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Someone making under 60k a year in a moderate to high COL area isn't going to have much in savings - loans will be needed. If you don't have much in savings is it financially feasible to go to B School in the EU? I don't know how easy it is to get internships that pay well in the EU. Ideally I'd find some source of income while studying and get a job in what I desire so that I can pay of the loans.
Median Insead grad salary is about $100k according to Poets & Quants. But that doesn't mean I'll get a job that pays that much... My undergrad school's median beginning salary was 23k higher than what I started out at.
I did my MBA in the EU, but came from a pretty LCOL area and sold my house to pay for my MBA. EU is way too big to quantify whether your decision would be good. If you go to say LBS vs. if you go to SSE you are going to have two very different outcomes. The Nordic countries are fairly hard to get a job post-grad, UK would be easier, but you will run into the same problem as people who study in the US from other countries, as they need a company to sponsor a visa post-grad.
Not every MBA in the EU will be expensive (but the top tier ones surely ain't cheap). I have also met plenty of MBA grads who didn't make anywhere near the 100K mentioned all over the web. If you end up in industries outside of finance you can easily get as little as 75K in Germany or maybe a bit more in Switzerland. And that was in the good times, pre-pandemic.
The MBA market in Europe is much weaker than in the US. European firms don't care for MBAs, they don't make a difference to them, so often they won't treat it very differently from other, more common business degrees (MiM, MiF). This means that outside of finance and consulting, it's pretty common to see MBA compensation drop significantly (i.e. closer to 70-80K, as some above posters have mentioned)
ive always wondered why MBAs are so expensive in Europe when firms don't seem to care that much about them.
Because the job market is fairly competitive, even outside of high finance. If a candidate wants to work for a big brand in a good location you'll need more than your average degree and some work experience. The "best" people I have met ultimately had an MBA more often than not.
People keep saying that MBA degrees are not as important in Europe, which is true. But it wouldn't hurt to have one if you are aiming for a job at Apple, BMW, Porsche or similar high-profile brands. There are also FLDPs that are almost entirely filled with MBA grads, depending on the company.
Just because Peter Thiel and Elon Musk say there are too many MBAs and general managers out there doesn't mean the companies will ignore that degree.
Europe has a fairly large middle-class and when a key birthday comes around it is not unheard of that grandma or your parents will finance your further degrees. Schools know this and they are more than happy to rack up the prices and take your money. The prestige of going to an expensive school isn't just for the students, it is also for the family to show off. And what social segment you are from is still relevant in most European countries...
When you work in Europe you'll wait a few days/weeks until people "get to know each other" a bit better. When you then ask the key questions (figuring out family values, background, ..) you'll almost always hear that MBA folks are from families with parents as doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.
im aware that in USA many companies have specific MBA FLDP programmes. Do you know of any in Europe / UK? I cant rmb seeing any. I cant envisage where for example a big corporate would choose a Big 4 Audit Manager (5YOE) + MBA over a Big 4 Audit Manager + 1-2 years of Advisory / TS / CF etc experience. granted I don't do recruiting but this scenario would surprise me in UK (albeit not in USA). Big part of the MBA benefit in USA is the network. Is it really present in UK/Europe?
Expensive compared to what? If you take the top EU MBAs, INSEAD, LBS and HEC, they come to €89K, ~£88K and ~€74K respectively. Quite comparable to Harvard (~$110K), Wharton (~$110K/year) and Stanford (~$120K). Although less desired, MBAs from EU schools like Oxford and Cambridge come to ~£60K. If you go a tier down in the US you're still well above $100K.
I think the issue is that they're similarly expensive without having the prestige, caliber of students, and placement of Harvard/Stanford/Wharton. I mean, the only European MBA comparable to M7 schools (and even then, lower M7) is LBS. So it doesn't really make much sense for EU MBAs to be this expensive when they offer less value
Cost wise they probably are comparable. But do they have the same IRR in Europe? The same access to networking opportunities, increased career benefits etc? As mentioned in my above example, id be surprised to see a company chose someone with an MBA vs an extra 2 YOE doing something else. In America? Not so much. Sure maybe in EU they'll take someone with 5 YOE + MBA vs exact same candidate with 5 YOE but no MBA but that's not a fair comparison imo.
I'll try to answer your question OP and also a few of the things already mentioned in the comments.
Firstly, on your question, a lot of people get loans. I think Prodigy was quite popular at my MBA, especially for people who couldn't get education specific loans from their country, which typically have a lower interest rate that fintech type lenders like Prodigy. There's also scholarship which drop the total amount you have to pay. Most people manage to repay their loan in 3-5 years. I've met a few who still had the loan 10 years after MBA, but they told me they just refinanced so they can put all their money into a startup.
Secondly, that $110k Insead average (or whatever the latest number is) isn't that hard to achieve, so no sure why you'd think you can't do it. The number also doesn't include bonuses. I got my job out of the MBA program from a pension fund which doesn't regularly recruit from business schools and still negotiated a 20% signing bonus (and got a relocation bonus on top of that). Consulting, banking, PE will pay at least that average amount, while LDP type programs for large corporate pay around that average amount. Although I don't know all the salaries obviously, the lower numbers tend to come from smaller firms, startups (no equity is included in the stats), jobs that were not designed for MBA hires, or jobs in lower paying countries (some schools, including Insead, adjust the salaries with a PPP exchange rate to USD, but that doesn't always make the right adjustments for local salaries). US salaries coming out of top European MBAs are the same as US MBAs. It's just harder to get a role if you're not a green card holder as the visa situation is trickier in the US.
Since Germany was mentioned, the lowest salary there coming out of Insead tends to hover around EUR60k (approx. $73k), but unless you're in the bottom quartile in salary, you should expect more than EUR80 (so approx. $97k), plus bonuses.
Summer internships, which you mention in one of your comments, typically pay a pro-rata of annual salaries, just like in the US. So when you say internships that pay well, I assume you mean same salary like to US, which is true, salaries in Europe tend to be lower.
Somebody asked for LPDs: a lot of big firms have them, even in Europe, and a few I remember from my MBA days: Siemens, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple (not as structured as rest), Ericsson, Vodafone (more strategy type roles), BASF, Danaher, Kraft Heinz, GSK, Amcor, Amex, Bayer, Hilti, Honeywell, Schneider Electric, LVMH, Nestle and probably others. Not all of them were called LDP or FLDP, but they had the same principles of rotating across business units, multiple countries, having mentors etc.
And as a final point, the network is very important for jobs and in the future, just as it is for US schools. Maybe even more so if you are trying to get a job in a country where you don't speak the language.
I covered quite a few points in this, but feel free to ask any followups.
Networking. Can we network the same way we do in the US or is there different etiquette (Western Europe)?
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