Indian business-schools pay much better returns than its global peers

Do MBAs from global B-schools give Indian students a better RoI than our own IIMs? The question is worth asking because Stanford University increased MBA tuition fees by 3.9 per cent last month, even as salaries are declining.

In rupee terms, an MBA at top global B-schools can cost anywhere between Rs 60 lakh and Rs 69 lakh. Median pay for graduates with three years’ experience or less at these global schools has dropped to $53,900 (Rs 29.32 lakh) in 2012, down 4.6 per cent since 2007-08, according to US website Payscale.com that examined 186 schools.

An MBA at IIM-Ahmedabad, on the other hand, costs Rs 17 lakh and students graduating from it earn a mean pay of Rs 13.73 lakh. Students need more than two years’ salary to pay back the cost of a global MBA. Indian MBAs pay back much faster.

Still, the popularity of global MBAs is unlikely to wane anytime soon. MIT Sloan has 100 students of Indian origin, of a total of 750 in its management programs. At Harvard, of 588 full-time international students in business courses, India forms the biggest chunk with 85 students for the year 2012-13.