If your priority is employability from the MBA then you need to find data about the employment rate of students from that MBA. The general standing of the university and the teaching quality are not strongly correlated with employment. The Economist and QS rankings often have employment data. I would expect that Aston will be very much better. If you budget is tight and your focus is on finding work then a MSc in finance might be better, and a better school might be more affordable.
Thank you so much for your reply, Duncan. Yes, my priority would definitely be employability and as you rightly mentioned, I did check the QS rankings to get some sort of idea on this parameter for these universities. What I found was Aston was leading with about 37-40% followed by Sussex at about 28-30% when it came to employment. I could not get much information on either Essex, Brunel, or Stirling. Naturally, I considered them to be below my top 2 options (Aston and Sussex). However, Brunel was featured in the FT top 100 EU schools for business in 2017 and 2018.
Furthermore, I also thought along the same lines as to do an MSc from a better university and I do have offers from York and Dundee for MSc in International Business. I already have a PGDM degree and so I was more comfortable with IB/Marketing than Finance. I really want to do an MBA though.
My final question to you is that should I finalize one between Aston and Sussex or is an MSc from York or Dundee a better alternative in your opinion? You did give your preference to Aston over the other four universities for an MBA. So, could you please highlight a point or two for choosing Aston over the others? The only point I have with me as of now is that Aston has a triple accreditation and fits my budget of below 18k. Hopefully, Birmingham being the 2nd largest city in The UK will have its perks when it comes to the job market and Aston being located at the heart of the city will definitely be a plus point. In addition to this, it is also a lot cheaper than London at least in my opinion.