Is INSEAD worth it? The cost against what it gave me

24 October 2026

I went to INSEAD. I paid for it with a loan, and I didn't get a scholarship. So when people ask me whether it's worth it, I don't answer lightly.

My short answer: it was worth it for me, and it can be for you. But it's a bigger bet than it was a few years ago, and you should go in with the numbers, not the brochure. Here they are.

What it costs

From INSEAD's financing page:

Tuition: €109,860 for the intakes starting in August 2026 and January 2027.
Living costs: about €30,000 for ten months in Fontainebleau, or €32,000 in Singapore, for a single student. Add about 30% if a partner comes with you.
The first instalment: €12,000, non-refundable, about four weeks after your offer.

So call it €140,000 all in, before flights, visas and the months after graduation before your first salary. When I went, tuition was 98,000 euros. It's gone up by more than ten thousand since.

Then there's the salary you're not earning for the year. For a lot of people that costs as much as the fees. At least at INSEAD it's ten months, not two years.

What graduates get

From INSEAD's employment statistics, covering the classes that finished in December 2024 and July 2025:

81% had at least one offer within three months of graduating.
Median salary: €100,000. Median sign-on bonus €28,900.
Half went into consulting, then tech, media and telecoms at 18%, corporate roles at 17% and financial services at 15%.
65% changed sector, function or country.
They went to 57 countries and 257 companies. About a third to northern and western Europe, just under a quarter to Asia Pacific, and 18% to Africa and the Middle East.

That last one is what makes INSEAD different. If you want a career that isn't tied to one country, very few schools spread their graduates this widely.

The bad year

Now the honest part. In 2024, one in five INSEAD graduates had no job offer 90 days after graduating, Poets&Quants reported. That was a shock to a lot of people.

It recovered to 81% with an offer in 2025. But the big consulting firms are hiring fewer people from INSEAD than they were. McKinsey's hires fell from 121 to 100 between 2024 and 2025, and BCG's from 91 to 60, according to Poets&Quants.

And of the half that went into consulting, more than half were going back to a firm they'd worked at before. Only 23% of the class were new hires into consulting.

So if you're coming to INSEAD purely to break into McKinsey with no consulting background, know that it's a narrower door than it looks.

What it gave me

Why I went. At the time I had it fixed in my head that I needed to get into consulting, and INSEAD sends by far the most people into consulting. I'd always wanted a one-year programme. And honestly, of all the alumni I spoke to from all the schools, the INSEAD ones were by far the most helpful and friendly, and that made me feel like I belonged there.

I went in wanting consulting. I came out and went back to AI, and today I'm Head of AI at a startup in London. Before INSEAD I was building AI systems. Now I build and lead the teams that build them.

What I'd point to:

The switch I needed. The next step in my job was an engineering lead role. If I'd taken it, I'd have been on the technical track for the next decade. INSEAD was the other branch.
The courses I'd never have chosen. I'd never heard the words private equity, entrepreneurship through acquisition or corporate restructuring before I got there. Those turned out to be some of the most interesting weeks of the year.
The people. This is the only time in your life you'll have this many people in the same boat in one place. Make as many friends as you can.

The decision. I'd been dreaming about INSEAD for years, and I asked myself which choice I'd regret least in ten years. Not going to the school I'd wanted for that long would've nagged at me forever. Now I know. Regret is a better guide than rankings.

When INSEAD is worth it

You want an international career, not one tied to a single country.
You're building on a career you already have. An engineer moving into strategy or AI leadership. A consultant moving up.
You want it done in ten months. One year out of work instead of two.
You can afford a slow start. Six months after graduation with no salary wouldn't break you.

When I'd think twice

The whole plan is new-hire consulting, with no consulting background and no plan B.
You need the US job market. Only 6% of INSEAD graduates went to North America in 2025.
You want to stay in France afterwards. The post-study permit is twelve months, once, to look for work.
The loan only works if everything goes right.

For the bigger question, whether any MBA is worth it right now, I've written is an MBA worth it in 2027.

Do this now

Write down three things. What you'd do after INSEAD. What you'd do if that doesn't happen within six months. And how much the whole year costs you, salary included.

If you can answer all three and still want it, apply. If you can't, work on those answers first. The GMAT can wait a month.