Posted on 03/07/2020 5:18:39 AM PST by karpov
Once a hot degree, the MBA is now being questioned by more and more people. Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler, for example, recently wrote that “the cost is prohibitive.” As a professor who teaches in the now questionable program, please allow me to provide some insight.
Before I go on, here’s your disclaimer. I enjoy teaching my MBA students. If I was on the outside looking in, I could easily go scorched earth. Given that I believe teaching is my calling, I think I provide value. But, I’m also not naïve. There are many flaws with the MBA in 2019—but there are still some good reasons to seek one.
The main flaw in the “burn it down” media regarding higher education is that the practices of elite programs are often projected onto the landscape of all of higher ed. This is akin to the flawed thinking that suggests the “average CEO” earns what those fat cat CEOs take home.
When people imagine grocery shopping, most don’t gravitate to Whole Foods. It’s likely Walmart, Costco or a local supermarket. When they picture a personal vehicle, it’s not The Ultimate Driving Machine, rather it’s more likely to be Toyota, Chevy, or Honda. When discussing the MBA in general, it’s more appropriate to think of programs at a regional state university than Harvard of Stanford.
Only a relative handful of the total granted MBAs are from the elite schools. Decreasing enrollment at elite schools does not have to signal gloom and doom for everyone else. While the lesser programs may aspire to be elite, they also know that their “customers” exist in a different market segment. Most MBA students are working adults seeking to change careers or to bolster their resumes.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
If the government won’t prevent foreign scabs from simply taking the jobs (due to manufactured “shortages” of skilled workers), there is little reason to invest in something so readily available to those scabs. That is the problem confronting colleges in general.
The MBA: A semester’s worth of really crucial information and know-how, crammed into two years.
I took what was basically an MBA survey course about 25 years ago. What would have been a 3 quarter-hour class, we spent 3 hours on. About a dozen such sessions. Was about right.
Bkmk
this is a good article.
i did one of those non-elite, self-paced online MBAs. I learned a ton. I would consider it very valuable. The people that I interacted with in the final capstone project were superb. I also learned a lot from them.
I’d encourage anyone thinking about this to read this article. I agree with everything the author says.
Of course everyone's experience/situation is different, but in his case (at least in my opinion) it was a waste of time, effort and money. It did not help him get a better job, open doors, etc.
Again, just my opinion, but...getting an MBA might be beneficial if/when trying to expedite climbing the corp. ladder when you're young OR when you've had years with a large corp. but need the credentials to move into the boardroom and the big $$$ OR perhaps to expand your knowledge when you own/plan to own your own business...outside of that I don't see it's benefits.
Middle-management positions are among the first to get kicked out the door during bad economic times. May have looked good on a resume 30-40 years ago but in modern times employers are looking for people with specific(already learned)skills/experience over all-encompassing business training/education.
Yeah, that way you can get your Master's just because your Daddy is governor......see Heather Bresch of Mylan Pharm.
Back in the 80s Wall Streeters were awarded MBAs for giving loans to Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. /s....(or maybe not)
Yep. I spent a ton of money for an MBA 25 years ago. It certainly opened a lot of doors due to its rarity and top tier pedigree. These days? My resume would get lost in the shuffle. Besides, due to grade inflation and the pervasiveness of online diploma mills, no one trusts any degree from anywhere anymore.
I wouldn’t bother with college if I could do it all over again. I’d join the Air Force, retire in 20, and then go work for Boeing until I was 58.
A friend of mine got an MBA from Baylor many rears ago. He said it was 2 years of learning how to use Excell really well.
At the company I work at the managers and supervisors are all looking at reports with pie charts. The new managers came in about 2 years ago and renamed depts and email accounts and changed procedures but no change has happened other then half the IT dept was fired due to Office 365.
The old procedure was email the other dept when something stopped working and they would respond that they were on it. Now it is sending out a template with the correct shade of grey text to about 80 people when a couple are only needed to fix the issue. Rearrange the deck chairs.
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