French schools storm the first five ranks of the Financial Times’ 2020 masters in finance ranking

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As each year, the Financial Times published the ranking of the world’s best masters in finance programmes, and five French schools top the first places to create an “elite group” of the 56 masters in finance “pre-experience”. The FT’s Masters “pre-experience” are programmes dedicated to students with little or no relevant professional experience.

Like last year, the FT’s Top 5 of masters in finance is all French: HEC Paris claims the first position, followed by ESCP Business School, Skema Business School, ESSEC Business School, and EDHEC Business School.

The keys to the French success

The FT says that “likely reasons” for this French success can be explained through three aspects: a “long history” of running finance programmes in French schools, good connections with the finance sector and relatively low fees.

Nine French schools join the ranking

France is the second country with most schools included in the ranking. Nine French master programmes manage to enter the ranking, which is one more than the United States and two less than the United Kingdom.

The nine master programmes ranked by the FT also include 4 courses from Grenoble Ecole de Management (16th rank), Neoma Business School (21st), EM Lyon (27th), and Rennes School of Business (29th).

Diverse selection criteria

The FT uses several criteria to create its ranking of the best masters in finance programmes:

quality/price ratio of the programme,

duration of the programme,

average salary of graduates three years after graduating,

employability after graduation,

international dimension of the programme and school,

percentage of full-time teachers holding of a PhD.

Looking closely at the ranking with these criteria in mind, the first French masters in finance display exceptional scores. HEC Paris, ESCP and SKEMA business schools show sky-high rates (97 to 100%), particularly in terms of professional insertion of students, teachers holding of a PhD and strong international presence.