ROI: Business Schools with Bang for the Buck

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By virtue of their low tuition, Florida universities make it possible for students to graduate with much less debt, which allows them to start saving immediately upon graduation, says Brian Ray, associate dean at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business Administration. Annual tuition and fees at the Florida schools that topped the ROI ranking are well under $5,000. Thanks to the Bright Futures Scholarships, which was created by the Florida Legislature in 1997 to reward young people for their academic achievements during high school, tuition costs remain low for most in-state students, he adds. And 99% of students in the business school are Florida residents, says Ray.

Value, however, goes beyond dollars and cents. While many public programs are more affordable, some tend to have less-than-stellar career placement stats when compared with private programs. At the University of Central Florida, which ranked No. 1 for ROI in 2010, only 27% of the graduates who shared employment information had received their first job offer by graduation. And at Florida International, where many graduates are the first in their families to attend college, the placement rate is even lower: 17%. The top private programs, on the other hand, had graduates faring much better despite the recession, with placement rates well above 80%.

Private Programs

One private school, the Marriott School of Management (Marriott Undergraduate Profile) at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, is neck-and-neck with the public Florida schools for ROI, and topped the list of private programs. Marriott students, most of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, earn $11.56 per annual tuition dollar. "When our students complain about how expensive their education is, I tell them to compare us to others," says Brent Wilson, director of undergraduate management programs at Marriott.

One big reason that Brigham Young topped our list of private schools for ROI was the super-low tuition: $2,100 per semester for church members, or half of what non-church members pay—and only a fifth of what the next least expensive program charges. The reason is simple: Members of the church donate a significant portion of their income to the church, which goes in part to support the school. What's more, tuition increases are usually minimal. Next year, for instance, the tuition is expected to go up about $50 per semester, says Wilson.

During the economic crisis, Wilson admits, the biggest challenge was helping students reach out beyond the local community to seek job opportunities. Besides walking out of school with little or no debt, students also have access to a database of 500 alumni who serve as mentors, he says. Armed with the teamwork skills and ethics education they gain at Marriott, Wilson says, the school's graduates hit the ground running. It helps, he says, that they're a little older and more mature than most college graduates, a result of the two-year missions for the church that many undertake during their college years. "What we try to do is have the students practice making decisions," says Wilson. "We use cases where students are put in the role of decision-maker." Employers seem to agree, because 95% of the students who reported employment information had received their first job offer by graduation in 2009.

Joining Marriott among the top five undergraduate business programs for ROI at private schools are, in order, Cornell (Cornell Undergraduate Profile); DePaul (DePaul Undergraduate Profile); MIT Sloan School of Management (Sloan Undergraduate Profile); and Hofstra's Zarb School of Business (Hofstra Undergraduate Profile). Cornell, the Ivy League bargain, ranked fifth overall in the 2010 list of top undergraduate business programs. The undergraduate business program resides in the part of the private university that receives public support, which helps keep tuition costs down. In fact, its $22,000-per-year tuition is about 25% to 50% lower than tuition at the other Ivy League schools, says Edward McLaughlin, director of the undergraduate business program at Cornell.

But Cornell—whose graduates earn $2.52 per annual tuition dollar, far less than front-runner Marriott—is not interested in measuring ROI in terms of money, says McLaughlin. The program's true value, he says, is in its ability to prepare graduates for any entry-level position they take. "An undergraduate business degree is great preparation for students entering almost any phase of life," says McLaughlin. "Our program is broad-based, what I'd like to call a liberal arts approach to business." As a result of students' exposure to many different aspects of the business world and beyond, he says, they are trained to be responsible citizens who consider ethics, global poverty, the environment, and other societal concerns in their business dealings.

Coming in at No. 3 is DePaul, where the undergraduate business program serves many first-generation college students who go on to earn a median starting salary of $55,000, or $2.01 per annual tuition dollar spent. The school makes an effort, says DePaul Dean Ray Whittington, to keep tuition down and offer lots of need-based financial aid. Annual tuition stood at a little more than $27,000 in 2010. Much like the public institutions that scored big on the ROI ranking, DePaul has many ties to the local community, says Whittington. In fact, there are 50,000 DePaul alumni in Chicago, and as a result, he says, the undergraduate business program is considered "Chicago's business school."

Di Meglio is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com in Fort Lee, N.J.

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