employment rates, many of which come along with high salaries and signing bonuses. Youíll also need to take into account the field that youíre choosing to work within. Those working as consultants for a state-of-the-art engineering firm will likely make more than someone else doing the same work for a smaller, less prestigious business. Additionally, your personal skills will play a role as well, as those who are better networkers and who have enviable communication skills will likely score better and higher paying jobs post graduation than those who are a little quieter or uncomfortable in social situations. Finally, consider your level of experience. Itís unlikely that youíll get a top paying executive position if youíre fresh out of college with no work experience. Those with several years of experience will be offered work that matches the time theyíve put into business practice.
The average salary of an MBA grad is a really tough figure to pin down because it depends largely on what type of career an individual chooses to pursue after graduation. A salary from managing a non-profit certainly isnít going to be as high as one for being the CEO of a major corporation. You can get an idea of the range of salaries out there for MBAs by taking a look at a few of the potential positions and their median salaries. According to Salary.com, the median income for a portfolio manager is about $107,000 a year. Those working as marketing directors can expect to bring in a little more at $140,000 a year on average. And if you make it to the top and score a CEO position, the average yearly income takes a jump and is around $630,000. So there is no one answer to what an MBA can expect to make after graduation, because there is a huge range of salaries that will also be affected by personal knowledge, work experience and location as well.
Of course, you should keep in mind that, according to the Princeton Review, those with an MBA can expect to earn about 35% more than those who simply have an undergraduate degree in business or a related field. So even if you arenít making CEO money upon graduation, chances are pretty good that youíll be earning more than you would without getting your MBA.
