The median base salary for HBS’s 2025 graduates rose to $184,500, up from $175,000 the year before. Of the 65% of the class seeking employment, 90% received at least one job offer within three months of graduation, and 84% accepted—both improvements from the classes of 2024 and 2023.
Seventeen percent of graduates said they plan to start their own business, the highest share on record, up from 8% in 2021 and 13% in 2023, according to Kristen Fitzpatrick, senior managing director for career and professional development at HBS.
“They want to make content online, they want to find customers online… Being educated with more information about what people can do, why would they want to do something that isn’t the most elite experience and the most fun for them?”
Even with the jump in entrepreneurship, the majority of MBA graduates still head straight into the job market—and this year brought a notable shift for graduates of the elite university.
For the first time in at least five years of publicly available HBS data, tech became the top hiring industry for graduates. Tech accounted for 22% of hires, edging out consulting (21%) and private equity (14%), which have historically dominated recruiting. Among those who joined an established organization, about 17% went to a startup.
Here’s where the class of 2025 landed:
It’s why Scott Edinburgh, an MBA admissions consultant and the founder of Personal MBA Coach encourages prospective students to view getting an MBA not as a three-year investment—but rather a 20-year one.
“There will always be some headwinds here and there but even small dips in placement are outweighed by the long-term benefits of having an MBA,” he told Fortune. “The very strong salary numbers only rise as the career progresses.”
