MBA careers
How To Become A Financial Manager
Jobs nationally
841,710
$94,310 to $323,270 across them
Ranked MBAs in this field
31
Finance concentration
BLS names a bachelor's degree and five years or more in another business or financial occupation, not a master's. What an MBA in finance changes is the second half of that sentence: it is the credential people already working as analysts, accountants or controllers use to argue for the management job above them.
What Financial Managers Do
The Occupational Outlook Handbook describes the work this way: “Financial managers create financial reports, direct investment activities, and develop plans for the long-term financial goals of their organization.” That is the occupation BLS surveys for the pay figures on this page, so the job description and the wage belong to the same definition. The Handbook page is the source, read on September 22, 2026.
How To Become A Financial Manager
BLS sums the route up in one sentence: “Financial managers typically need a bachelor's degree and 5 years or more of experience in another business or financial occupation, such as an accountant, securities sales agent, or financial analyst.”
The Handbook is unusually specific about where people arrive from: accountant, securities sales agent, financial analyst. That is a ladder rather than an open door, and the five years it names is the stretch an MBA is normally taken during rather than before.
What this site can add to that is the price of the degree and what its graduates earned. Across the 31 ranked online MBAs reporting a finance concentration, whole-program tuition has a median of $33,600, and their graduates' median earnings a year after finishing were $78,816. The BLS median for financial managers is $166,570, $85,658 above the $80,912 median a year out of these programs, which is the distance experience covers rather than the degree.
What Financial Managers Earn
The May 2025 wage survey reports 841,710 jobs nationally, with these figures:
| Percentile | Annual pay | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $94,310 | Lowest tenth of the occupation |
| 25th | $125,490 | Lower quarter |
| Median | $166,570 | Midpoint, half earn more |
| 75th | $219,980 | Upper quarter |
| 90th | $323,270 | Highest tenth |
Nothing else tracked on this site starts this high. The 10th percentile here, $94,310, is above the median of six of the thirteen occupations on the salary page, so the bottom of this occupation pays better than the middle of most of them. MBA salaries by occupation sets all thirteen side by side, with what graduates of the ranked programs earned.
Online MBA Programs For Financial Managers
Finance is the direct concentration. Accounting is the second one worth a look precisely because the Handbook names accountants among the jobs financial managers come from, so it covers the rung below as well as this one. Full profiles, prices and sources for each of these are on the concentration page; the score describes the whole MBA, because neither federal earnings nor AACSB tuition is reported for a single concentration.
| Program | Tuition | Graduate earnings | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Nebraska, Nebraska | $33,600 | $113,196 | 22nd |
| University of North Alabama, Alabama | $16,830 | $83,366 | 31st |
| Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma | $11,730 | $76,648 | 35th |
| University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Wisconsin | $26,000 | $87,090 | 55th |
| University of South Dakota, South Dakota | $16,980 | $76,293 | 56th |
All 31 ranked online MBAs in Finance ยท Online MBA in Accounting
Common Questions About Becoming A Financial Manager
Do you need an MBA to become a financial manager?
How much do financial managers make?
Which online MBA concentration is best for financial managers?
Is the job growing?
Other Careers An MBA Leads To
Sources For This Financial Manager Page
- 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.