Online MBA Programs, Compared On Cost And Earnings
327 AACSB-accredited business schools report an MBA you can finish fully
online. This site compares them on what the degree costs and what graduates earn, from
AACSB, the U.S. Department of Education and BLS, with every source named.
An online MBA is sold by hundreds of schools, and the accreditation behind them ranges from
AACSB to nothing beyond the university's institutional accreditor. This site starts from
AACSB's own accredited list, then compares
what those schools report about price against what federal data says their business master's
graduates earn. Nothing here is scored on reputation, and no figure appears without the source
that produced it.
Start With The Decision You Are Making
The same 327 schools, cut five ways. The national ranking weighs earnings against
price; the others answer a narrower question, and every one is built from the same data.
An online MBA can be finished from anywhere, but public schools price by residency and readers
often start with a school they know. 17 states hold enough ranked programs
for a ranking of their own.
Most online MBAs let you specialize. These are the concentrations that at least
14 ranked programs report to AACSB, each page ranking those
programs on the same national score.
No federal source reports pay by degree, so the closest evidence is what the jobs themselves
pay. These are occupations MBA graduates move into, from the BLS May 2025 release, with the
spread rather than the headline figure.
General and Operations Managers$105,770 median$50,090 to $253,390
Jobs with an MBA takes each of these one at a time:
what the work is, what it takes to enter and which concentration leads there.
MBA salary by occupation carries all
13 occupations, what graduates of these programs earned
one and four years out, and what managers earn state by state.
A Ranking With Its Working Shown
Every figure traces to a named source, and the parts that cannot be measured are stated rather
than smoothed over. The methodology publishes the weights, the eligibility rule, the schools
removed because their own pages contradict AACSB, and what the earnings figure does not capture.
The parts that can be checked: the median ranked program reports $32,265 in whole-program tuition, and the median school's business master's graduates earned $80,912 a year after finishing. What no federal source reports is what those same people would have earned without the degree, so that gap describes a group and is not a return on the money. The full working, including debt and the four-year figure, is on the salary page.
Which online MBA programs does this site cover?
Every AACSB-accredited U.S. business school that reports an MBA a student can finish fully online, which is 327 of the 557 AACSB schools in the country. Executive MBAs and dual degrees are left out. 286 of those programs carry a score; the rest appear in the directory without one, because a figure the ranking needs is not published for them.
How much does an online MBA cost?
The median ranked program reports $32,265 in whole-program tuition to AACSB, and 73 report less than $20,000 for the degree. The least expensive is Valdosta State University at $9,000. Schools update what they report on their own schedule and some figures exclude fees, so confirm the current price with the school.
Are online MBA programs accredited?
The ones here are. Every program on this site is at a business school accredited by AACSB, which accredits the school rather than a single degree. ACBSP and IACBE accredit business programs too, and institutional accreditation is a separate layer again; the accreditation guide sets out the differences.
Where does the data come from?
Three public sources, named on every page that uses them: AACSB's accredited list for schools, programs, concentrations and tuition; the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard for graduate earnings and debt; and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for occupation pay. Program summaries come from each school's own online MBA page, with the date it was read.
Where This Data Comes From
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.
