What impresses students on the world’s most expensive executive MBA programme? Is it Wharton San Francisco’s lavish new campus in a landmark building, or the latest interactive technologies in each classroom? The concierge-style service they receive from school staff, the free iPads, the all-inclusive accommodation at the Meridian Hotel or the chauffeur service that drives them the half-mile there?

“It’s going to be a great place for watching the America’s Cup this fall,” says student Peter Eberle, pointing to the panoramic view of ’Frisco Bay and Bay Bridge.

He is joking (mostly), but the view is as breathtaking as the price tag. Yet executives like Mr Eberle are queueing up to pay $175,678 to enrol at the school. It is as if the recession never happened. Wharton San Francisco has even increased its fees by 1 per cent for the class that began last month. It may be 3,000 miles from home in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania but, after 10 years in California, the Wharton brand has been successful enough at ingesting west coast entrepreneurship and high-tech energy to enable its San Francisco satellite to steer a course through the storm.