IBA and LUMS are considered equal in terms of academics and facilities, however IBA students are held to higher standards and require stronger grades for admission. LUMS places more importance on family wealth. While LUMS focuses more on theoretical classroom learning, IBA emphasizes hands-on real world experience. As a result, recruiters prefer IBA graduates. Additionally, Lahore has limited job opportunities for MBA graduates outside of banking, whereas Karachi offers more career prospects, making it a better choice despite current security issues.

1. Firstly, IBA and LUMS are considered of equal standing. However, the standard of students
in IBA is much higher as the costs are lesser and grades/excellence required is far more
greater, whereas in LUMS, while grades are also important, it's more important to have a
very large pocket.
LUMS has a really great building without doubt and really good facilities too, but same is for
IBA. They are brilliant in that too.
However, here comes the tricky part. Study at LUMS is more in theory, they will do majority
of their work sitting in class rooms reading cases and working on them while IBA is a more
hands on approach. Their study will force you out of the class to the real world and study
business there, that is without doubt the best way one could learn it, by practise.
A recruiter for a top multi-national in Pakistan once told me that she would prefer IBA
students over LUMS due to the reason I wrote in the above paragraph.
IBA requires more study while LUMS requires more cash!
Secondly, unless you are a Banker, Lahore doesn't really have any jobs to offer for a good MBA
student. All employers who come to LUMS are either from foreign companies or located in
Karachi. Even in the current bad situation of Karachi, Karachi offers much better employment to
MBAs, if you are in Lahore, don't expect a good career as there aren't really a lot of good jobs.
Most probably one would end up working in a small company with little to no future if he stays
in Lahore.
However, if the security situation in Karachi doesn't improve in the next few years, (1-3 years),
Lahore might become the trading hub for Pakistan, it wouldn't be as strong as Karachi, but it
would be something. However, that is assuming Karachi's situation isn't corrected, which it
most probably would be.