Finding Philly’s Best MBA Return on Investment
It’s no secret that Philadelphia’s relatively low cost of living has historically made the Birthplace of America an attractive option for those in search of a big city experience outside the skyrocketing markets of other major East Coast cities.
As people flock from the New York metro region in search of a similar urban adventure at a substantially lower price point, Philadelphia has been controversially dubbed the “6th Borough.” Word to the wise for potential b-school interlopers: never tell any Philadelphian their home has been annexed by New York City.
About 90 minutes by train from New York City, the City of Brotherly Love is no Big Apple, but it’s one-of-a-kind. Sure, tourists and locals alike grip cheesesteaks in one hand while pumping their fists on the steps of the Art Museum a la Rocky, but the city reveals itself to those who have the patience (and wherewithal) to dig into it.
Whether that means embarking on a two-year MBA program or choosing among the accelerated options available, Philadelphia just happens to be home to several top ranked MBA programs in the world. Let’s take a close look at Philly’s programs. Oh, and here’s a napkin for the wiz.
Philadelphia Return on Investment
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business
Officially the oldest business school in the U.S., The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania boasts well-known alumni billionaire financier Ron Perelman, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, and John Sculley of Pepsi and Apple. Wharton’s tuition of $136,420 and estimated total budget of $195,085 isn’t to be taken lightly. However, full-time MBA graduates earn an average base salary of $130,000 with an average bonus of $20,500, and a supreme 92.6 percent job acceptance rate. So, while having a somewhat unimpressive salary-to-debt ratio, Wharton’s reputation and alumni network precedes itself.
In fact, the school recently topped the annual Forbes best full-time MBA program list, sporting the best five-year financial gain after graduation. Wharton MBA graduates of the Class of 2012 are making a $225,000 average annual salary—roughly 42 percent higher than recent grads, easily topping the cost/debt ratio of the program.
Saint Joseph’s Haub School of Business
Notable alumni of Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University include CEO of NutriSystems, Inc. Michael J. Hagan, Chairman and founder of Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corporation James J. Maguire, and Senior vice president of PNC Bank Denise Viola-Monahan. SJU’s $30,294 tuition set against an average base salary of $65,000 means the school offers a competitive MBA to those who don’t want to break the bank.
Temple’s Fox School of Business
Fox School of Business at Temple University’s notable alumni include Systel CEO Jai Gulati, former COO and president for ConocoPhillips John Carrig, and CEO of Actavis and co-founder of Health Care Compliance Association Brenton L. Saunders. Fox’s tuition sits at $57,048 for residents and $80,484 for nonresidents. With a 97 percent job placement rate compared to $25,623 average debt and a $85,278 average base salary, Fox’s salary-to-debt ratio looks attractive.
Drexel University LeBow College of Business
The LeBow College of Business at Drexel University alumni include President and CEO of Rohm and Haas Raj Gupta, former CEO of Science Applications International Corp. Kenneth C. Dahlberg, and the Phillie Phanatic Tom Burgoyne. Tuition is $59,565, and graduating MBAs carry an average debt of $43,894. With a reported average base salary of $84,080, LeBow’s salary-to-debt ratio is competitive. Considering the comparatively low price point, LeBow emerges as an incredibly attractive ROI.
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University of Delaware Lerner College of Business
A short 20-minute train ride from Center City Philadelphia and under two hours from New York City, the Lerner College at the University of Delaware has an eye-catching reported average base salary of $90,291. Compared to tuition, which ranges from $33,000 to $55,000, depending on residency, Lerner’s ROI could shine through if figures hold true for most MBA earners from this institution.
Penn State Smeal College of Business
Although its central campus is located in Happy Valley, PA, the Smeal College of Business at Penn State offers an executive MBA program in Philadelphia. The program is priced at a hefty $102,000, but average graduate debt is reported at $36,500, and median salaries ranging from $97,890 to $101,857. With such an impressive salary-to-debt ratio, Smeal is an attractive option for those who prefer easy metro access rather than living in the thick of the action. Notable alumni include Chairman and CEO of Petroleum Products Corp. John Arnold, and Former Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. William Schreyer.
Making Your Post-MBA Career with Visa Inc.
The race for superiority in the global electronic payments market is a heated one. Every major credit card company has pulled out all the stops to persuade consumers to embrace digital transactions as their primary payment method—and they are going to need all the help they can get. It’s one of many reasons why major companies like Visa are always recruiting MBAs.
Beyond Business School: Emory Goizueta MBA Alumni Make Waves
One of the key quality indicators of an MBA program is its alumni. By looking at a school’s alumni, you can get a sense of the kinds of individuals who are drawn to the program, the impact the program can have on your future career, and the type of network you’ll have access to. At Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, this network includes Nick Harris, the director of digital operations and optimization for United Airlines in Chicago, and Elizabeth Halkos, the chief operating officer at Purchasing Power, an e-commerce company that provides voluntary benefits programs to employers to help their employees improve their financial well-being.
Nick Harris — ’08 EvMBA
Nick Harris’ job is all about enhancing the online shopping experience for United Airlines customers. To do this, he spends his days studying the behavior of visitors to United.com, from using their smartphones to shop to purchasing a service bundle. He then looks at what the competition is doing to ensure that United Airlines keeps on top of the latest trends.
Talking about his job, Harris told Goizueta: “An average week for me usually involves looking at a wealth of information or data and trying to understand what types of hypotheses we can generate based off how customers are behaving or transacting with our channels.”
For example, one of Harris’ main tasks is ensuring that consumers can purchase products on the United Airlines app as easily as they do on a webpage using their smartphones or computer. He also has to keep up with what the giants of customer service—Google, Apple, and Amazon—are doing.
Harris told Goizueta that when these companies offer a new service or do something really intelligent, they set a new standard that United Airlines has to keep up with. “You’re not just competing against others in your industry; you’re competing for mind space and time with all of the other devices and apps that are on customers’ phones,” he says.
However, this can be difficult for a large company that’s nearly 100 years old, but that challenge is part of what Harris enjoys. Harris regularly partners with other product owners to enhance the digital experience, collaborating across teams to assess metrics together to identify opportunities to improve the overall United Airlines customer experience.
“One of the things that we’ve been doing a lot is looking at web analytics data and marrying that with transactional data. As a company, we have loads of transactional data, which is one of the things that I absolutely love about being at a company this size,” explains Harris.
Nick Harris
His interest in working for a company like United Airlines was one of the reasons that Harris chose Emory for his MBA. Prior to attending Goizueta, he was employed at a small tech firm and considering launching an investment group with a few friends. The problem was that Harris didn’t have the right tool set and background to succeed. So, he began to look into the Goizueta Evening MBA program.
“I felt it was worth the investment to go back to school and take the time to grow in a structured learning environment, in order to build that tool set,” he says. “This way I could evaluate our opportunities and learn the science of business.”
But, in the end, it wasn’t just the classroom experience that impacted Harris, it was the relationships that he built. In particular, his relationship with Professor Patrick Noonan led him to the airline industry. “We were talking one day, and Noonan says, ‘If you really like this work and you’re interested in doing optimization, you should think about the airline industry, given all of the work they do from a space revenue management standpoint,” remembers Harris. And the rest was history.
Elizabeth Halkos – ’01 MBA
As the chief operating officer at Purchasing Power, Elizabeth Halkos has a good deal of leadership experience, which was recently recognized during the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Halkos was praised for raising the bar professionally and as a teacher and mentor for young women looking to launch their own ventures. This and her other accomplishments led her to be named a Silver Award Winner in the “Female Executive of the Year, Business Services: 11 to 2,500 Employees – Business Services” category.
Since 2002, the Stevie Awards have honored women executives, entrepreneurs, employees, and the companies they run globally. Each year, more than 170 professionals worldwide come together on five specialized juries to nominate the top women and organizations across more than 60 nations.
Elizabeth Halkos
After earning her MBA with a concentration in statistics and data analytics at Emory Goizueta in 2001, Halkos went on to work as a brand manager at Earthlink, Inc. and an account executive at Monster.com. From there, she served two years at the Inforte Corporation, where she consulted with such clients as Miller Brewing Company and Ocean Spray. Then, finally, she found her way to Purchasing Power in 2006.
Halkos started at Purchasing Power as the vice president of sales and marketing and quickly moved up the ranks. By 2010, she was promoted to chief marketing officer and then to chief revenue officer by 2014. In January of 2017, she was appointed to her current role of COO.
Halkos’s achievements at Purchasing Power include driving the top line revenue from $30M to more than $400M over a decade and helping the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) grow from $5M to more than $40M. Most recently, she played an integral role in launching Purchasing Power’s 2017 rebranding campaign, which included new channel partnership strategies. This resulted in a 19 percent revenue and 80.5 percent adjusted EBITDA growth, compared to the same six months the previous year.
Halkos’s responsibilities at Purchasing Power include oversight of sales, account management, client services, customer experience, customer care, customer operations, business-to-business marketing, and public relations. She is also responsible for leading the broker and employer growth strategies for the company, which has helped Purchasing Power place on the “Inc. 5000 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Companies” for nine years in a row.
Outside of her job at Purchasing Power, Halkos is still very involved at Emory Goizueta. Since 2008, she has served as a board member, and previously served as president and vice president of the board. Recently, Halkos was also chosen as the recipient of Emory University’s “Annual Service Award” in recognition of her involvement in mentoring and supporting students at Goizueta.
To learn more about MBA alumni at Emory Goizueta, visit the school’s website.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Facebook Tops Glassdoor’s 100 Best Places to Work List
Employer review website Glassdoor, which allows users to read anonymous employee testimonials about employers, has revealed its annual “Best Places to Work” list, with familiar MBA recruiters Facebook, Bain & Co, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) earning the top three spots.
Why Facebook?
Since 2011, the social media empire has been one of Glassdoor’s most praised companies to work for, earning a top five spot seven out of the past eight years, including three number one overall awards. Facebook employees are often given extensive benefits, including four months of paid maternity leave—a policy often considered a luxury in the U.S., which has no legally mandated paternity leave policies for employers. As well, earlier this year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced the company would implement paid sick time for employees and family members.
With increasing revenue streams, the company’s hiring numbers have continued to swell, with nearly 19,000 employees as of earlier this year—a 38 percent jump from March 2016 to March 2017. In fact, just this week, the company announced it will be adding 800 more jobs at its new London office.
Data via Facebook, graphic by The Atlas/via Quartz.
Of course, the central pitch to work at the social media monolith may be predicated on the payment of employees. According to Paysa, the average Facebook salary is north of $250,000 annually, combining base pay, bonuses, and equity. Most jobs at the company start at, at least, $70,000 USD annually, with business management roles starting at $135,000.
The company has also made a concerted effort at diversifying its hiring. Speaking with Forbes, Lori Goler, vice president of people, said, “Diversity is critical to our mission at Facebook, because we serve a community of 2 billion around the world, and of course there’s diversity in that community.”
The company, according to Forbes, employs between 33 and 35 percent women, and there has been considerable gains among women employed with computer science and engineering backgrounds, as well as a 500 percent increase in employment among those of African descent since 2014. In the interview, Goler added, “We’re nowhere near where we want to be, but we’re at least hearted to see that at least we can make some progress.”
Check out Facebook’s graduate student recruitment page here.
Consulting Companies Still Reign
While certain statistics indicate a wave of MBA grads may be leaving consulting in favor of tech-centric employers, as evident by the recently released Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management employment report, consulting companies are remain one of the primary targets for MBA students and graduates, and for good reason.
Bain & Co., like Facebook, has been endlessly praised by Glassdoor reviews, ranking among the top four best places to work every year since 2009. Like most of the companies on the year-end list, Bain offers ample benefits, including several months of paid maternity leave, comprehensive vacation and insurance policies, and one of the world’s best 401K offers. Fellow Boston metro company BCG also officers a considerable parental leave benefits package, retirement planning, and lofty salaries.
Inside the New York City BCG office/Photo via BCG.
Like Bain, BCG makes a concerted effort to bring in incredibly comparable MBA graduates, recruiting students from multiple prominent business schools like The Wharton School, NYU Stern, Columbia Business School, and many more.
Some Traditional Companies Remain Steady, While Giants Like Apple Stumble
Tech empire Google, not surprisingly, held its place among the top 10 companies—having never fallen lower than eighth overall since 2012. Just outside of the top ranking companies, McKinsey & Co. stayed within the top 20, while other notable heavyweights like Microsoft (39th), Capital One (69th), Deloitte (77th), Accenture (83rd), and Apple (84th), the world’s most successful consumer company, fell to the lower ends of the list.
Despite having the second most profitable year in company history, falling shortly behind it’s 2015 figures, Apple has been steadily dropping down Glassdoor’s annual Best Of list, posting its worst standing in the history of the ranking—nearly 50 spots worse than last year’s ranking of 36th overall.
Considering, however, that the annual ranking is comprises of over 500,000 companies, this drop may not be as serious as it would appear. The overall Glassdoor rating for Apple was 4.3, in contrast to Facebook, which boasts a current 4.6 rating. The average Glassdoor rating for employers, for context, is 3.3.
Some Surprises
Not every company included in the Glassdoor Best Of list could be considered a traditional MBA recruiters, including beloved U.S. west coast fast food chain In-N-Out Burger (fourth overall), growing athletic leisurewear empire Lululemon (sixth), wine company E. & J. Gallo Winery(14th), Delta Airlines (17th), and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (19th), which provides “Excellent dental and medical coverage,” according to an anonymous employee. Plus, “you work with people who don’t swear.”
For a more extensive overview of the methodology behind the ranking, click here.
The Premiere International MBA is Waiting For You in London
“London doesn’t love the latent or the lurking, has neither time, nor taste, nor sense for anything less discernible than the red flag in front of the steam-roller. It wants cash over the counter and letters ten feet high.” – Henry James
It could be argued that London is the quintessential—or at least the original—international destination. Both defiantly English and seamlessly accommodating for an international community, London is a city in a state of constant reinvention.
Oscar Wilde once said London was composed of “beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics,” which makes perfect sense that the city is presently and almost always the world’s global financial center (close but no cigar, Singapore). It’s no secret that the city leads the charge when it comes to gold, silver, derivatives, foreign exchange, money markets, debt securities, and international insurance. And London’s strategic location means it can stay connected to both the East and West at all times.
These reasons and so much more make London perhaps the definitive choice for b-schoolers who aspire to cut deals that bridge cultures and cross borders. For prospective MBAs with international ambitions, opportunities to interface with every conceivable industry abound in London, as do opportunities to collaborate with non-UK companies with London hubs.
We took the liberty of giving you the skinny on four London-area business degrees that will set you on a global path. Let’s take a deeper dive, shall we?
London Business School
The London Business School EMBA-Global Americas & Europe degree is a multinational collaboration that imparts the “insight, network and international perspectives” that today’s globally focused executive needs. The program—a partnership between LBS, Columbia, and the University of Hong Kong—is available in two distinct paths for entrepreneurs, managers, or executives. EMBA-Global Americas & Europe students earn two MBAs as they study in New York and London, while EMBA-Global Asia students bridge the gap between East and West as they study in Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, and London. Forbes ranked LBS’ international degree first overall in terms of its return on investment, as its 2012 class earned average salaries of $119,100 and paid back their investment in 3.4 years.
Imperial College London
The ICL’s Global Online MBA is a two-year, part-time degree that combines “innovative thinking and insight with new technology to develop practical solutions to real world issues, benefiting business and improving society.” The Global MBA is structured to maximize intimacy and in-class time, culminating in a week-long Capstone Business Game project.
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Oxford University Saïd Business School
The Saïd Business School 13-month masters-level Global Business Diploma is focused on giving graduates the tools to “undertake the senior international responsibilities which drive organizational success.” Director Kathy Harvey explains that the degree is guaranteed to “provide insights to anyone operating, or aspiring to operate, in a global environment.” Graduates will have an advanced “understanding of the issues involved in conducting business in a global landscape,” particularly “global business strategy, risk and reputation, corporate diplomacy and doing business in emerging economies.”
Cambridge University’s Judge Business School
The Judge Business School at Cambridge University Global Business concentration emphasizes cross-cultural differences; doing business in/with emerging economies; managing the multinational enterprise; and multinational organizations in social and environmental issues. The concentration was developed specifically for MBA students “seeking careers in careers at multinational organizations; small and medium-sized enterprises in sectors that are affected by international pressures; and students with a general interest in the role of organizations in global issues.”
Our Favorite MBA Recruiters: Facebook
These days, it seems like everyone and their mother is on Facebook—no, really, your mom sent me a friend request last week. Your family vacation looked like a blast! As more and more people subscribe to the undisputed king of social media, Facebook seems to hire more and more MBAs to continue to move the company forward into the future. Continue reading…
