This year’s ranking of the 40 best masters in management programmes sees the return in the top five of a not-unexpected, heavy-weight player: the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Although the HEC masters has retained its star spot for the third year running, the 2007 data shows the Community of European Management Schools (Cems) MIM programme and the LSE MSc in management jostling beneath in joint second place.
In the 2006 ranking, LSE was placed eighth. The main reason for this year’s breakthrough is a substantial increase in salaries reported by its graduates – from an average of around €50,000 last year to €58,000 this year. No other school managed such a big year-on-year increase. The school also improved its showing in the areas of career progress, value for money and international mobility.
Comments made by LSE alumni bear out the school’s good rankings in areas of job prospects and salary. One praised the school’s “accessibility to good employers in [the] financial services sector”. While another commented quite simply: “I rate it high on return on investment.”
This must make heartening reading for the programme directors; with programme fees of €24,500, the LSE degree attracts enviable salaries, but also charges more than any other school ranked.
Leagues of their own
Aside from this six-place move, there are no other large, or even moderately-sized changes in the top ten: nine of the top ten schools all featured there last year.
As in previous years, France, where excellence in business education has long been fostered by the Grande École system, holds sway at the top of the table – six of the top ten schools are French. Further down, of the seven new schools that made it into the top 40 this year, three more are also French.
Two other new schools made rather impressive debuts. Mannheim Business School in Germany entered the ranking at number 15, largely due to the excellent salaries reported by its graduates. According to the data collected for the ranking, Mannheim graduates are earning an average wage of €55,000 – only LSE and HEC beat this record. The Cass Business School of City University in London, on the other hand, had the ninth highest average salary but also performed well in areas measuring faculty, student diversity and the international mobility of its graduates. It therefore claimed a very respectable 17th place at its first pass.
Below this, there were some larger changes in ranking positions. Lancaster University Management School showed improvements, particularly in average salaries and career progress, moving up eight places into 18th position. This was the biggest of the upward moves.
There were more drops in the bottom half of the table, where the spread of scores behind the ranking is far smaller and the loss of a few percentage points here and there can translate into a sharper fall.
Online Q&A session
The past year has seen the growing recognition of the masters in management degree both in Europe and the US.
The big question for proponents of the degree is whether the MSc will achieve the market recognition of the MBA, the gold standard of management education.
On Wednesday September 19 between 14.00 and 15.00 BST a panel of experts will answer your questions about doing an MSc.
On the panel are: Ellen Miller, Managing Director, Human Capital, Lehman Brothers
Patrick Molle, Dean, EM Lyon Business School
Della Bradshaw, Business Education Editor, Financial TimesSend your questions now to ask@ft.com and they will be answered on the day
When asked about why they chose a masters in management degree, respondents have overwhelmingly replied every year that “career prospects” was the most important factor in their decision. For the purposes of the ranking, it is assumed that data describing current salary and job title are the most relevant and accurate approximation of whether graduates have achieved this goal.
This year’s data show that, three years into their careers, most graduates have made a good start up the career ladder: 42 per cent have already attained “junior manager” status, while a further 10 per cent state that they are already senior managers.
This is more or less the same distribution as last year, when the 2003 graduates reported back.
If you picked your sector you did better, but not markedly so. Respondents working in the consultancy and finance and banking industries reported a modest salary premium of around €3,000 over the average. The lawyers are way ahead on €53,000, but represent only one per cent of respondents overall.
This year’s survey ranks programmes offered by business schools based in 14 different countries in Europe. The Cems programme offers an additional masters to an elite subset of students at participating schools in 17 European countries.
Although the schools included in the final ranking are all based in Europe, respondents came from 82 countries and, in fact, the 2007 masters in management ranking itself was open to schools anywhere in the world that met the participation criteria set by the FT.
As the post-graduate business education landscape alters in response to market demands and regulatory changes, the FT hopes to be able to widen the scope of business schools involved and present an ever larger and more global ranking of this type of pre-experience business focused degree.
