Business academia spans the finances of accredited schools, the demand for business degrees, faculty hiring, and the labor-market outcomes of graduates. The figures below combine AACSB reporting for business schools with U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for business degree holders and selected occupations. Measurement periods vary by source, from 2018–19 through 2024–25 and, for labor-market figures, 2023 or 2024.
Contents
- Business school finances
- Regional and institutional differences
- Admissions, applications, and tuition
- Doctoral pathways and faculty hiring
- Credentials, skills, and AI
- Societal impact in business education
- Business degrees and career outcomes
Business school finances
AACSB-accredited business schools reported an average operating budget of $33.2 million in 2023–24, while the median was $20.6 million. The gap between those measures indicates that the largest schools materially raise the average. The same AACSB 2025 State of Business Education Report places average operating funds available at $49,747,849, with the maximum reported amount reaching $354,774,000.
Operating budgets changed substantially across the longer period covered by the report. Average operating budgets rose from $19.0 million in 2018–19 to $33.2 million in 2023–24. Median operating budgets moved from $19.0 million to $20.6 million over the same period. Average total expenditures increased from $31.2 million in 2018–19 to $37.8 million in 2023–24, and the report describes business-school average expenditures as growing 21 percent over its six-year period.
The funding mix also shows the central role of student revenue. Tuition and fees accounted for 52 percent of operating funds in 2023–24. Institutional allocations represented 16 percent, while government appropriations represented 8 percent. In the later AACSB Business School Finances and Tuition Trends: 2026 comparison, tuition and fees accounted for 67 percent of operating revenue in 2024–25. These percentages belong to different reporting periods and measures, so they should not be treated as a single continuous series.
| Measure | Earlier period | Later period or current figure |
|---|---|---|
| Average operating budget | $19.0 million, 2018–19 | $33.2 million, 2023–24 |
| Median operating budget | $19.0 million, 2018–19 | $20.6 million, 2023–24 |
| Average total expenditures | $31.2 million, 2018–19 | $37.8 million, 2023–24 |
| Tuition and fees share | 52% of operating funds, 2023–24 | 67% of operating revenue, 2024–25 |
The AACSB 2025 State of Business Education Report also says operating funds increased 19 percent over six years among schools that consistently reported the data. That comparison is restricted to consistently reporting schools and therefore has a narrower basis than a statement about every accredited school.
Regional and institutional differences
AACSB’s 2023–24 figures show wide differences in total funds available by region. EMEA schools reported an average of $46.1 million and a median of $26.0 million. Americas schools reported an average of $22.0 million and a median of $15.3 million. Asia Pacific schools reported the highest figures in this grouping, with an average of $75.2 million and a median of $67.9 million.
School size produces an even wider spread. Small schools reported an average of $11.8 million and a median of $10.1 million. Medium schools reported an average of $24.8 million and a median of $15.6 million. Large schools reported an average of $83.6 million and a median of $66.3 million. The distance between averages and medians differs by group, which is a useful reminder that a few very large institutions can affect average results.
The AACSB Business School Finances and Tuition Trends: 2026 report provides a later view for 2024–25. Large schools had a median operating budget of approximately $45 million. Their median budgets were more than three times those of medium-sized schools and more than seven times those of small schools. Over five years, large-school median budgets increased 19 percent, medium-school medians increased 7 percent, and small-school medians declined 1 percent.
Independent business schools reported median budgets of approximately $57 million in 2024–25, with upper-end budgets reaching roughly $356 million. The standard academic-unit comparison sample represented 550 institutions. Because the report uses comparison groups and different time windows, these figures describe institutional scale rather than a typical budget for every business school.
Admissions, applications, and tuition
Undergraduate admissions yield at AACSB schools was 42 percent in 2018–19 and fell to 34 percent in 2023–24. Over the same endpoints, the undergraduate acceptance rate moved from 48 percent to 50 percent. Acceptance and yield measure different stages: the first concerns the share admitted, while the second concerns the share of admitted students who enroll.
Master’s demand was substantial in 2023–24. Applications across AACSB schools reached 608,000. The regional figures reported by AACSB were 306,000 applications in the Americas, 254,000 in Asia Pacific, and 351,000 in EMEA. These regional values are presented as reported figures and are not combined here because they overlap with the global total in the source’s reporting structure.
MBA tuition rose across the three reported study years. Average tuition was $21.2 thousand per study year in 2021–22, $31.1 thousand in 2022–23, and $35.6 thousand in 2023–24. The reported MBA program cost per program for in-state students was $63.1 thousand in 2021–22 and $64.7 thousand in 2023–24. Study-year tuition and total program cost are distinct measures, so they are not interchangeable.
Doctoral pathways and faculty hiring
The doctoral pipeline in 2023–24 included 39.4 thousand applicants, 6.8 thousand offers, and 4.1 thousand new entrants, according to the AACSB 2025 State of Business Education Report. The same report says new doctorate hires fell to 30 percent, while experienced hires who were not new doctorates rose to 68 percent.
Faculty planning around artificial intelligence remained limited in the reported near-term horizon. Only 14 percent of deans had created or planned to create new full-time AI faculty positions within the next year. Only 13 percent had, or planned to, restructure existing faculty roles toward AI. These figures describe dean-reported plans and should not be read as a count of all AI teaching activity.
Credentials, skills, and AI
Non-degree learning has become a visible part of business education. AACSB reported that 62 percent of business schools worldwide offered some form of non-degree credential. In the same report, 61 percent of schools said skills-driven lifelong learning could have a high or critical impact on their schools.
The skills-based hiring discussion includes several labor-market measures. AACSB reported that 62 percent of Americans lacked a college degree. Fewer than 4 percent of job roles removed degree requirements from 2014 to 2023. Non-degree hires increased by 3.5 percentage points over that period but represented 0.14 percent of total annual hires.
Where skills-based hiring was implemented effectively, non-degree hires had a 10 percent higher two-year retention rate and experienced a 25 percent salary increase. Those outcomes are conditional on effective implementation; they do not establish that every non-degree hire receives the same result.
Societal impact in business education
AACSB’s Five Years of Societal Impact report says accredited schools engage in an average of 2.6 societal impact domains. It also reports that 99.5 percent of AACSB-accredited schools work in multiple societal impact areas.
Environmental engagement differed by region. It reached 86.31 percent in EMEA, 72.95 percent in Asia Pacific, and 49.08 percent in the Americas. These are reported shares of schools engaging in the environment domain, not measures of the amount of environmental impact produced.
Measurement practices were widespread but not universal. Some 63.7 percent of schools assessed or evaluated societal-impact effectiveness with defined metrics or KPIs. At the same time, 98.9 percent of institutions articulated future plans, targets, or commitments related to societal-impact measurement or expansion. The difference between these figures separates current defined measurement from future-oriented commitments.
Business degrees and career outcomes
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Field of degree: Business profile counted 13,736,300 business degree holders in 2023. Their median wage was $75,000, and 12 percent worked part time. Fifty-five percent worked in occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree, while 26 percent had an advanced degree.
The most common fields among business majors were business management and administration at 28 percent, general business at 20 percent, accounting at 17 percent, marketing and marketing research at 12 percent, and finance at 11 percent. Among workers with a business degree, management occupations represented 25 percent, business and financial operations 23 percent, sales and related occupations 12 percent, office and administrative support 9 percent, and computer and mathematical occupations 6 percent.
| Career or degree measure | Reported statistic | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Business degree holders | 13,736,300 | 2023 |
| Median wage for business degree holders | $75,000 | 2023 |
| Part-time employment | 12% | 2023 |
| Workers in occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree | 55% | 2023 |
| Business degree holders with an advanced degree | 26% | 2023 |
The BLS profile also reports that business degree holders accounted for 8 percent of accountants and auditors and 4 percent of financial managers in 2023. Financial managers had projected employment growth of 15 percent from 2024 to 2034. Management analysts had projected growth of 9 percent over that period, and business-degree holders accounted for 2 percent of management analysts in 2023.
The BLS Market Research Analysts Occupational Outlook Handbook counted about 941,700 market research analyst jobs in 2024. The occupation’s 2024 median annual wage was $76,950, projected growth was 7 percent from 2024 to 2034, and about 87,200 openings were projected each year on average over the decade. The same BLS source lists similar occupations with different pay levels: data scientists had median pay of $112,590, management analysts $101,190, mathematicians and statisticians $104,350, and survey researchers $63,380 in 2024.
These labor-market figures connect business academia with several destinations rather than a single career. They also distinguish observed 2023 or 2024 conditions from projections for 2024–34, which are forecasts rather than counts of jobs already created.