Post MBA Salary remains a critical criterion for selecting Business Schools. We have analyzed the data from Financial Times Global MBA Ranking, and found some interesting trends on salary growth for top MBA programs before and after two financial crisis – IT Crash of 2001 and Financial Meltdown of 2008.
The analysis is based on the weighted salary data collected by FT. The Weighted Salary in $ is the average salary earned by MBA Alumnus after three years of graduation, adjusted against variations across different industries. This means that the weighted salary collected in 2013 is the salary earned by a 2009 graduated MBA student.
2001 Crash
We looked at the salary growth rate of top MBA programs before the IT Bust in 2001, and the following three years. 
Data from 2000 to 2002 shows the salary growth of top MBA programs reaching a peak in 2000 with annual growth rate touching 26.6% for Stanford Graduate School of Business and 25.84% for MIT Sloan – two schools known to attract highly qualified Engineers and consultants.
The impact of 2001 IT crash was felt from 2001 to 2003. Since FT calculated three-year weighted average salary, we looked into the salary growth from 2003 to 2005 to understand the impact over the 3-year time period.
Impact – Post 2001 Crash
Stanford MBA program’s salary declined by 10.41% in 2004, closely followed by Harvard Business School at 7.99% and 7.11% at MIT Sloan.
2008 – Financial Meltdown
To understand the recovery after 2001, we looked at the salary growth from 2006 to 2009 to understand how top MBA programs have recovered.
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About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.