2024 MBA Pay: Northeast

The good news: Stanford GSB grads continued to earn the highest first-year pay packages in the Northeast. The bad news? The 53 GSB MBAs who headed east earned $10,175 less than the previous class. Among U.S. News’ Top 10 MBA programs in 2025, 8 of 10 reported lower pay in 2024 (with Columbia Business School abstaining from submitting pay data). Still, you could argue that Northeast firms were bargain shopping for MBA talent. Looking at the business schools ranked 11-20, 6 programs posted higher pay numbers in the Northeast (with Cornell Johnson not supplying data in 2023). In other words, premium graduates may have priced themselves out of the market, as firms found equally talented hires among programs like the University of Virginia’s Darden School and Duke University’s Fuqua School – where graduates earned $170,600 and $168,935 respectively. Among the schools punching above their weight, you’ll find Vanderbilt University’s Owen Schools, whose 17 Northeast hires boosted pay by nearly $6,000. With Stanford GSB opting out of providing high and low pay packages, the high honor is shared by Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago’s Booth School, which each had a graduate earning $375,000 to start in the Northeast. As a whole, there were 14 business schools that reported a graduate earning $200,000 or more after graduating.