The Bad News: Stanford GSB saw its average pay dip by $11K over the past year. The Good News: The school still ranked #1 in starting base pay for the Class of 2020 in General Management. Call it a one year blip, with pay technically rising by nearly $20K since 2015. Stanford GSB may have taken a step back, but Chicago Booth has been going full throttle in the General Management category. The school’s 2020 General Managers pulled in $140,814, up $13K from the previous year (and a $29K jump over the past five years). Harvard Business School, a General Management program par excellence, rounded out the Top 3 at $137,295. One observation worth noting: California schools -- Stanford GSB, UC Berkeley Haas, and USC Marshall -- accounted for three of the five highest paying averages in this category. What’s more, Yale SOM was the only Top 10 program not to rank among the ten-highest paid in General Management (though the Wharton School and MIT Sloan technically declined to supply data to U.S. News). In terms of individual pay, five schools produced graduates who earned $200K or more in base: Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, Harvard Business School, Northwestern Kellogg, and Columbia Business School.