Forbes Magazine Ranks UB School of Management as a Best Business School

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Forbes magazine has included the University at Buffalo School of Management in its annual ranking of 50 business schools that provide MBA students with the best return on their investment.

Forbes ranked the UB School of Management No. 21 among 25 "small" business schools, ahead of University of Washington, Boston College, Penn State and Oklahoma University. The magazine also ranked the return on investment of 25 "large" business schools, a list that was headed by Harvard. The magazine categorized the size of the schools based on tuition costs.

It is the first time that the UB management school was selected for the ranking, which will be published in the magazine's Oct. 15 issue and is available online at http://www.forbes.com.

According to Forbes, the rankings show which business schools offer the "best bang for the buck" by comparing the cost of attaining an MBA -- tuition, plus forgone income -- to salaries earned by MBA graduates upon graduation and five years after graduation.

The results were based on a survey of 20,000 MBA graduates worldwide from the Class of 1996. The graduates were selected from 104 business schools.

According to the ranking, the average Class of 1996 UB MBA graduate had a five-year gain in compensation of $40,000, after subtracting the cost of tuition and forgone salary. In 2000, their salaries rose to an average of $75,000, a 240 percent increase from their pre-MBA average salary.

"The Forbes ranking indicates that we're producing graduates who achieve a high level of career success, which is helping the School of Management earn a reputation as one of the nation's best," said Jerry M. Newman, interim dean of the UB School of Management.

The Forbes ranking is consistent with other national ratings achieved by the School of Management in the past year. In April, the Wall Street Journal ranked the school 37th in the country and 43rd in the world, based on surveys of 1,600 corporate recruiters. Business Week last October included the School of Management in its ranking of the 65 best business schools in the U.S., based on satisfaction surveys of MBA students and corporate recruiters.

"Over the past five years, we've focused on attracting talented MBA students and providing them with programs designed to help them excel in a modern, global business environment," Newman says. "Business-school rankings are useful for gauging how well we're meeting those goals."

Newman credits several initiatives within the school for enhancing the marketability of its MBA program and graduates, including a revamped MBA curriculum focused on teamwork and use of business technologies, outstanding career services and an emphasis on student development of intangible management traits and behaviors -- such as initiative, leadership and problem solving -- cited by corporate recruiters as crucial to career success.

Enrollment in the UB MBA programs is up 40 percent this fall.