Your Professor's Work Could Determine Your Salary After Graduation

Aside from your own grades or performance, the amount of research your professor has done could have an effect on your future salary. According to a study by Russell Crook, assistant professor of management in the College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, scholarly research conducted by business professors seems to have an impact on the salaries of their students after graduation.

Crook found that scholarly research at business schools appears to add as much as $24,000 a year, or 21 percent, to the MBA students' future salaries.

"What we discovered is that research-intensive schools generally do a better job than non research-intensive schools in helping their students acquire and hone their knowledge, skills and abilities, which pays high financial returns to the students when they go out into the real business world and get a job," Crook said.

Crook collected data on the salaries of MBA graduates three years after they graduated from 658 business schools in the U.S. and around the world. He chose the three-year mark because, at that point in their careers, the graduates were "more reflective of the value of the knowledge, skills, and abilities provided by the business school education."

The analysis revealed that the amount of faculty research published in the most influential journals was significantly related to higher salaries in graduates.

"Even if the research the professors are conducting isn't directly related to what they are teaching in the classroom, it may help them hone analytical skills and emphasize a more rigorous approach to problem solving that resonates with the students," Crook said. "Plus, these professors are creating knowledge and keeping abreast of cutting-edge developments in their fields. This is better than simply teaching from textbooks written by others."

The paper that reports these findings, called "Does Business School Research Add Economic Value for Students," is in the current issue of Academy of Management Learning and Education