(Businessweek) — Anyone who has shopped around for a college business program has confronted the harsh calculus that rules any financial cost-benefit analysis. Elite private programs cost more, but frequently deliver better career outcomes. State schools cost less, but you may end up getting shortchanged on jobs. Nowhere is this clearer than in Bloomberg Businessweek‘s latest analysis of tuition costs and starting salaries for the magazine’s 113 ranked undergraduate business programs. Annual costs for state schools on the list average less than a third of those for private schools—$10,495 vs. $35,408. At the same time, the median starting salaries for public and private schools differ by $4,590, or 9 percent—$46,461 for public schools, $51,051 for private schools. The result: In our analysis of starting salaries earned per annual tuition dollar spent, the state schools fare much better, averaging $4.97 vs. $1.64 for the private schools.
