MBA careers
How To Become A Supply Chain Manager
Typical entry education BLS OOH
High school diploma or equivalent
5 years or more of related experience
Jobs nationally
221,180
$65,120 to $194,900 across them
Ranked MBAs in this field
19
Supply Chain Management concentration
The plainest case against a degree on this site: BLS names a high school diploma as the typical entry for the management job, with some employers preferring a bachelor's. The MBA here is not the way in. It is what people already running a warehouse, a fleet or a plan use to move into the wider operations role, and the pay it is bought for is in the 75th and 90th percentiles rather than the median.
What Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers Do
The Occupational Outlook Handbook describes the work this way: “Transportation, storage, and distribution managers plan, direct, or coordinate the movement of people and goods.” 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 Supply Chain Manager
BLS sums the route up in one sentence: “Transportation, storage, and distribution managers typically need a high school diploma, although some employers prefer or require a bachelor's degree.”
This is the plainest case on the site against assuming a degree. BLS names a high school diploma as the typical entry, with some employers preferring a bachelor's, so nobody needs an MBA to run a warehouse or a fleet.
What this site can add to that is the price of the degree and what its graduates earned. Across the 19 ranked online MBAs reporting a supply chain management concentration, whole-program tuition has a median of $34,615, and their graduates' median earnings a year after finishing were $78,816. The BLS median for transportation, storage, and distribution managers is $107,230, $26,318 above the $80,912 median a year out of these programs, which is the distance experience covers rather than the degree.
What Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers Earn
The May 2025 wage survey reports 221,180 jobs nationally, with these figures:
| Percentile | Annual pay | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $65,120 | Lowest tenth of the occupation |
| 25th | $82,440 | Lower quarter |
| Median | $107,230 | Midpoint, half earn more |
| 75th | $146,770 | Upper quarter |
| 90th | $194,900 | Highest tenth |
The median of $107,230 is a working manager's wage. What the degree is bought for is the $166,940 at the 90th percentile, where the job stops being one site and starts being a network. A second occupation sits beside this one in the survey: logisticians, median $82,320 across 251,040 jobs. The two are counted separately and one job title in a company may cover either. MBA salaries by occupation sets all thirteen side by side, with what graduates of the ranked programs earned.
Online MBA Programs For Supply Chain Managers
A supply chain concentration is the direct one. International business is the second, since the movement of goods the job description names crosses borders more often than not. 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 Wisconsin-Whitewater, Wisconsin | $26,000 | $87,090 | 55th |
| University of South Dakota, South Dakota | $16,980 | $76,293 | 56th |
| The University of Memphis, Tennessee | $28,602 | $83,471 | 98th |
| University of Maryland, Maryland | $94,500 | $125,159 | 116th |
All 19 ranked online MBAs in Supply Chain Management ยท Online MBA in International Business
Common Questions About Becoming A Supply Chain Manager
Do you need an MBA to become a supply chain manager?
How much do transportation, storage, and distribution managers make?
Which online MBA concentration is best for transportation, storage, and distribution managers?
Is the job growing?
Other Careers An MBA Leads To
Sources For This Supply Chain 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.