Actual Cost of MBA - Real Budgets from Students of Various BSchools

Update Jan 25, 2019: Expenditure details of Desautels (McGill) added.

Hello GMAT Club,

Taking inspiration from this post, we decided to ascertain similar figures for other schools too and make a comprehensive post detailing MBA expenses incurred at different schools. We reached out to active forum members who are currently studying in different business schools and collected details of the expenses incurred during their stay in business school. In subsequent posts, you will find the data of MBA expenditure at different business schools. We want to show MBA expenses of as many schools as we can in this thread and hence will continue to reach out to students and update this thread with their info as soon as we get it; therefore, don't forget to bookmark this topic to for latest info. We hope this would really be a great help to prospective applicants and recent admits in making financing plan for their MBA studies.

We would like to thank to all current students /alumni who took time out of their busy schedules to provide us these valuable inputs of their MBA expenses.

GMAT Club Team.

• Northwestern Kellogg
• Columbia
• UNC Kenan-Flagler
• Olin (St.Louis)
• Rotman
• IMD
• ESMT Berlin
• Desautels (McGill) NEW!

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Actual Cost of Kellogg MBA
Category	Year 1	Year 2	Notes (If Any)
School Expenses
Tuition	US$ 68955	US$ 70334
School fees	US$ 3124	US$ 3186
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	US$ 330	US$ 337
Study Materials (course packs)	US$ 1200	US$ 1224	Some courses have all HBR cases that you must buy
Books/Misc. (printing)	US$ 600	US$ 612	50$ as no one buys books with school library providing subscription to online versions; printing is free at Kellogg (unlimited B/W + Color)
Health Insurance	US$ 3856	US$ 3933
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	US$ 8108	US$ 8270	Includes EVERYTHING
Personal Laptop	US$ 1500	US$ 0
Any other school related expenses.	-	-
First Year Fee	US$ 1500
Travel
Commuting to School: Metro Expenses	US$ 1200	US$ 1224	Not needed as you live in Evanston!
Uber/Lyft/Car Pooling	US$ 5000	US$ 5100
Study Tours	US$ 1000	US$ 1000	GIM Trips: Only those who are enrolled in these courses need to pay for this
Leisure travel	US$ 3500	US$ 3500	Again, depending on the destination could be higher; discretionary
Room & Board
Housing Rent	US$ 19912	US$ 20310	Assuming baseline for 1 bedroom apt in mcmanus as studios are small; https://www.northwestern.edu/living/hous ... index.html ; add another 5-10% if you look at accommodation outside
Household items	US$ 1200	US$ 1224	You get fully furnished apartment in McManus; so not many appliances need to be bought
Utilities/TV	US$ 1200	US$ 1224
Groceries	US$ 7500	US$ 7650
Eating Out	US$ 2500	US$ 2550	Assuming 3X/week average for 4 quarters
Entertainment/Bars	US$ 2000	US$ 2040
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	US$ 1500	US$ 1530
Gym	US$ 780	US$ 796	This is for one of the most expensive gyms in Evanston
Insurance	US$ 300	US$ 306	Not many take out insurance; but assuming it here as a worst case
Healthcare
Personal Expenditure	US$ 1500	US$ 1500
Total Expenses	US$ 138265	US$ 137849
Actual MBA Cost	US$ 276114
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	US$ 200434
Assumptions Assuming a 2% YoY 'g' for all items Students stay for all 4 quarters in Evanston

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Actual Cost of Kenan-Flagler MBA
Category	Year 1	Year 2	Notes
School Expenses
Tuition	US$ 60000	US$ 60000	Tuition is paid per semester
School fees			Included in the tuition
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	US$ 450	US$ 450	Subscription for MBA clubs and activities
Books/Study Materials	US$ 200	US$ 200	Can be shared between friends to reduce the cost
Health Insurance	US$ 692	US$ 692	Indian insurance from ICICI
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	US$ 500	US$ 500	Depends on the track you chose. It is substantially high for IB and consulting
Personal Laptop	US$ 900		Again depends on the machine you chose
Any other school related expenses.	NA	NA
Travel
Commuting to School: Cab/Metro Charges.	US$ 0	US$ 0	I live on campus
Study Tours
Leisure travel	US$ 600	US$ 600	This cannot be quantified. It depends on person.
Room & Board
Housing Rent	US$ 12600	US$ 12600	On campus housing is cheaper
Household items	US$ 1200		You can get a lot of stuff for free
Utilities/TV			Included in the rent
Groceries	US$ 4800	US$ 4800
Eating Out	US$ 1200	US$ 1800	This again is personal preference
Entertainment/Bars			NA
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	US$ 300	US$ 300
Gym			Included in the tuition
Insurance			Health insurance already covered
Healthcare			Depends on how many visits you make and your insurance plan
Personal Expenditure	US$ 1200	US$ 1200
Total Expenses	US$ 84642	US$ 83142
Actual MBA Cost	US$ 167785
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	US$ 178440

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Actual Cost of Olin MBA
Category	Year 1	Year 2	Notes
School Expenses
Tuition	US$ 53000	US$ 53000	Inclusive of fees
School fees
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	US$ 0	US$ 0	No additional costs
Books/Study Materials	US$ 1000	US$ 1000	Approximate.. Could be higher or lower depending on the courses we opt for
Health Insurance	US$ 1200	US$ 1200
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	US$ 700	US$ 700	Approximate. Depends on which conferences we plan to attend
Personal Laptop	US$ 400	US$ 400
Any other school related expenses.	-	-
Travel
Commuting to School: Cab/Metro Charges.	US$ 0	US$ 0	Student travel pass for bus and train provided for free
Study Tours	-	-
Leisure travel	US$ 1200	US$ 1200	Assuming one short trip a year
Room & Board
Housing Rent	US$ 6000	US$ 6000	Considering living in a 2 bedroom shared with a roomate. Studio or 1 bedroom could cost around 30-40% more. This is in St. Louis - One of the cheapest cities in the US
Household items	US$ 300	-	A cheap mattress would be around $100. Other furniture items could be shared with roomate.
Utilities/TV	US$ 1200	US$ 1200
Groceries	US$ 2400	US$ 2400
Eating Out	US$ 1000	US$ 1000	Considering eating out once a week
Entertainment/Bars	US$ 1000	US$ 1000	Estimated figure
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	US$ 200	US$ 200	Student discounts can be availed at many places
Gym	US$ 0	US$ 0	The university usually has a good gym and is available for free to the students
Insurance
Healthcare			Fortunately, I did not incur any healthcare expenditures. But this can be expensive if incurred.
Personal Expenditure	US$ 1600	US$ 1600	Travelling to home country twice during the course of the two years
Total Expenses	US$ 71200	US$ 70900
Actual MBA Cost	US$ 142100
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	US$ 122470

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Actual Cost of Rotman MBA
Category	Year 1	Year 2	Notes
School Expenses
Tuition	CA$ 55000	CA$ 55000	2 payments (Sep and Dec)
School fees			Included in the tuition
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	CA$ 400	-	1 payment (Sep)
Books/Study Materials	CA$ 400	CA$ 400	It depends with the class that you will have. I just spent 400
Health Insurance			Included in the tuition
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	CA$ 960	CA$ 960
Personal Laptop	CA$ 1500	-	Before Class (Sep)
Any other school related expenses.	CA$ 0	-
Travel
Commuting to School: Cab/Metro Charges.	CA$ 840	CA$ 840
Study Tours	-	-
Leisure travel	-	-
Room & Board
Housing Rent	CA$ 18000	CA$ 18000
Household items	CA$ 1200	CA$ 1200
Utilities/TV	CA$ 2400	CA$ 2400
Groceries	CA$ 6000	CA$ 6000
Eating Out	CA$ 3000	CA$ 3000
Entertainment/Bars	CA$ 1800	CA$ 1800
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	CA$ 600	CA$ 600
Gym	CA$ 1080	CA$ 1080
Insurance	CA$ 960	CA$ 960
Healthcare	CA$ 0	CA$ 0
Personal Expenditure	CA$ 1200	CA$ 1200
Total Expenses	CA$ 95340	CA$ 93440
Actual MBA Cost	CA$ 188780
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	CA$ 141826

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Actual Cost of IMD MBA
Category	Year 1	Notes
School Expenses
Tuition	CHF 85000
School fees	-
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	-
Books/Study Materials	-
Health Insurance	CHF 5000
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	CHF 1000
Personal Laptop	CHF 1000
Relocation	CHF 4000	To and from Switzerland
Travel
Commuting to School: Cab/Metro Charges.	CHF 1000	Year railway cards for family and cost of travel over the year
Study Tours	CHF 500
Leisure travel	CHF 4000
Room & Board
Housing Rent	CHF 20000
Household items	CHF 3000
Utilities/TV	-
Groceries	CHF 20000
Eating Out	CHF 3000
Entertainment/Bars	-
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	CHF 2000
Gym	-
Insurance	CHF 500	Housing insurance and other
Healthcare	-
Family expenditures	CHF 10000	Expenditures for clothes/ kids activities etc
Visa and other docs	CHF 2000
Actual MBA Cost	CHF 162000
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	CHF 121000

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Actual Cost of ESMT MBA
Category	Year 1	Notes
School Expenses
Tuition	€ 45,000
School fees	-
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	€ 50
Books/Study Materials	€ 0
Health Insurance	€ 1,080
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	-
Personal Laptop	€ 700
Any other school related expenses.	€ 56	Residence Permit
Travel
Commuting to School: Cab/Metro Charges.	€ 528
Study Tours	€ 1,200
Leisure travel	€ 1,000
Room & Board
Housing Rent	€ 7,200
Household items	€ 2,400
Utilities/TV	€ 240
Groceries	€ 1,200
Eating Out	€ 720
Entertainment/Bars	€ 1,080
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	€ 119
Gym	€ 240
Insurance	-
Healthcare	-
Personal Expenditure	€ 1,800
Actual MBA Cost	€ 64,613
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	€ 61500

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Actual Cost of an Columbia MBA

EDIT: I decided since I have some time to kill to update this post with my numbers from year 2. Again the same caveats from below apply. Overall the 2 years is very expensive but completely worth it! The first year covers 1 Aug 2013 - 31 Jul 2014, the second year covers 1 Aug 2014 - 31 May 2015. In most cases the earliest you'll start work would be 1 June so I consider May as part of the MBA related expenses, most people probably won't start until later but the summer is really up to you so I'm not counting it in my calculations.

For the headline number, total cost for 2 years = $263,506

So how much does an MBA at Columbia really cost? This was a big question for me when researching schools but one for which nobody seemed to have a good answer. Obviously everybody’s situation is different but it’s safe to say that the school budget is absurdly low. So I thought I would share my results from my first year, with a little help from Quicken and a lot of OCD.

Some notes up front. Orientation starts in mid-August so you’ll likely move in starting beginning of August so that is how I chose my starting date. Additionally I’m married with no kids. So my rent and grocery bills are higher than average but my bars and travel spending are lower so they probably balance out roughly. I didn't take any international trips or pre-MBA trips but did travel some inside the US during the first year. Second year I traveled on one international trip, still well below the MBA school norm.

Ok here are the numbers including a per month average for categories where it makes sense:

Category	Year 1	Per Month	Year 2	Per Month
Tuition	$ 60,720.00	N/A	$63,148.00	N/A
School Fees	$ 3,124.00	N/A	$2,642.00	N/A
Health Insurance	$ 3,149.00	N/A	$2,508.00	N/A
Agent Fee	$ 3,562.50	N/A	$ 0	N/A
Application Fees	$ 759.00	N/A	$ 0	N/A
Household items	$2,425.33	$202.11	$1,451.16	$145.12
Student Orgs	$714.61	$59.55	$772.77	$77.28
Rent	$ 28,500.00	$ 2,375.00	$ 23,750.00	$ 2,375.00
Metro Expenses	$1,635.50	$136.29	$1,112.60	$111.26
Groceries	$8,447.26	$703.94	$7,541.74	$754.17
Eating Out	$1,830.22	$152.52	$2,399.72	$239.97
Entertainment/Bars	$2,959.06	$246.59	$2,756.69	$275.67
Utilities/TV	$2,605.93	$217.16	$3,031.55	$303.16
Insurance	$1,866.77	$155.56	$2,104.28	$210.43
Healthcare	$1,401.81	$116.82	$1,234.98	$123.50
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	$1,451.82	$120.99	$2,697.10	$269.71
Gym	$1,719.93	$143.33	$3,316.96	$331.70
Travel	$8,107.56	N/A	$8,058.20	N/A
Total	$134,980.30	$4,628.86	$ 128,525.75	$5,216.97

Hopefully this will help folks get a starting point for a budget. As you can see I overshot the school’s estimate by about 35%.

Any other schools apart from the ones listed?

regards,
HK
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Hi Narenn,

This is an absolutely amazing post. It will really help if you can add details for more schools in top 30 to have a better comparison. I am sure these details will definitely be an eye opener for lot of candidates.

Just a suggestion - can we add average internship cost and final placement figure in the table to give a more holistic approach?

Hi Narenn, thanks for sharing. I think these costs are quite cost effective

Much of the time the soonest you will begin work would be 1 June so i consider may as a feature of the MBA related costs, a great many people most likely won't begin until some other time however the mid year is truly up to you so i am not including it in my figuring...
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This is really helpful - thanks for compiling this!

Really good thread Narenn.

Would it be possible to put the $ value for the European school's total budgets? I understand the exchange rate varies frequently but the $ value helps in providing a ballpark figure and members would be able to compare apple to apple, If required.

Thank you! We can do that - I will add a column to show $ values of given figures.
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Great Idea! We can add those data fields in future surveys.

We are planning to make fresh outreach to current students and we will definitely try to contact students of the schools which are missing here. I also appeal to all forum members - If you have connections in any business schools, please try to reach out to them on your own and request your friends to provide their expenditure details to include in this collection. Rest assured - names of the students providing expenses details will NOT be made public. PM me if any help is required for this task.
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Thank you all for posting this valuable information. This is so eye opening. 250k+ is a lot of money for any international students especially in the current visa situation.

Actual Cost of Desautels (McGill)
Category	Year 1	Year 2	Notes (If Any)
School Expenses
Tuition	CA$ 44500	CA$ 44500	International tuition. For full details see: https://www.mcgill.ca/desautels/program ... ba/tuition
School fees	CA$ 1310	CA$ 1310	Society fees, student services, administration charges, IT charges, etc.
Student orgs, club subscriptions, etc.	CA$ 120	CA$ 120	Depending on the clubs, some of them charge as little as $5, and some charge $25 flat and give access to their events all year.
Books/Study Materials	CA$ 230	CA$ 180	Copyright fee: $30. On an average add $25-$30 for course materials. Some classes have simulations and exercises that need to be bought individually. The most expensive of them was roughly $80. You end up sharing some of the course materials.
Health Insurance	CA$ 1170	CA$ 1170	International health + dental. For full details see: https://www.mcgill.ca/desautels/program ... ba/tuition
Attending networking events/conferences: Travel Expenses, Parking, Wine and Dine Expenses, Event Tickets, etc.	CA$ 900	CA$ 600	A networking event in Toronto in mid-November. The rest of the events and activities are purely by choice, but highly recommended. The most avid ones end up spending higher, but on average this should be good enough.
Personal Laptop	CA$ 1300		Any decent laptop which can handle everyday tasks is good enough. If you have a good one, don't bother buying one. Highly recommend Windows over Mac for better compatibility with softwares and excercises.
Any other school related expenses.	CA$ 600	CA$ 600	Just miscellanious expenses in case you wanted to have more fun and great experiences.
Travel
Commuting to School: Cab/Metro Charges.	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	Live close to the school and save some dough and time in travelling. Montreal is cheap, so you can afford to live close to the school. Other option is room/house mates.
Study Tours	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	A 10-day international study trip is included in the fee - Travel, Lodging and local commute.
Leisure travel	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	Well, up to you.
Room & Board
Housing Rent	CA$ 9000	CA$ 9000
Household items
Utilities/TV	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	What're you doing watching TV during your MBA?
Groceries	CA$ 2400	CA$ 2400
Eating Out	CA$ 600	CA$ 600	Avoid eating out as much as you can. Food is not that important now, is it?
Entertainment/Bars	CA$ 600	CA$ 600	Well, if you think this estimate is less than what you'd be spending, you should seriously rethink your priorities.
Miscellaneous(dry cleaning/barber/etc)	CA$ 360	CA$ 360	Go to Salon Violette, they charge students $11.
Gym	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	Included in school fees.
Insurance	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	Renter's insurance would be $50 I guess.
Healthcare	CA$ 0	CA$ 0	Included in the PGSS Health Plan.
Personal Expenditure	CA$ 120	CA$ 120	Just to round off the figures. All figures above include buffers, so you shouldn't really need more. Only caveat not in here is the number of times you will travel home.
Total Expenses	CA$ 63210	CA$ 61560	Monthly expenses are included in the totals too. So don't panic.
Actual MBA Cost	CA$ 124770
MBA Budget Displayed on School’s Website	CA$ 108000 - CA$ 113000
NOTE: The expenses mentioned above are the absolute maximum one will spend and includes buffers, so don’t get demotivated if they appear too high; Your MBA budget could be lower if you spend cautiously and save wherever possible.

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What about opportunity costs of your salary / compensation given up over the two years. If you make $100K plus a 30K bonus (all-in comp of $130K per year), then that is an additional $260K of "costs" to be added. Granted, you can discount this amount by any internship income / signing bonuses, but isn't opportunity cost (for some people) an even larger factor in the overall cost of an MBA program??

Thanks for bringing this important aspect of MBA costing into the discussion. We didn't include opportunity costs for two reasons: (1) Opportunity costs can differ greatly from person to person as they are based on compensation prior to MBA, country, etc factors. So you can't have a single figure of opportunity cost for a bschool. (2) Primary objective of this initiative is to provide an estimation of expenses that actually incur while studying at a certain business school so that those who are planning to attend that program will have a clear understanding of how much provision is required to make to attend that program. Opportunity cost is something that one should consider when calculating the ROI of MBA but not while raising funds.

Having said that, I fully agree that one should certainly consider opportunity cost while deciding to enroll at a bschool.
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