I'm not convinced of the ROI on mba's. They have become so common now that many mba's have few more than 5 years experience and maybe some common sense. The internationalization trend has been positive but America still lacks a global perspective in most programs. 6 weeks or a few 2 week stints won't teach international business either.
For a typical mba. Lost oppy cost is probably on average 300k lost income plus another 100k in tuition across 2 years. Not to mention interest for those doing it via debt. Pretty spendy
Imagine that same 400k earning 5 percent for the next 25 years. Some serious oppy cost.
It all depends IMO. I went to a good school (ranges from top 25 to top 40 nationally depending on the year) and it helped me tremendously. I did a two year full-time program and have tripled my pre-MBA income since I graduated. My first job out of b-school was about a 70% increase in salary and I have increased my income a lot since then too through promotions and a job change.
So for me, it did make sense to get an MBA. The ROI is definitely there. Yes I have a ton of student loan debt, but I don't think I could have broken into the career I did post-MBA based on where I was professionally before the degree. It was just too big of a switch, and employers would not have looked at my work experience as having transferable skills to move into where I am now (banking). Even with the debt, I've done some cost benefit analysis and the jump in income and earning potential I've had is well worth it.
Read in The Economist a few weeks that you'll actually have better outcomes by avoiding harvard etc .. if you don't expect to be in the top 30% or so. It's better to excel elsewhere.
@papadad111: I tend to agree for the lower prestige MBA programs. Also keep in mind that 1) plenty of participants are actually sponsored by their employer and 2) in some cases doing an MBA is almost a requirement for a certain job - so there's that too.
I think this ties into what I think is a really important point with MBA programs. There are your Harvards, Stanfords, Whartons, and the rest of that tier. But I think if you are able to get into a top 50 program within the US you can still do very well for yourself and make it worth your while financially.
There is a caveat however - once you get beyond the tier on the list daylatedollarshort presented in the link showing salaries, I think it becomes very regional. As I noted, the school I went to bounces between the top 25 and top 40 nationally (depending on the publication) and typically sits between 30 and 35, so still quite good, but not elite like the programs on that list. But within the region that it supports, students are able to land top jobs with pay raises that make the ROI worthwhile in most cases. My school had ties to some very specific companies in its region that employed probably 2/3 of the class I graduated with. The rest of the class probably had some type of employer sponsorship, was working on their own startup or found employment on their own.
I was found employment on my own but it was difficult. I could have leveraged career services more, but I did not want to work in the geographic footprint of my school. I wanted to move back to Columbus and managed have a bit of luck on my side as I ended up working for a multi-national firm here and happened to be hired by a group inside my company that had strong ties to Ohio States's MBA program (again, going back to that idea of very good school nationally, probably top 30-40 regularly, but strong regional ties), and was okay with hiring MBA's. Ending up in a segment within my firm that valued the MBA and had ties to a regional program helped my career a lot. The OSU MBA's I have worked with have all had tremendous growth with that company. I now have more contacts with OSU's MBA program than my own. So my situation is not atypical, but I think it demonstrates that the point that the ROI can be there if you leverage the regional reputation of very good schools right out of a full time program.
