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The harsh truth is that an MBA from anything but one of the top 5 or 10 schools isn't worth a dime.

I would disagree with that a bit. Certainly there are some schools whose diplomas aren't worth the paper they're printed on as far as the potential earnings a graduate will realize in the job market.

But a degree from a business school in the top 25 is still a ticket to a very nice income. I'll use Vanderbilt as an example, since it's a school I'm familiar with. They are ranked somewhere between 15 and 20 in most years. Their b-school graduates average about $80K their first year and signing bonuses from $10k to $15k. That's hardly worthless, even though it's not a top 5 or 10 school.

There are also some second tier schools that can give someone a boost of $15k to $20k in annual income. That's a worthwhile investment.

[i]The harsh truth is that an MBA from anything but one of the top 5 or 10 schools isn't worth a dime. [/i]

There are an awful lot of folks who have leveraged their MBA degrees to higher positions that would disagree with you.

The average work experience in my MBA class at a Tier 1 public school is 7 years. The MBA supplements their on-the-job experience. To derive that value, however, it is important to avoid the "touchy-feely" courses and focus on the substantive finance and accounting classes.

The harsh truth is that an MBA from anything but one of the top 5 or 10 schools isn't worth a dime.

I couldn't disagree more. My MBA was from a program that is just inside the top 50, and I know for a fact that it has helped me and my classmates/colleagues move our careers forward in ways that would have been impossible without the degree.

However, the overall premise of the article is correct. Over the several years it took me to get my MBA (did it part-time while working full-time, being a spouse, having a kid, being a homeowner, etc) in the late 1990s and early 00s I saw a dramatic shift away from a student population of mostly older (late 20s and up) students who brought a good deal of "real world" experience into the program and towards kids who were straight out of undergrad (in one of my last classes there was a young girl who celebrated her 21st birthday ... which was just plain wrong. This can be attributed to the Clinton economic decline offering incentives to unsuccessful job-seeking kids to perpetuate their undergraduate lifestyle by continuing their education. Since my MBA program was heavily into the whole "teaming" concept this created problems, as the "old guard" of the program (who actually had a work ethic) ended up carrying the kids. But while often painful (perpetuation of an undergrad lifestyle usually entails procrastinating on work until the last minute, something those of us with lives couldn't afford to do) that was valuable too ... it helped us develop skills for utilizing and motivating GenY slackers ... :-D

What a person takes out of an MBA is directly proportional to what one brings into, and puts into, it. Someone right out of undergrad might be able to make it through a program on academic merit alone, but it's MUCH more rewarding if you are older, more mature, more experienced and are paying for it yourself.

Another important component is knowing your program's professors and selecting them wisely. I was fortunate in that my program, affiliated with a school in a major urban area, had a good number of adjunct faculty who were employed full-time outside of the academic world and therefore brought current knowledge, experiences and practices into the classroom. It also helped that a good number of my classes involved semester-long, real-world consulting-model assignments for real clients at real companies ...