I'm looking at MBA programs in Oregon, and am slowly narrowing down my selection. These are the schools I'm interested in, does anybody have any experience with them?

Oregon State
Portland State
University of Portland
University of Oregon - Lundquist

I'm really interested in OSU. Since I'm an Oregon resident, it looks like a stellar value at just about $20k. And from the data that Businessweek has in their rankings, the post-graduate salaries are competitive with those of PSU, which costs twice as much.

I may still apply to the others, just to hedge my bets. But are there other ways to look at this choice?

I would rank the Oregon programmes like this:
University of Oregon (Lundquist) and Portland State University, then a gap, and then pretty equally
-Willamette University (Atkinson)
-University of Portland (Pamplin)
-Oregon State University

The data here suggest that PSU grads earn around 10K more: http://business-schools.findthebest.com/compare/209-234-250-254-255/Portland-State-University-OR-vs-University-of-Portland-Pamplin-OR-vs-Willamette-University-Atkinson-OR-vs-University-of-Oregon-Lundquist-OR-vs-Oregon-State-University-OR

Thanks for your response, Duncan. So you're basically saying that the choice would be pretty much between UO and PSU? i wonder why the Businessweek data shows a more similar salary distribution between OSU and PSU. I guess the low cost option was too good to be true!

UO is the clear leader in rankings, but the difference in tuition between UO and OSU isn't that substantial.

Both the UO and PSU programs are pretty interesting, and they both offer international study options, which I think can add a lot to an MBA student's career growth.

Otherwise, it might depend on your career goals. University of Oregon has stronger placements in technology and consumer products - while Portland State generally does better in functional roles like operations and logistics. I'd probably go with University of Oregon for a career in finance.

In terms of networking, you might have more luck in Portland than Eugene (where U of O is). Eugene's a great place but has the reputation of being a college town, where the largest employers are universities and the local government. Portland, on the other hand, has a much more diverse economy - and you'd be close to Vancouver and other parts of southern Washington, where Hewlett-Packard and Kaiser Permanente are large employers.

Thanks everybody.

I'm thinking PSU might be a better choice for me, because I'm in the pharmaceutical industry and there is more pharma activity in and around Portland. But I'll most likely just apply to both and see what happens.