Stanford’s connections to the technology startups, venture capital firms and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley have boosted the school’s desirability. There are five indexes at the heart of this ranking—Compensation, Learning, Networking, Entrepreneurship and Diversity—and the school ranked first in Entrepreneurship. Stanford offers several programs and specializations for those students who are serious about starting their own businesses. Earlier this year it launched what it calls an “ecopreneurship” program, a joint effort between the B-school and the university’s Doerr School of Sustainability. “Student interest in the problems of climate change and sustainability has risen significantly in the past several years,” Amelia Hansen, director of communications and media relations, said in an email.

Sustainability and climate change have taken on greater urgency at almost all business schools—among students, faculty and administrators. Schools are addressing this challenge through interdisciplinary programs and new courses, and with a greater emphasis on areas of research that weren’t as prominent in business school 10 or more years ago. “We are bringing more sciences into the classroom,” says Joan Rodon, dean of ESADE Business School in Barcelona. “Whether hard science, or more engineering, we have people coming from these domains into the business school.”

Such shifts—introducing more science, adding interdisciplinary programs to enhance the curriculum in, say, health care or emerging areas of technology—also signal the types of jobs and roles that more MBAs will take on in the years ahead, according to deans and business school leaders. “We are going more in depth into disciplines that are not ‘management’ disciplines per se,” Rodon says, as a way to provide students with what he calls “a more holistic perspective of the world.”

No question, technology sector layoffs that started in late 2022 have put at least a temporary damper on job prospects for some MBAs, especially in the US. (In India more than one-third of graduates from both Indian School of Business and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore went into jobs in technology; the former had the highest number of graduates of all the schools in our ranking join the tech sector.) Cutbacks and deferred starting dates by the largest consulting firms, as well as layoffs in the financial sector, further complicated the jobs picture in 2023. But, B-school leaders say, new areas of expertise will continue to emerge, new jobs are being created at a very fast pace, and the profile of today’s business leader is evolving just as rapidly.

“People aren’t quite clear on precisely why they need a graduate education in business,” says Lisa Ordóñez, dean of the UC San Diego Rady School of Management, which jumped 17 spots to No. 53 in the US this year. “However, I do think they know that these degrees will support them in their career progression and in being a leader. One of my recent grads was in the first quarter of her MBA program when she was named the CEO for the La Jolla Institute for Immunology here in San Diego. She told me that she was shocked that anyone could be a leader without this training.”

Federico Frattini, dean of the Milan-based Polimi Graduate School of Management, talks about a “new generation of business leaders” who are poised to emerge from schools such as his. “They are more aware humans, with a critical mindset, and not necessarily people who make as fast a career as possible,” Frattini says. “Our students today approach their education with much more awareness of what they want, what they care about. They want to be purposeful leaders. And employers have acknowledged the change in the mindset of people that they’re recruiting.”

One area that consistently rates as a matter of importance to students and alumni—and can significantly alter a school’s ranking—is compensation. The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business jumped from 9th to tie for 3rd in the US this year, thanks to a leap from 10th to 4th on the Compensation Index. The big move was a result of recent alumni reporting higher starting salaries upon graduation. Darden’s median starting salary, according to this year’s ranking, of $175,000—up from $144,500—tied with Stanford, Wharton, Booth, Columbia, Dartmouth and Harvard for the highest.

The school also scored high on the Learning Index, coming in fourth when measured for the quality, depth and range of instruction offered. The result is supported by comments from students, who remarked on the “great professors and academic environment” and the “focus on the actual quality of the educational instruction.”

Interviews with a half-dozen students and recent graduates from various schools about career priorities, brand recognition of schools and more highlight a factor that’s often downplayed: MBAs can be and are largely motivated by specific career goals and interests, more so than by a financial objective. While acknowledged and even desired, compensation isn’t the only or even the prevailing reason behind the decision to attend business school.

“When I set out to get my MBA, more earning potential was genuinely last on the list of five reasons why I wanted an MBA,” says one recent graduate from a top 20 program. “I don’t have any goals regarding compensation other than wanting to achieve a bit more financial comfort for a few years.” The student adds: “Pre-MBA, I was a government employee making around $60,000. One two-year MBA program later, and my offer letter states $175,000 plus bonus. Any ‘more money’ expectations I may have had were exceeded. For me, growing compensation is nice for now, but I don’t find it to be a strong motivator.”