Massachusetts - Top 4 MBA Programs (2017)

“Siege of Boston” (1775-76) gave the colonist the confidence to defend against the mighty British Army across the United States. The modern equivalence would be access through admission to one of the two top Business Schools in Boston - Harvard Business School and the MIT Sloan School of Management, both located in Cambridge, in the Boston metropolitan area. Admission to the two schools, guarantees an 80-120% increase in salary with a brand that is recognizable across any part of the world. Case study method, experiential learning, partnerships, technological innovation, and industry experts as faculty helped the two schools offer a valuable hands-on learning experience for MBA graduates.

Technology changed Massachusetts in the 1980s, decreasing unemployment of the state from 12 to 3%, increasing the personal income by 63% in a span of just seven years. Route 128 was the epicenter of the growth spurt with a select few companies - DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), Lotus Development Corporation, Apollo Computer, Wang Laboratories, and Data General, leading the high-tech revolution. MIT's Engineers had a major role in the revival of the state. The Government responded with lower tax and pro-business policies. Military contracts ($10 billion in 1988 vs. $3.7 billion in 1980) were another contributor. At the peak of the growth, termed popularly, as the “Massachusetts Miracle,” MIT graduates employed over 1.1 million people through 4,000 companies, bringing in annual sales of $232 billion. Silicon Valley had a worthy competitor, but the tax rates in the 90s along with the failure of the big companies that revived the Massachusetts economy, resulted in a mass migration of Entrepreneurs to the valley. By 1997, MIT based Entrepreneurs generated the most jobs in California (162,000) against Massachusetts (125,000).

2016 Innovation scorecard puts the state right on top based on four criteria: Fast Internet, Tech Workforce, VC Investment & Research Dollars per capita, and STEM degree. The lion share of the investment is in IoT (Internet of Things), Automation (Industrial and Automobile), and Healthcare technology. In 2010, The Mass Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) set an ambitious goal - to create new 100,000 tech jobs that would generate an additional $50-$75B in wealth, support a non-tech ecosystem with 163,000 new jobs, and an aggregate wage increase of $8.8 billion for technologists and an equally impressive $8.2 billion for non-tech professionals, including MBA. Although a quarter of the target has been met in 5 years, ending in 2015, the challenge remains. Despite 46% of the openings in Massachusetts payroll contributed by the technology industry, and 35% directly by sector, only 2.9% is in direct technology occupation. A larger percentage (22%) is in indirect jobs. For MBAs, moving to Silicon Valley might not be necessary if working in technology sector is a bigger criteria over brand names synonymous with Silicon Valley (Google, Twitter, Uber, Intel, Airbnb).

2017 Top MBA Programs in Massachusetts