The best and worst MBA courses if you want a giant salary

An MBA is not just about getting paid. It's also about pushing your learning curve, widening your networking parameters and leveraging up some love among the case studies. But money is part of an MBA - why else would you fork out tens of thousands in tuition fees and living expenses if you weren't expecting to to earn a lot of money at the end of it.

If money is indeed part of your MBA decision matrix, the Financial Times' new ranking of European Business Schools should come in helpful. It clarifies which MBA courses will transform your earning power and which won't.

If you want to earn more than $140k (£89k) after you graduate, there are only six elite schools in Europe to choose between. They are: London Business School ($157k), INSEAD ($148k), IE Business School ($147k), Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge ($144k), Iese Business School in Spain ($143k) and IMD Business School in Switzerland ($142k).

Conversely, if you're not too bothered about earning money at the end of your MBA, you might want to try University of Liverpool Management School, where you'll earn $57.8k upon graduation. Or there's Neoma Business School in Rouen, where the average graduating MBA salary is $64.4k. Or Politecnico di Milano School of Management - average starting salary $67k.

The silver lining is that the MBA courses which don't generate giant incomes upon graduation are priced accordingly. At Neoma, the MBA costs a mere €30.5k ($38k), while a Liverpool MBA costs a mere £13k (£20.5k). This compares to fees of £64k at the London Business School ($100k) and €62.5k ($78k) at INSEAD.

Can you get into banking from a cheap MBA course? Average starting salaries would suggest otherwise. Accordingly, none of Neoma's MBAs go into banking, although 20% go into management controls. At Liverpool, however, MBA graduates have been hired by both Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank - although it's not clear whether they work in infrastructure or the front office.