MBA versus master’s in finance: What’s the difference?

For those people seeking to further their career in finance through graduate school, there are plenty of options. Prospective students who’ve narrowed their choice to an MBA or a master’s in finance (sometimes referred to as MFin) might wonder: “Which is better?” 

“In short, one is a Swiss knife while the other is a highly sharpened ax. Both have their utility, so one isn’t necessarily better than the other,” says Sameer Kamat, founder of MBA Crystal Ball, an MBA admissions consulting firm.

‘How do you want to approach finance?’

For those interested in finance, it is first important to consider what you are seeking in your graduate-level education. To answer, the real question, admissions and business school experts say, should be: “How do you want to approach finance?” 

That’s the way Rebecca Mallen-Churchill, senior director of recruitment, admission, and financial services at Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business, sums up the choice of an MBA versus a master’s in finance. When weighing that decision, she says, it’s important to ask yourself: “From what context are you approaching it?” In both the MBA and the master’s in finance, “the content of the actual curriculum is going to be a little overlapping in the finance classes. It’s just a matter of how you put it into play.”

MBA candidates will approach their finance coursework from a managerial perspective, which usually aligns with their goals to land a management or leadership position after graduation. That’s different from a typical master’s in finance student, Mallen-Churchill says. 

“You are probably training—at an initial stage, directly after graduation—to be an individual contributor. So you might be working as an analyst, or something of that sort.”

The master’s in finance can be seen as taking a targeted slice out of the MBA playbook, says Cherrie Wilkerson, associate dean for young professional programs at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. That can be especially appealing for young students who know they’re interested in finance and want to accelerate their careers in the field.

“The courses they take are a sliver of the MBA class. So they’ll take MBA-level finance classes,” and often with MBA students as their classmates, Wilkerson says. “They just don’t take the whole gamut of the MBA experience.”

MBA versus master’s in finance: the main differences

Curriculum

One of the main differences between an MBA and master’s in finance can be analyzed through looking at breadth versus depth. MBAs tend to be more general and touch on everything from supply chains and entrepreneurship to marketing and networking while the master’s in finance can be considered highly specialized.

“The MBA goes a mile wide and an inch deep for students who are hoping to get into management roles. In contrast, the MFin goes an inch wide and a mile deep,” Kamat adds. “It’s an excellent option for professionals who view finance as a long-term career option.”

The master’s in finance does not focus on managerial concepts or expose students to other areas of business such as marketing or strategy, explains Clemens Kownatzki, associate dean and assistant professor of finance at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School. Whereas the degree does touch on in-demand skills like data analysis. 

“Increasingly though, finance programs include courses in economics, econometrics, statistics and data science as well as exposure to programming in Python,” he adds.

For those who are conflicted by these distinctions, an MBA with a finance concentration could provide a way to get the best of both worlds.

Time

The narrow, more focused approach of a master’s in finance comes with certain advantages—and drawbacks. For example, the master’s in finance at W.P. Carey can be completed in nine months; that’s much shorter than a full-time MBA, which comes in at 21 months. On the other hand, the master’s in finance is offered only as a full-time, in-person program, whereas W.P. Carey offers more flexible arrangements with its online MBA for working professionals.

However, there certainly are ways to obtain a master’s in finance online and even part-time, though your options may be more limited than say, doing an online MBA or part-time MBA with a finance specialization. 

Cost and outcomes

When it comes to cost, that time on campus is also a factor; like traditional, full-time MBA students, master’s in finance students will have to forgo a salary when they’re in school. But many master’s in finance students at both Owen and W.P. Carey are coming fresh out of their undergraduate degrees, or with just a few years of work experience, Wilkerson and Mallen-Churchill say, so that opportunity cost might not factor in so much for them. 

As far as actual tuition, a 2023–24 master’s in finance student at Owen would be looking at $68,500 in tuition for the 10-month program. A traditional, in-person MBA student would pay the same tuition—but for two years.

The degree outcomes are also an important factor for prospective students to consider. In 2019, Owen calculated its MBA graduates as coming out with an average salary of about $154,000, whereas its master’s in finance candidates had an average starting salary of about $86,000. Part of that difference can be explained by MBA graduates typically having more work experience, along with graduates in these programs pursuing different kinds of roles, even if they’re both in the realm of finance, according to information from the school.

The pros and cons of an MBA

The pros and cons of an master’s in finance

Should you get a master’s of finance or a master’s of business administration?

Even though MBA and master’s in finance programs might overlap with courses and professors, they differ in how they treat the subject matter itself. 

“Those specialized masters are built to give you the depth of knowledge, where an MBA is really meant to give you that breadth of knowledge,” says Mallen-Churchill.

The good news is that when it comes to admissions, the two types of programs generally require the same types of materials from applicants, including:

• Transcripts
• Resume
• Standardized testing (GMAT and/or GRE)
• Essay responses (written or video)
• Letters of recommendations 
• Application fee (waivers sometimes available)

For prospective students who are struggling to figure out which program to pursue, Wilkerson recommends taking a step back and looking at the sorts of career outcomes you want in the long term.

“If you’re really clear about your career goals, the choice kind of becomes obvious,” she says. “For prospective students who are having trouble deciding, they should go back to square one: What do you hope to gain from this? What is the desired outcome?”

Frequently asked questions

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