Maryland Smith School of Business

Smith sells proximity at a discount: the College Park campus sits on the D.C. Metro, and the federal-services economy, Deloitte’s government practice, Booz Allen, the contractor belt among them, hires the class the way banks hire in Manhattan. Analytics programming runs deep, backed by one of the earlier business-school data-science pushes.

Against Georgetown, the trade is brand for price: comparable geography at roughly half the private sticker for Maryland residents. Placement runs in the mid-80s with federal-adjacent employers dampening recessions; the ceiling is the same as the region’s — this is a services-and-government economy, not a startup one.