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The Most (And Least) Affordable Highly-Ranked Online MBA Programs
By Nathan Allen
Poet & Quants
"Sometimes in life you don’t get what you pay for. The pricey things break and the economical options last forever. Likewise, when it comes to online MBA degrees, an extraordinary cost doesn’t guarantee prestige; nor does a bargain price tag necessarily indicate a subpar program. To help navigate the most and least expensive online MBA programs, we compiled a list: the top 25 programs in the Poets&Quants Online MBA Ranking, the top 25 in U.S. News & World Report ranking of online MBA programs, and a few of the international schools ranked in the top five in the Financial Times ranking of online MBA.
Of the 41 programs included, the average cost of an online MBA is $52,264, if we include only tuition. The gap between the high and low price tags is more than $100,000. Tuition for an online MBA from Mississippi State University is only $13,680 — lower than any other school on the list — while a degree from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business will cost you $128,000 — more than any other school on the list.
Make of this what you will: Mississippi State placed 22nd in the 2018 U.S. News online MBA rankings, but was unranked in the Poets&Quants inaugural online MBA ranking. Carnegie Mellon, however, topped the Poets&Quants ranking and placed second in U.S. News — but essentially finished first after Temple’s Fox School of Business was removed for allegedly fudging GMAT data.
One program is an elite, appeal-to-all online MBA. The other has a very specific mission.'We are a land grant university, and our mission is to educate the people of Mississippi and the region,” says Cindy Smith, the director of distance learning at Mississippi State’s College of Business. “We could probably fill our seats if we raised our prices, but that would put our degree out of the reach of the people we are trying to serve.'"
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