Trust center
Methodology & Data Sources
How we source, label, and gate every figure on SalaryMBA — and what we will never do. Trust is the product.
- Live sources
- 3
- Verified benchmarks
- 3
- Verified school outcomes
- 0
- Provenance labels
- 9
What we show vs. what we suppress
The core editorial contract. When in doubt, we suppress.
Shown publicly
- BLS OEWS occupational wage benchmarks for MBA-relevant roles — labeled, not MBA-specific
- School profile + institution cost/debt context (College Scorecard) — labeled, not MBA-specific salary
- BLS education-attainment benchmarks (annualized, labeled 'Broad benchmark')
- Calculator estimates from your own inputs, labeled 'Estimate'
- Institution metadata (identity, location, control) once imported
- Aggregated user submissions, only above the sample-size gate
- GMAC's directional market finding — as text, with no dollar value
Suppressed until it earns a label
- Any school- or program-specific MBA salary we have not source-verified
- College Scorecard institution earnings presented as MBA placement salary
- GMAC exact starting-salary dollar figures (pending primary-source read)
- Outcomes below the display gate (fewer than 5 records)
- Demo/example figures as if they were verified
- Individual user submissions, proof URLs, or emails
Our data model — context vs. MBA-specific outcomes
We separate source-backed compensation context from verified MBA outcomes. Context is shown today; MBA-specific outcomes are shown only once source-backed and above the gate.
A school/program/concentration-specific MBA salary or employment outcome, taken from a verified school employment report or an approved, moderated aggregate of submissions.
Shown only when source-backed and above our sample-size threshold.
Wages for an occupation MBA graduates commonly target, from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program — national, state, or metro.
Wage context for this role across all workers — not an MBA-specific figure.
Median earnings by education level (e.g. master's vs. bachelor's) from the BLS 'Education pays' series. Broad, all-field context.
All fields of study — not specific to an MBA.
Institution cost, tuition, and debt context from College Scorecard / IPEDS. School profile context, not a placement salary.
Institution cost/debt context — not an MBA placement salary.
A mapping from an MBA concentration/industry/role to the public occupations (SOC) it commonly leads to, so wage context can be shown per path.
Likely role families for this path — not proof of MBA outcomes.
Self-reported MBA outcomes awaiting moderation. Private until aggregated above the sample threshold.
Not shown individually; public only in aggregate after review.
Moderated, aggregated self-reported MBA outcomes above the sample-size threshold.
Self-reported and aggregated — not independently verified.
A pay range pulled from job postings. Always labeled; never treated as an actual outcome.
A posted range — not an actual compensation outcome.
The most important line: we never call an occupational wage benchmark an MBA outcome.OEWS wages tell you what a role pays across all workers — useful context for comparing MBA career paths — while a verified MBA outcome must come from a school employment report or a moderated aggregate of real submissions above our sample-size gate. We still need those verified MBA outcomes, and we're collecting them.
How to read the wage range charts
The percentile ribbon is the same on every salary page. Here is what each part means.
10th–90th percentile. The soft outer band — most people in the role earn somewhere inside it.
Middle 50% (25th–75th). The solid inner band — the typical core of the distribution.
Median. The marker — half earn more, half earn less.
These charts use BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics — wages for a role across all U.S. workers, not MBA graduates specifically. They show what a path can pay and how wide the spread runs; they are never a verified MBA-specific outcome.
Source labels
Every public figure carries one of these.
Source-backed figure from a cited dataset or report, specific to what is shown.
Read directly from a primary national/market source (e.g. BLS) — not specific to any one school or program.
A figure reported by a source we have not yet read from its primary document. Not shown as a number until verified.
Modeled by SalaryMBA from broader data. Not a verified outcome.
Aggregated from self-reported outcomes above our sample threshold.
Provided by an employer or program. Labeled, not independently verified.
A range from job postings — not an actual compensation outcome.
Illustrative seed data. Not real and never indexed as fact.
Not enough source-backed records to publish a figure yet.
Display gates
How sample size controls what we show.
| 0 records | No salary number shown |
| 1–2 records | Insufficient data — no public figure |
| 3–4 records | Limited range only, sample size disclosed |
| 5–9 records | Median + range |
| 10+ records | Median, range, and deeper breakdowns |
Pages below these thresholds are kept out of the search index and sitemap.
Benchmark sources & primary-source verification
National/market figures and whether each was read directly from its primary source. We do not publish a benchmark as a number until it is.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Education pays, 2024 (Earnings and Unemployment Rates by Educational Attainment)
(2024)source ↗Median usual weekly earnings, full-time wage & salary workers age 25+ (CPS): bachelor's $1,543, master's $1,840, professional $2,363, doctoral $2,278. Verified from the official BLS PDF. Annual figures are SalaryMBA's ×52 calculation.
Accessed 2026-06-09.
Official abstract confirms (verbatim) that 2025 U.S. MBA starting salaries are expected to exceed 2024, from 1,100+ recruiters fielded Jan–Mar 2025. Exact dollar figures (e.g. $125,000) are NOT shown — pending a direct read of the primary PDF salary table.
Accessed 2026-06-09.
| Source | Figure | Reported / calculated | Verified directly? | Public label | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BLS — Education pays, 2024 | Bachelor's $1,543/wk · Master's $1,840/wk · Professional $2,363/wk | Source-reported | Yes | Broad benchmark | All-field attainment baseline; full-time workers 25+; NOT MBA-specific. |
| BLS — Education pays, 2024 | Annualized $80,236 / $95,680 / $122,876 | SalaryMBA-calculated | Yes | Broad benchmark (annualized ×52) | Annualized by SalaryMBA = weekly × 52; BLS reports weekly only. |
| GMAC — Corporate Recruiters Survey 2025 | MBA $125,000 / bachelor's $75,000 starting salary | Source-reported | No | Pending verification (not shown) | Could not read the figure from the official GMAC PDF; abstract states no dollar value. |
| GMAC — Corporate Recruiters Survey 2025 | 2025 MBA starting salaries up vs 2024 (directional) | Source-reported | Yes | Market context (no dollar value) | Verified from the official abstract; 1,100+ recruiters; fielded Jan–Mar 2025. |
Benchmarks are national/market context — never presented as a verified figure for any one school or program. Annualized BLS values are calculated by SalaryMBA from BLS weekly earnings (× 52). No school- or program-specific outcome is verified yet.
Data sources
What each source is — and is not — used for.
Used for
- Institution and program identity (name, location, control)
- Cost / tuition context where available
- Median debt at the field-of-study level where available
- Earnings indicators where available (field-of-study)
Not used for
- Claiming a field-of-study earnings figure is MBA-program-specific without verifying the CIP/credential mapping
- Implying school-reported placement salaries
Importer is fixture-runnable and API-ready (npm run import:scorecard). CIP-52 + master's gates the only MBA-adjacent rows; all imported figures are institution/field-of-study context, never school placement salaries.
Used for
- Institution profiles and characteristics
- Enrollment context
- Tuition / cost context where available
Not used for
- School-specific MBA salary claims
- MBA ROI or employment-outcome proof
Importer is fixture-runnable and file-ready (npm run import:ipeds -- --dir=...). Merges HD/IC/EFFY CSVs into institution metadata only — never an MBA outcome.
Used for
- Occupational wage benchmarks (national / state / metro) for MBA-relevant roles
- Median, mean, and percentile annual wages by occupation
- Employment counts by occupation
Not used for
- Presenting an occupational wage as an MBA-specific outcome
- Combining occupation wages into a fabricated MBA salary
Live: May 2024 OEWS estimates retrieved via the BLS public Timeseries API (api.bls.gov) for ~21 MBA-relevant SOC occupations plus a bounded set of states. Always labeled 'Occupational wage benchmark' with a 'not MBA-specific' caveat. Run `npm run import:bls` to refresh.
Used for
- Broad education-attainment earnings context
- Master's vs. bachelor's national baseline
Not used for
- Presenting master's-degree medians as MBA-specific
- School- or program-level outcomes
Live & verified from the primary BLS report: 'Education pays, 2024' weekly medians (bachelor's $1,543, master's $1,840, professional $2,363) shown as broad benchmarks. Annual figures are SalaryMBA's ×52 calculation; always labeled education-attainment data — not MBA data.
Used for
- Earnings by education, occupation, geography, age, industry
- Modeled professional-earnings estimates (carefully labeled)
Not used for
- School-specific MBA claims
Used for
- Directional MBA hiring & starting-salary market context (verified from the official abstract)
- Employer sentiment / demand context
Not used for
- School-level salary data unless specifically supported by a cited report
- Exact starting-salary figures (e.g. $125,000) until read from the primary GMAC report
Partial: the 2025 directional finding (MBA starting salaries up vs 2024; 1,100+ recruiters; fielded Jan–Mar 2025) is shown as labeled context. The exact dollar figures are PENDING primary-source verification and are not displayed as numbers.
School MBA employment reports
plannedUsed for
- School-specific MBA employment & salary outcomes — manually verified and cited
Not used for
- Bulk scraping of copyrighted reports
- Unverified placement figures
Only entered after manual verification with a direct citation to the published report.
User-submitted MBA outcomes
stubUsed for
- Self-reported salary, bonus, debt, school, program, grad year, industry
- Public ONLY in aggregate, after moderation and sample-size thresholds
Not used for
- Showing any individual submission publicly
- Publishing below sample thresholds
Employer job-posting salary ranges
plannedUsed for
- Posting salary ranges, always labeled as posting ranges
Not used for
- Treating posting ranges as actual compensation outcomes
Employer / program-submitted data
plannedUsed for
- Employer-submitted ranges
- Sponsored program/firm profiles (clearly labeled)
Not used for
- Mixing into verified outcomes without disclosure
- Affecting rankings or estimates
SalaryMBA modeled estimates
liveUsed for
- ROI / payback / debt estimates derived from user-entered or baseline assumptions
Not used for
- Being presented as a verified outcome
Powers the calculators. Always labeled Estimate.
What we will never do
- Show a salary, ROI, debt, or cost figure without a source label.
- Present demo or estimate data as a verified outcome.
- Let sponsorship change rankings or salary/ROI estimates.
- Publish fake rankings or unsupported “best MBA” claims.
- Index weak, no-data pages.