Australian MBAs: Salaries Rise, Applicant Interest Drops

While Australian employers offer MBA graduates the highest average salaries within Asia-Pacific, it receives less interest from business school applicants.

A total of 2,140 employers worldwide who were actively recruiting MBAs contributed to the TopMBA.com Jobs and Salary Trends Report 2011/2012, providing details of the annual salaries that they offer MBA graduates. The report found that those working in Australia are paid on average US$17,100 more than those in Japan – the country offering the second highest average MBA salary in the region at US$92,000. Hong Kong follows in third place with an average salary of US$87,500, and Singapore next at US$82,700.

Globally, Australian employers offer the second highest average MBA salary at US$109,100. This puts the country in second place behind Switzerland, where employers offer MBAs US$10,300 more than Australian employers.

But despite the financial gains, fewer people this year are showing interest in taking an MBA in Australia.

Drop in interest in Australia’s MBA programs

Data from the TopMBA.com Applicant Survey 2011 shows that Australia fell two places in a list of the most popular study destinations among future MBAs. In 2009, Australia was listed as the world’s fourth most popular study destination, but fell to sixth place this year with 18% of the 4,527 survey respondents specifying it as their preferred location to take an MBA.

Data on the number of GMAT scores sent to Australian business schools also suggests that the country is dropping in popularity among MBA applicants. Australia slipped from 10th to 11th place in 2010 according to the number of GMAT tests received by business schools in the country.

Despite this, Alex Chisholm, senior research analyst at GMAC refutes that the data is reflective of a drop in interest.

“Despite the one-place drop, the number of score reports sent to Australian business schools actually increased from 2,831 to 4,156 between 2006 and 2010, an increase of nearly 50%,” he says.

“Australia is also unique in terms of the origin of students sending scores to its schools. In test year 2010, 88% of the 4,156 scores sent to Australia were from foreign citizens. This speaks volumes to the attractiveness of pursuing higher education in Australia,” he adds.

Less focus on the GMAT, more on experience
Robert Widing dean at Macquarie Graduate School of Management agrees. Comparing Australia’s GMAT uptake rates to the US, which received one of the highest number of GMAT scores from applicants; he concludes that there is less emphasis on the test in Australia.

“Due to grade inflation over the past 20 to 30 years in universities in the US, along with wide variation in standards across literally thousands of US undergraduate institutions, a standardized test such as GMAT is of great value in identifying applicant quality than in Australia,” he says.

“Australia has about 40 undergraduate institutions that have far less variability in quality standards and much stronger enforcement of grade distributions than the US. Hence, admissions decisions using undergraduate marks can be depended upon, without the assistance of a standardised test to identify quality applicants,” he adds.

Growth in number of business schools

Looking ahead, Jan Williams, the chairman of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) – a US-based organization that provides business school accreditation globally – suggests that over time there will be an increase of accredited business schools in Australia.

“There are currently 10 Australian [business schools] that have been accredited by AACSB. We have provided accreditation to one or two business schools in the country every year. There hasn’t been any school in that region that has gained and then lost their accreditation status. The number is going up slowly.”

For those interested in the salary and career enhancing benefits that an MBA can bring, QS hosts a series of international events. Business schools from around the world, including Australia attend the events in order to meet and explain to future MBA applicants about their programs.

For more information, visit TopMBA.com's MBA events homepage >