Cooling market for MBAs?

Companies have been paying recent MBA (master of business administration) graduates starting salaries of $21,700, a 60 percent premium over the $13,300 average beginning wage for anyone with a plain BA degree, according to a new survey of college graduate employment trends. Those with degrees from prestige business schools such as Harvard or Stanford have been making $25,000, with very top students commanding as much as $40,000.

But according to Dun's Review, many companies are cutting back on hiring this high-priced talent and instead are turning to less expensive BAs, who can either be trained in-house or encouraged to work for advanced degrees at night at company expense.

This spells bad news for the estimated 50,000 new MBAs slated to pour out of colleges this spring. As recently as 1965 the annual MBA crop was only 5,000.