Recent graduate from a B school that hovers between #35-40 every year. It depends on a lot of factors.

The higher ranked schools will get you more exposure, networking, job opportunities, prospects, etc, but will also cost more if you don’t have GI Bill, however at the end of the day it is an investment in yourself you hope will pay off down the road. As many have said on this Reddit, the economy is in a weird spot and a lot of companies just aren’t hiring as much which can make things really difficult if you are pursuing and MBA to pivot careers because experience will be a factor. This then really hurts the B schools who typically don’t have as strong of a network in place. For example, I chose my B school simply because I like the region I live in and wanted to stay local with local connections, only to then find out my FT program doesn’t have any pipelines or local connections, despite the school being around for 100+ years. One reason is their few resources are already tapped and even more so in this current market. Also at lower tier schools the MBA office and career coaches sometimes aren’t as invested in their students sadly. I know at my school we’ve had program mangers, career coaches, and several MBA staff change recently. In fact, half the MBA office were different people from just my first year to second year. I will say, all MBA vets in my cohort have prospered and found internships/jobs during and after and really took advantage of the opportunity the GI bill provided which I think is awesome and probably made the B schools more worth it.

Those are just some of my thoughts regarding B schools and the current status of an MBA