MBA degrees continue to pay dividends in spite of the recession, with graduates recouping one third of the financial investment in their degree within a year of graduation, and 100 per cent within four years.

The latest survey from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT test, the entry test for business school, shows that 86 per cent of the MBA class of 2011 were employed after graduation, just 2 per cent lower than the previous year. And three out of four alumni of the class of 2011 believe they could not have obtained that job without their degree.

It would also seem that a graduate management degree is particularly beneficial to women. The GMAC survey found that the wage gap between men and women is noticeably smaller among MBA alumni than it is among the general population in the US. For example, female graduates of full-time MBA programmes who responded to the survey received starting salaries equivalent to 85 per cent of their male counterparts. By contrast, women earn just 77 per cent of what men earn in the US workforce more generally.

Dave Wilson, president of GMAC, says that all prospective graduate management students should evaluate the return on investment. "These results demonstrate that a graduate management degree is, in fact, a solid investment in your future, both in good and bad economic times."

The GMAC Alumni Perspectives Survey includes responses from 4,135 alumni who graduated between 2000 and 2011, including 963 graduates from the class of 2011.