Harvard Business School topped all comers in this category. 2020 Operations grads earned $144,415 to start, an improvement of over $15K from last year. More impressive, it represents a $26K bump over 2015 pay averages posted by HBS Operations grads. Northwestern Kellogg made similar progress, ranking 2nd at $141,313. That’s nearly a $19K jump over 2019 -- and a $24K rise over the past five years. Vanderbilt Owen’s performance in Operations also stuck out. Aside from its $131,500 starting pay ranking 6th among Top 50 programs, the school improved by nearly $32K in one year. Still, the numbers come with a caveat. The Wharton School, whose 2019 grads posted the highest starting pay in Operations, didn’t report industry numbers in 2020. The same was true for MIT Sloan, which traditionally ranks among the top programs academically in Operations-related fields. In terms of highest pay, a Columbia Business School grad collected a $230K base to start, edging out grads from Harvard Business School ($200K), Virginia Darden ($182K), and UC Berkeley Haas ($175K).