Times of economic uncertainty have long brought young professionals back to the classroom—a surefire way to change careers or gain a competitive advantage. But as artificial intelligence reshapes entire industries, even the value of a graduate degree is coming under scrutiny.
Harvard Business School’s latest employment data for the Class of 2025 suggests that, at least for its MBAs, the degree is still paying off.
The median base salary for Harvard Business School’s Class of 2025 rose to $184,500 from $175,000 the year before. Of the 65 percent of the class seeking employment, 90 percent received at least one job offer within three months of graduation, and 84 percent accepted it—an increase from both the 2024 and 2023 classes.
PayScale data analyzed by Poets & Quants estimates that Harvard Business School graduates’ median lifetime earnings exceed $8.5 million.
Yet despite the promising salary prospects, the Class of 2025 also set a record for graduates not seeking traditional employment: 35% chose not to seek postgraduate work, largely due to a surge in entrepreneurship.
Kristen Fitzpatrick, senior managing director of career and professional development at Harvard Business School, said 17% of graduates said they planned to start their own business, the highest rate on record and up from 8% in 2021 and 13% in 2023.
The shift to entrepreneurship reflects a broader shift. AI tools lower the barriers to entry for doing business, simplifying tasks such as market research, product testing, and innovation. With many large companies cutting jobs as they adapt to artificial intelligence, some graduates may feel a growing urgency to build something of their own.
An Intuit survey released last year found that nearly two-thirds of 18- to 35-year-olds have started working part-time, and nearly half of them do so because they want to be their own boss.
This break from traditional models may also reflect lessons young professionals are learning from the burnout of millennial middle managers who tried the drudgery of business but found it unsustainable.
“My generation doesn’t want to go into consulting or banking. They don’t even want to be an astronaut anymore,” Steven Schwartz, Gen Z founder and CEO of multi-million dollar marketplace Whop, previously said wealth.
“They want to create content online, they want to find customers online…be more educated about what people can do, why would they want to do something that’s not the most elite experience and the most fun for them?”