Compare B-Schools
Fee against salary, side by side, for the schools most CAT candidates end up choosing between — with the one thing comparison tables usually leave out: whether the placement figure has been audited by anyone other than the institute quoting it.
Compare B-Schools
Pick two to four schools. Every figure below comes from the institute's own fee structure or placement report — including which of them has been independently audited, and which has not.
What these numbers do and don't tell you
Only one of these placement reports is audited. IIM Ahmedabad publishes an independently audited report following the Indian Placement Reporting Standards. Every other figure on this page is self-reported by the institute, with no external verification. That does not make them wrong, but it does mean they are not strictly comparable, and the table marks which is which.
Median beats average, where it exists. Indian placement distributions are pulled upward by a handful of very large offers, so the average sits above what a typical graduate actually gets. Where a school publishes a median, this table uses it. ISB publishes no median, so its figure is an average and will read slightly high against the rest.
The fee and the salary describe different batches. Fees are for the batch about to join; placement numbers are from the batch that just left. There is roughly a two-year gap between the two, and fees have generally risen over that period.
What "fee" covers changes by school. MDI's fee includes hostel and mess. IIM Bangalore's and IIM Lucknow's cover hostel but not mess. XLRI's and FMS Delhi's cover neither — at XLRI that is roughly another ₹3.2L. IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta do not state it clearly. Comparing headline fees without this is comparing different things.
Cost per rupee of salary is not the whole decision. On that measure FMS Delhi wins by a wide margin and nothing else comes close. It is a real and underrated signal, but it says nothing about the cohort you will sit with, the recruiters who turn up, the specialisations on offer, or where the degree carries weight ten years out.
Fees from each institute's published fee structure; placement figures from each institute's own placement report. Verified September 2026. Figures change annually — check the institute's own page before making a decision on them.
Only one of these reports is audited
IIM Ahmedabad publishes an independently audited placement report under the Indian Placement Reporting Standards. As far as the schools in this table go, it is alone in that. Every other number — IIM Bangalore’s, IIM Calcutta’s, XLRI’s, FMS Delhi’s — is self-reported, with no external verification of how it was compiled.
That matters because placement reporting has real discretion built into it. Whether international offers are counted, whether a one-off joining bonus is folded into the annual figure, whether ESOPs are valued at grant price, whether the divisor is the whole batch or only the students who opted into placements — each of those choices moves the headline number, and none of them is visible from outside. Two schools quoting identical averages may have arrived there very differently.
Median, not average, wherever a school publishes one
Indian placement distributions have a long tail. A handful of very large offers lift the mean well above what a typical graduate takes home, which is why the average is the number that ends up in marketing material. The table above uses the median wherever the institute publishes one. ISB does not, so its figure is an average and should be read as slightly flattering next to the rest.
Read the fee carefully before comparing it
“Total fee” covers different things at different schools. MDI Gurgaon’s includes hostel and mess. IIM Bangalore’s and IIM Lucknow’s include hostel but not mess. XLRI’s and FMS Delhi’s include neither — at XLRI, accommodation adds roughly ₹3.2 lakh over two years, which is more than FMS charges in total for the degree. IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta do not state it plainly either way.
There is also a timing mismatch worth knowing about. Fees quoted are for the batch about to join; placement figures describe the batch that just graduated. The two are about two years apart, and fees have risen across that gap at most schools.
What the cost ratio does and doesn’t settle
On fee per rupee of salary, FMS Delhi is not merely ahead — it is in a different category, and no amount of weighting changes that. A ₹2.43 lakh fee against a ₹29.59 lakh median is an outlier in Indian management education.
That ratio is a genuine signal and it is underweighted in most rankings. It is also not the decision. It says nothing about who else is in the room, which firms recruit on campus and for what roles, how the elective catalogue is built, or how the name travels a decade later in a particular industry. Those are the things the individual school guides go into, and they are where the ratio stops being useful.
- MBA ROI Calculator — what a programme costs once loan interest and salary foregone are counted
- CAT Percentile Predictor — what your score is likely to be worth
- MBA specialisations explained · MBA vs PGDM