An MBA remains the most popular master’s degree in the U.S., with hundreds of thousands of students enrolled in a program each year. Upon graduation, these students are typically highly sought after by businesses across various sectors—and often for jobs paying well into the six figures across a variety of industries.
“The degree is incredibly portable and relevant as a foundation for almost any career path—even if it’s not within the realm of traditional business,” says Sheryle Dirks, associate dean of the career management center at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. The school ranked No. 8 on Fortune’s most-recent ranking of the best MBA programs.
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The versatility of an MBA makes this degree applicable even beyond traditional for-profit businesses—and, in fact, many MBA grads end up being leaders in the social impact space, including at non-profit organizations or even hospitals, Dirks notes. “It’s really a great foundation for a lifetime of career and professional success.”
While an MBA is not the right degree for everyone, it can benefit your career advancement, pivot or help you to pursue entrepreneurship. Here’s how this degree can help with each of these goals.
An MBA degree can lead to career advancement
Over the next decade, more than 700,000 new business and financial operations jobs are expected to become available, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Gaining an MBA can play a big role in reaching your career goals in the growing field.
In fact, an MBA can especially help propel you into a newer or larger firm—or one that better fits your interests, says Greg Hanifee, the associate dean of degree programs and operations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The school’s full-time program ranked third on Fortune’s ranking of the best MBA programs.
And more than 80% of candidates say a graduate business degree helps them stand out at work, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).
Obtaining a graduate degree often leads to a salary increase, as well. Among the 2022 class of MBA graduates at Duke, the median base annual salary was $160,000—not including signing bonuses. That’s a nearly 40% premium to the $115,000 median base salary for all MBA graduates, according to GMAC figures.
The advanced degree can help you pivot careers
But students don’t flock to MBA programs simply to advance in their current fields. After 20 years in the business school space, Dirks estimates that 80% of MBA students are seeking a career transition.
That bears out with survey data. In fact, 79% of prospective students report that they’re motivated to pursue an advanced business degree to enrich their lives and develop their potential, versus the 64% who are motivated by increasing their, according to a 2023 GMAC survey.
Career switchers have plenty of opportunities after business school. Some of the most popular industries for MBA grads include consulting, investment banking, technology, health care, and consumer packaged goods, according to Dirks.
An MBA program can also give you more in-depth skills to market yourself in fields you may not have been exposed to previously, Hanifee says.
“Investing in an MBA becomes really about that career question,” he adds. “And the fact that I think I can make faster strides or bigger strides if I get the education, and if I can find the network, that’s going to help me get from point A to point B.”
But with 2023 seeing just over 192,000 tech layoffs — already larger than last year, an MBA can guide the next step in your life.
In light of the tech layoffs in particular, Northwestern offered an application test waiver for people who recently lost their jobs—and the school saw the unfortunate situation as an opportunity to be empathetic to the market challenges and provide opportunities for students to further their education.
Many other schools took similar action, offering deadline extensions and scholarships for laid off workers and test waivers.
“People didn’t necessarily have the time to sit and study for the exam,” Hanifee says. The university’s research indicates that it takes prospective students six to eight months to study for either the GMAT or GRE—”and get the score you want,” he adds.
Going to business school to launch a business
One growing route for MBA grads is entrepreneurship. On top of financial knowledge, programs are increasingly seeking to provide students with an entrepreneurial mindset, says Russ Morgan, a professor and the senior dean for full-time programs at Duke.
Graduates often use the skills learned from an MBA program to start their own businesses. The preparation and perseverance skills—on top of problem-solving ability and networking opportunities—are key components in helping prevent initial missteps, many start-up founders say.
“There are a lot of people with great ideas and/or a spirit of entrepreneurship that have been in traditional roles and now they want to be around people that can help them hone their entrepreneurial skills,” Hanifee says.
And aspiring entrepreneurs are most drawn to full-time MBA programs, according to GMAC survey data, as this format may be the best venue for providing the tools needed to lead a company.
Many students come into an MBA thinking they might want to work at a big corporation, but eventually realize they want to start their own business. Overall, programs offer students an opportunity to grow and discover where they would like their career to take them.
“I think it’s a good choice for wherever life might take you from a career perspective,” Dirks says.
Check out all of Fortune’s rankings of degree programs, and learn more about specific career paths.
GMAT waivers are available for the online MBA from Rice Business, ranked a Top-20 Online MBA by U.S. News & World Report. Ranked #1 in graduate entrepreneurship in the U.S. by the Princeton Review for 2024, aspiring entrepreneurs can earn their MBA in as few as 24 months.
