Shiksha Survey: How important is location for an MBA degree?

What is the single most important factor that a student considers while selecting an MBA college?  

• Ranking?  

• Placements?  

• Academic facilities?  

The most important factor while selecting an MBA college is City or Location. 

 
That's right! Students today first decide the city or metro and then proceed to select a college from the city. 

 
According to a recent survey conducted by Shiksha.com, 31.47% MBA aspirants decide the city first and then choose from colleges in that city. Another 27.3% aspirants said city plays the deal clincher while choosing/selecting between two similar colleges. 

Alternatively, 28.82% survey respondents declared that the city has no bearing on selection of college. While only 10.58% respondents said they'll go wherever they manage to get admission. 

A whopping 66% of students residing in non-metros want to migrate to metros for better education. Most corporate firms are based in cities. This city-based corporate advantage plays an important role in college selection. 

“In a place like Delhi or Mumbai, management students have an active interaction with the corporate world. There is also a competition factor among these colleges that can foster learning. In Delhi for instance, there are more than five MBA colleges such as FMS, IIFT, MDI, BIMTECH, IIT Delhi, IMT and so forth. Whereas, XLRI Jamshedpur, though one of the best colleges in India, has no serious competition and lacks location-based corporate advantage,” says Ankur Agarwal, IIM Lucknow alum and founder of Medkart.in. 

Delhi emerged as the most favoured city for MBA studies with 21.1% students voting in favour of the national capital.  Bangalore is the second most popular destination for higher studies with 17.58% students voting for it, followed by Pune with 10.63%. Surprisingly, Mumbai came fourth on the list with only 8.4% non-metro students opting for India's business capital city.

The top factors that influence the choice of a city for education are: 

This Shiksha.com survey is an endeavor to understand the role of big city as a factor in selection of colleges. The survey saw the participation of over 2500 students spread across MBA, BBA, Engineering, Hospitality, Design, Media and other UG courses. View the survey results here.

"There is multiplicity of factors that students evaluate now a days while deciding a college which were non-existent a decade ago. City has emerged as the pivot in their decision making process with all students except engineering indicating it as an important criteria while selecting a campus. The survey also reveals that while evaluating a city, it is the quality of crowd and the availability of accommodation that matter," said Maneesh Upadhyaya, business head, Shiksha.com.