10 Least Expensive Private Business Schools

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Some students will naturally want to take cost into account when it's time to go to graduate school. If they are interested in getting an MBA, their options for going to a cost-efficient private school are many.

At least 12 private business schools had tuition and required fees less than $40,000 during the 2012-2013 school year, according to data reported by 140 ranked b-schools in an annual survey by U.S. News.

Of the top 10 least expensive private business schools, Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management tops the list. Tuition and fees at the school, which is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, runs as low as $10,950 for students that are members of the church; students who are not members pay a higher rate.

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No. 10 is Alfred University, one of two New York schools to make the list, with a tuition of $37,646. Last year the E. Philip Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology held that spot. For the 2012-2013 school year, Rochester moved up to No. 9 with tuition and fees totaling $36,216.

D.C. also had two of the cheapest private b-schools: Howard University, the only historically black college in the top 10, and the Kogod School of Business at American University.

[Allocate college savings for graduate school.]

The average tuition and fees for the top 10 least expensive private business schools is almost $32,000. Of the 45 private business schools that reported per-year tuition to U.S. News, Harvard University, which is ranked No. 1 among 2014 Best Business Schools, had the highest: $63,288.

Below is a list of the 10 private business schools with the least expensive tuition and fees for 2012-2013, which does not include room and board, books and other miscellaneous costs. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

*RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of all rank-eligible business schools. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find tuition prices, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed 448 schools for our 2012 survey of business programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Business Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data comes from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools. The tuition data above are correct as of Aug. 20, 2013.