MBA in the Philippines: Schools, Cost, and Admission

TL;DR: MBA cost in the Philippines ranges from ₱2,500-4,500 per unit at UP Diliman's Virata School of Business to USD 15,500-31,000 for the full program at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), depending on format, per each school's own official fee pages. Admission requirements scale with program type: AIM's regular iMBA asks for just 2 years of work experience, while its Executive MBA (EMBA) requires 10 years and basic managerial standing. Ateneo, DLSU, and UST also run MBA programs, though this research did not find official per-unit figures published on their own sites; third-party comparisons put them in the ₱2,500-5,000 per unit range. Whether the cost is worth it depends entirely on whether your specific target role rewards the credential.

"Should I get an MBA" and "how much does an MBA cost in the Philippines" are really two separate questions, and this guide answers both with real, sourced numbers rather than a generic range. It covers where MBAs are offered — AIM, UP, Ateneo, DLSU, UST, and other mid-tier options — what each format actually costs where a school publishes it, admission requirements including work experience and entrance tests, the difference between regular and executive formats, and an honest read on return on investment rather than marketing language. Every figure below traces to an official school page or a clearly labeled third-party comparison; where a school does not publish MBA-specific tuition, this guide says so rather than guessing.

Where Can You Get an MBA in the Philippines?

The most recognized dedicated business school is the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati, which runs MBA programs exclusively rather than as one department among many, and which appears in the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) directory of accredited business schools — the most widely recognised international business-school accreditation. Several major universities also run MBA programs inside a broader business school: UP Diliman's Virata School of Business, Ateneo de Manila's Graduate School of Business, De La Salle University's Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business, and University of Santo Tomas's graduate business programs. Beyond these, a range of mid-tier universities across Metro Manila and the regions also offer MBA or MBA-equivalent programs, generally at a lower price point than the five schools named above, though this guide focuses on the most-searched, most-recognized names.

MBA Formats: The Track Matters More Than the School Name

"MBA" is not one product. At the same school, two people can be enrolled in the same degree on completely different terms, and picking the wrong track is a more common mistake than picking the wrong school.

Ateneo's Graduate School of Business is the clearest illustration, because it publishes four distinct MBA tracks and says exactly who each is for:

All four run on a trimestral calendar, and for students without a business or management background, the Standard track adds five pre-MBA courses before the main program begins. Ateneo also states that fees are "charged per subject every trimester," which is why there is no single headline price for the degree.

DLSU's Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business takes the other common approach: one MBA, built entirely around working students. It is a 36-unit professional management program, run on DLSU's trimester system, with classes "held on weeknights, six to nine in the evening, and on Saturdays," and designed for students "pursuing their studies on a partial academic load basis." UP Diliman's Virata School of Business splits its MBA into evening and day formats, and separately prices its BGC extension campus higher than the Diliman campus — the schedule you pick there changes what you pay, not just when you attend.

AIM sits at the third pole: cohort-based, full-time or intensive, and priced as a single program fee rather than per unit. Its iMBA runs 12 months across four terms, its EMBA 18 months across six terms on Friday evenings and Saturdays, and its OMBA fully online.

So before comparing prices, decide which of these you are actually shopping for:

• A part-time evening or weekend degree you finish alongside a full-time job — DLSU's format, UP's evening MBA, Ateneo's Standard or Middle Managers tracks.
• A full-time, immersive year that pauses your career — AIM's iMBA.
• A senior-management program that assumes you already run something — AIM's EMBA, Ateneo's Middle Managers or Regis tracks.
• A fully online program — AIM's OMBA. If your goal is a state-priced online management master's rather than an MBA specifically, the UP Open University route is worth a look: UPOU charges ₱1,000 per unit plus ₱2,000 in miscellaneous fees per semester across its graduate programs, including its distance-education Master of Public Management, though it is a public-management degree rather than an MBA.

How Much Does an MBA Cost at AIM?

AIM runs three distinct MBA formats, each priced separately, per the school's own official fees and financing pages. The Online MBA (OMBA) is priced at USD 15,500 for the September 2026 intake, with limited-time discounts (USD 500 off if paid by June 30, 2026) and alumni-family discounts of 20% (direct AIM alumni) or 10% (SEELL alumni). The International MBA (iMBA), a 12-month, in-person, four-term program starting every January, is priced at USD 31,000 for the January 2027 intake. Both require a separate USD 1,000 reservation fee upon acceptance, described on AIM's own page as "non-deferrable, non-refundable, and non-transferable," which is credited toward the total program fee. AIM also offers Study Now, Pay Later financing covering up to 80% of the program balance for Filipino applicants, at roughly 9% annual interest over 3- or 5-year terms.

Disclaimer: program fees are subject to change per intake and are quoted here in the currency AIM itself publishes them in (USD). Confirm the current peso-equivalent cost and any active discounts directly with AIM admissions before budgeting.

How Much Does an MBA Cost at UP, Ateneo, DLSU, and UST?

This is where the price gap opens up. UP Diliman's Virata School of Business, per the university's official Schedule of Semestral Fees for Graduate Students effective First Semester 2024-2025, charges ₱2,500 per unit for its regular Diliman-campus MBA (both the evening format and the day/MS Finance format) and for its Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). Its BGC extension campus charges more: ₱4,500 per unit for both the evening and day MBA/MS Finance tracks there. On top of per-unit tuition, UP charges separate Other School Fees, a development fee, library fee, and smaller athletic/registration/medical fees per semester.

Ateneo, DLSU, and UST all run MBA programs, but none of the three schools' own websites accessed for this guide published a specific MBA per-unit or total-program fee (DLSU and Ateneo's public pages redirect to general graduate admissions without program-level pricing; contacting admissions directly is required for a current quote). A third-party comparison of Philippine graduate program costs puts Ateneo at roughly ₱5,000 per unit (the highest reviewed), DLSU at roughly ₱4,000+ per unit (with a full trimester load estimated at ₱97,000-100,000), and UST at roughly ₱2,500 per unit. These are estimates from a third-party source, not each school's own official rate card, so treat them as a planning range rather than a quote.

Disclaimer: fees change by school year and campus. The UP figures above are official; the Ateneo, DLSU, and UST figures are third-party estimates. Confirm current MBA-specific tuition directly with each school's business school admissions office.

What Are the Admission Requirements for an MBA?

Requirements scale with how experienced the program expects its applicants to be. AIM's iMBA, per its own official program page, requires only a bachelor's degree in any discipline and a minimum of 2 years of work experience, with no GMAT or GRE score specified on that page. AIM's Executive MBA, by contrast, requires a bachelor's degree plus a minimum of 10 years of work experience with basic managerial skills, reflecting its target audience of established managers rather than early-career professionals. Neither AIM program page accessed for this guide listed a GMAT/GRE requirement explicitly, though many MBA programs elsewhere in the Philippines and the region do require one — confirm this directly with your target school, since it is a common gap between a program's marketing page and its actual admissions checklist.

The university-based programs publish more conventional checklists, and two are worth quoting because they set a real academic floor that AIM's pages do not:

Ateneo GSB, MBA Standard track (official admissions page) requires a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution, "at least two years of work experience," and a General Weighted Average of 85%, B, 2.0 or its equivalent. Applications are rolling — you can join the upcoming trimester — and you submit a transcript showing your GWA, an updated CV with photo, two recommendation forms in the school's prescribed format, and an essay on your motivations. Notably, the page states that "the entrance exam is waived until further notice," with interviews possible.

DLSU's MBA requires a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution, a "satisfactory admission test score," "satisfactory interview and essay results," and a "minimum of two years full-time work experience" — so unlike Ateneo's currently waived exam, DLSU still tests.

The practical takeaway: the two-year work-experience floor is close to universal for a standard MBA in the Philippines, and the differentiator between schools is usually the undergraduate GWA cut-off and whether an entrance exam is live this intake. Both change, so check the admissions page rather than a forum post.

Disclaimer: admission policies, entrance-exam waivers, and GWA cut-offs are revised between intakes. Confirm current requirements with the school's graduate admissions office before applying.

Regular MBA vs Executive MBA: What's the Real Difference?

The two formats are built for different career stages, not just different schedules. A regular or international MBA, like AIM's iMBA, targets candidates earlier in their careers: 2 years of work experience is enough to apply, classes run largely on weekday business hours, and the program compresses into 12 months. An Executive MBA (EMBA), like AIM's, targets people already well into a management career: a decade or more of work experience is the baseline, classes run on Friday evenings and Saturdays specifically so working managers don't have to leave their jobs, and the program runs longer overall (18 months at AIM) despite meeting less frequently per week. Choosing between them is less about cost and more about whether you can credibly clear the work-experience bar and whether your schedule can absorb weekday classes or only evening/weekend ones.

Is an MBA Actually Worth It?

This is the question most applicants actually want answered, and the honest answer is: it depends on specifics, not on the degree's reputation in general. An MBA is a genuine financial commitment — a six-figure peso program at a state university, or a five-figure USD program at AIM — and the return depends on concrete factors: whether your target role or promotion path explicitly rewards or requires the credential, whether your employer offers tuition reimbursement or a Study Now Pay Later-style financing arrangement that changes the real cost to you, and whether the specific network and case-study rigor of a premium program like AIM's actually matters for your industry versus a lower-cost state-university MBA opening similar doors. A useful gut check: can you name the specific job title, promotion, or business outcome the MBA is supposed to unlock for you? If the honest answer is a vague "it'll help my resume," the cost-benefit case is much weaker than if you can point to a specific role that lists the credential as a requirement or a strong preference.

How to Decide: Practical Steps

• Match the program format to your actual career stage, not your ambition. A 2-year-experience iMBA and a 10-year-experience EMBA are not interchangeable options; pick based on where you genuinely are, not where you want to be.
• Get a real, current quote in writing from the specific school's business school admissions office rather than relying on a third-party estimate, especially for Ateneo, DLSU, and UST where official per-unit figures were not published at the time of this research.
• Ask your employer about tuition support before you enroll, not after. Many companies subsidize part or all of an MBA tied to a retention agreement, which can change the real cost dramatically.
• Compare the state-university option honestly. UP's ₱2,500-4,500 per unit is a fraction of AIM's five-figure-USD program fee — worth weighing seriously if your target outcome doesn't specifically require AIM's brand or network.
• Pick the track before the school. A Standard-track MBA and an executive or accelerated track are different products with different work-experience floors; applying to the wrong one wastes an intake. If you are still deciding between an MBA and another graduate route entirely, our master's degree guide and postgraduate study overview compare the options, and our doctorate guide covers the DBA and PhD rung above.

Ready to find the right school? Browse schools or compare tuition and reviews across hundreds of Philippine schools on SchoolFinderPH.

Sources

• Asian Institute of Management — iMBA Fees and Financing (official)
• Asian Institute of Management — OMBA Fees and Finance (official)
• Asian Institute of Management — International MBA (iMBA) Program Page (official)
• Asian Institute of Management — Executive MBA (EMBA) Program Page (official)
• University of the Philippines Diliman — Schedule of Semestral Fees for Graduate Students, 1st Semester 2024-2025 (official)
• Ateneo Graduate School of Business — MBA Program, Standard Track (official)
• Ateneo Graduate School of Business — MBA Standard Track Admission (official)
• Ateneo Graduate School of Business — General FAQ on MBA tracks and duration (official)
• De La Salle University — Master of Business Administration, Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business (official)
• UP Open University — Tuition and Other Fees, Office of the University Registrar (official)
• AACSB — Asian Institute of Management accreditation listing
• OEd Post Grad — How Much Is a Master's Degree in the Philippines?
• SchoolFinderPH — Accountant and CPA Salary in the Philippines
• SchoolFinderPH — Master's Degree in the Philippines
• SchoolFinderPH — Postgraduate Study in the Philippines