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#What Does MBA Stand For? Top 10 Schools

by Patrick Brady on January 1, 2014

The acronym MBA stands for Master of Business Administration. Individuals who have an interest in understanding how organizations function at a core level would be wise to obtain an MBA from an accredited institution.

If you are looking to advance your career toward a business management or even President/CEO level, you will likely need at least an MBA level degree. The exception would be in cases where you have decided to start your own company. As you might expect, there will not be any specific education requirements for self-started businesses. However, a bit of business education never hurts.

Top 10 MBA Programs

The following is a list of the top 10 MBA programs in the United States. Obtaining a degree from one of these programs is challenging, but also rewarding. If you are fortunate enough to gain acceptance at one of these universities, it is likely that you will be well on your way to strong job placement after graduation.

The link in the previous paragraph will take you to the full US News list of top MBA schools if you want more options than those listed below. You can also visit our schools page for MHA/MBA schools listed by state.

Top 10 MBA Programs (ordered by rank)

1. Harvard University  Boston, MA
   • $53,500 per year (full-time) 1,824 enrolled
2. Stanford University  Stanford, CA
   • $57,300 per year (full-time) 803 enrolled
3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)  Philadelphia, PA
   • $57,026 per year (full-time) 1,685 enrolled
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)  Cambridge, MA
   • $57,920 per year (full-time) 816 enrolled
5. Northwestern University (Kellogg)  Evanston, IL
   • $56,550 per year (full-time) 1,161 enrolled
6. University of Chicago (Booth)  Chicago, IL
   • $56,000 per year (full-time) 1,161 enrolled
7. University of California–​Berkeley (Haas)  Berkeley, CA
   • $51,422 per year (in-state, full-time); $53,969 per year (out-of-state, full-time) 490 enrolled
8. Columbia University  New York, NY
   • $58,384 per year (full-time) 1,274 enrolled
9. Dartmouth College (Tuck)  Hanover, NH
   • $56,160 per year (full-time) 549 enrolled
10. New York University (Stern)  New York, NY
    • $52,828 per year (full-time) 780 enrolled

Cost of an MBA Degree

If you are seriously thinking of getting your Master of Business Administration you need to ensure that it is going to help you advance your career. I would highly recommend that you avoid attempting an MBA degree without a solid idea of what you will do with it when you are finished.

An MBA degree is quite time consuming and will take 3 years of schooling to achieve. On top of this, the degree can be very expensive. If you get yourself into a situation where you have completed an MBA and are not putting it to use, you will be in for a shock when your student loan bills start arriving.

Below is an interesting video discussing the educational options that business schools are providing students. Again, be aware of what you re looking to get out of your degree. If you re not sure, I would highly advise avoiding a graduate degree until you have a better handle on what you would like to do with it.

Let me know what you think in the comments!