In the popular imagination, people associate the southwest with prairies and deserts, tumbleweeds and cacti, and cowboys and refineries. There are a bunch of those, no doubt. The Southwest is also the home of Austin – the south’s answer to Silicon Valley; Houston – the nation’s energy capital; and Dallas, which added over 100,000 job over the past two years, ranking it among as the most robust job markets according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Low cost. Low regulation. Low tax. Pro-Business. Those phrases have all been bandied about to describe much of the Southwest – virtues that make it all the more attractive to MBAs. It is only here where Stanford GSB grads aren’t the highest-paid MBAs, with Wharton winning out on starting pay by a $152,132-to-$143,800 margin. Harvard Business School ($147,571), MIT Sloan ($142,269), and Northwestern Kellogg ($138,667). Combined, these schools accounted for 50 hires in 2017. Among Southwest schools, Texas McCombs ($117,000) and Rice Jones ($114,535) stood apart for the highest starting pay. North Carolina Kenan-Flagler and Washington Olin also nabbed the highest pay increases ($17,616) and $16,389) respectively. $200,000 was also the high water starting pay mark – base salaries that were given to graduates at the Wharton School and Harvard Business School.