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Is an M.B.A. worth the time and tuition cost?


Prolonged uncertainty about future growth has discouraged some prospective M.B.A. applicants. Do you think an MBA is worth its time and tuition cost?

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    Any successful entrepreneur is built by networking. All the experience comes by associating with the right people at the right time. a M.B.A. is trying to compensate for the lack of face to face and one on one approach to networking. But more often than not, is buy friends or family members or acquaintances that a business picks up. You don't have to work your way over the ladder, just know the right people. So No, trying to get an MBA is a waste, unless it helps building up that networking. Plain and simple, meet people socialize, and impress the right people and you will be successful in any career

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  • Yes, as is all other education but particularly an MBA that is focused on organization. Progress works through specialization.  Thus a major leap in civilization was agriculture when people learned to cultivate the land. That increased food production and resulted in surpluses that allowed many to dedicate themselves to other activities. But now someone had to organize the distribution of food including inventing a means of exchange.

    The next huge step was the invention of the steam engine. That happened when instead of heating water in a chamber to create steam and then cooling it in the same chamber after extracting some motion through pistons pushed by the steam, James Watt decided to heat water in one chamber and cool the resulting steam in a second chamber. Specialization again!  But it took another ten years for Watt to figure out how to coordinate the two chambers.  Organization!  Along the way he and others had to invent new steel alloys.

    Practically all other progress has been through the same cycle--specialization followed by new forms of organization to coordinate the newly specialized activities--even if the details are not as momentous or obvious.  Thus the iPad is a highly specialized version of the PC that is leading to many new ways to organize and manage information.

    So, yes, an MBA is worth the time and cost, but don't ignore other forms of education, which the US is now doing at its peril.  Watt needed new alloys for his steam engine. The iPad needs new programs to run.  Is it any surprise that unemployment is only 4 percent among college graduates?  Yet the country has a serious shortage of engineers and other technical specialties.

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    Yes, and I’m just adding to my earlier comments from when this forum first opened. So much of the value of the MBA degree is determined by the quality of the institution, and whether or not the MBA program attracts the kinds of corporations the MBA student hopes to work at upon graduating. Also, much of the MBA graduates success comes several years after graduating, if we are talking about pure earnings and job promotions. The MBAs I interviewed for several features were seeing the true return on their investment five years after graduating, and that's okay. Other MBA students I interview all promise the MBA degree gets them an interview at a company they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. This is especially true for military people, or people from a humanities background wanting to enter into finance positions, marketing positions or consulting work with their MBA degree. Through their MBA studies students are also securing internships with companies they wouldn't be able to interact with otherwise. Several MBA deans have told me more internships are leading to full-time jobs upon graduation. So, this is yet another reason why the MBA helps and is well worth the investment, provided the prospective MBA does their research first.

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