MBA careers
What Can You Do With An MBA?
Highest median
$213,990
chief executives
Management median
$105,770
general and operations managers
No federal agency publishes what MBA holders earn. BLS surveys occupations and College Scorecard reports what a school's graduates earned, and neither one asks what degree a person holds for a given job. So the honest version of this page is a map rather than a promise: these are the occupations the concentrations on these programs point at, what the wage survey says each one pays, and what the Occupational Outlook Handbook says it takes to enter. Where the Handbook says a bachelor's degree is enough, the career pages say so.
Eight Jobs, One Page Each
Eight jobs have a page of their own here, each built from the Handbook's own wording on what the work is and what it takes, the May 2025 pay spread, and the online MBA concentration that leads there.
The Highest Paying Jobs With An MBA
Every occupation this site tracks, in order of median pay, with the spread between the lowest and highest paid tenth. The spread is the part a single median hides: in several of these the 90th percentile is more than double the midpoint.
| Occupation | Median | 10th to 90th | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chief Executives | $213,990 | $75,700 to $507,730 | 204,350 |
| Computer and Information Systems Managers | $175,140 | $107,550 to $297,510 | 670,570 |
| Marketing Managers | $166,790 | $90,260 to $293,610 | 395,240 |
| Financial Managers | $166,570 | $94,310 to $323,270 | 841,710 |
| Human Resources Managers | $149,280 | $88,200 to $267,810 | 220,660 |
| Medical and Health Services Managers | $123,860 | $73,390 to $224,340 | 597,080 |
| Data Scientists | $120,230 | $67,240 to $199,130 | 262,440 |
| Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers | $107,230 | $65,120 to $194,900 | 221,180 |
| General and Operations Managers | $105,770 | $50,090 to $253,390 | 3,503,020 |
| Financial and Investment Analysts | $102,740 | $63,720 to $180,860 | 361,980 |
| Management Analysts | $101,860 | $60,640 to $171,640 | 898,280 |
| Accountants and Auditors | $83,680 | $56,020 to $144,090 | 1,449,500 |
| Logisticians | $82,320 | $50,890 to $133,160 | 251,040 |
3 of the 13 have no page of their own yet: medical and health services managers, data scientists, accountants and auditors. They are here because the wage survey covers them and the concentrations point at them, and the salary page compares all 13 against what graduates of the ranked programs earned.
Which Concentration Leads To Which Job
Each concentration page on this site names the federal occupation it points at. That mapping is editorial rather than federal: no agency links a concentration to an occupation, and a general MBA can end anywhere on the table above.
What The Degree Costs Against What The Jobs Pay
The median whole-program tuition across the 286 ranked online MBAs is $32,265, and the median Scorecard earnings figure for those schools' business master's graduates is $80,912 a year after finishing. Set against the occupation medians above, the gap between an early-career figure and a mid-career one is most of what separates them: $105,770 for general and operations managers is a median across people at every stage, including those who never took a graduate degree. The affordable ranking orders the same programs by price if the cost side is what decides it.
Common Questions About MBA Careers
What jobs can you get with an MBA?
What is the highest paying job with an MBA?
Do MBA jobs require an MBA?
How much do online MBA graduates earn?
Sources For These Career Pages
- Accreditation, online MBA offerings, concentrations and tuition: AACSB's list of accredited schools, retrieved September 21, 2026. Program details on that list are reported to AACSB by each school.
- Graduate earnings and debt: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, field-of-study file (Most-Recent-Cohorts-Field-of-Study_06102026.zip), business master's in CIP 52.01 and 52.02.
- Institution identifiers: IPEDS, used to match each AACSB school to its federal records.
- Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.