Many of the highest-ranked MBA programs are based in the Northeast. So wouldn’t you know that 2015 Stanford grads averaged higher pay than their east coast peers. The 35 Stanford grads who headed east averaged $143,195 to start – over $9,000 more than their Harvard Business School counterparts. A Stanford grad also landed the highest starting salary of any east coast hire as well – $267,000. Otherwise, Top 10 schools generally earned Top 10 salaries, though Duke (Fuqua) slipped into the Top 10 here at an average $125,483 base (not counting students’ $30,000 median signing bonus – nearly $5,000 more than Fuqua grads made in other regions). Graduates from upstarts like Ohio State (Fisher) and Vanderbilt (Owen) also earned far better pay out east than their rank might otherwise show.