What Does It Cost To Attend A Top 100 Business School?

Of all the factors that go into choosing a business school, cost is often among the top. College is expensive even if many students don’t pay the actual sticker price thanks to scholarships and grants.

For our annual ranking of the country’s best undergraduate business schools, we collect data that, while not used in the ranking methodology, does offer important insights about the school environments. This includes tuition, fees, and other cost of attendance estimates for students entering the school during the most recent fall term. (For the few schools that did not submit these data points, we estimated the totals based on information found on their websites. For schools that provided this data, the figures represent estimates for the Fall 2023 intake, multiplied to get to an estimated total cost of the degree. If schools did not provide tuition and cost data, figures may represent Fall 2024 intake if they have updated their websites.)

Looking at tuition and fees alone, earning a business degree from a ranked program now costs more than $200,000 at 32 schools. University of Southern California Marshall School of Business (ranked No. 2 overall) has the highest total tuition over the course of the degree at $272,948. This is based on figures found on University of Southern California’s cost of attendance website which lists base tuition of $66,640 and fees of $1,597 each year.

Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business (ranked No. 26 overall) lists the second highest tuition at $257,840 over four years, based on the university’s undergraduate cost of attendance website.

The most expensive undergraduate business degrees, based on tuition and fees, are listed below.

BEST VALUE BUSINESS SCHOOLS RANKED BY P&Q

For the best value four-year business degree, students should look at their in-state, public universities first. Tuition for in-state students is often magnitudes cheaper than for out-of-state – at schools that offer such discounts. The big-name private universities typically don’t.

For example, the University of Washington Foster School of Business (ranked No. 19 overall) offers in-state students one of the best values in a four-year business degree. Total in-state tuition over four years is $50,580 compared to $167,988 for out-of-state students. At Texas A&M University Mays Business School (No. 34), Texas students can expect to pay around $51,666 for their degree compared to $161,806 for students coming from across state lines.

One of the best values for a quality business degree can be nabbed by students living in North Carolina. The Kenan-Flagler Business School at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is ranked No. 8 overall in our 2024 ranking, but in-state students will pay just under $36,000 on a four-year undergraduate degree (compared to $157,000 for out-of-state students). With estimated other expenses – including housing, food, transportation and more – the degree will cost under $100K at about $93,000. It’s the lowest estimated cost of the Top 30 ranked schools on our ranking.

NEXT PAGE: Total cost to attend a P&Q ranked business school over four years