I have been studying for the gmat. Well I take a break to look at the cost for some of these schools and I am shocked, 150k for two years of business school? Not will I be losing 180-200k in salary, but will be losing another 150k in costs? To those that have done mba's and have gotten jobs, is it worth it at least financially?
Worth it - if you go to a good bschool. What I mean is that if you're a Texan - I think it should be top 5-10 business school or University of Texas (does really well regionally, pretty good nationally). Otherwise, I think the return on investment isn't there. For me, forgoing salary would be significant, but i realized that i would have plateau-ed without a MBA.
Only worth it if you go to a top business school. Otherwise any mba is useless. Seems like you are already making a lot though, around 100k so in that sense i dont know how much it would help you. Usually people coming out of grad school are going to make what you already are. How long have you been working.
Just finished at McCombs in May, and it was fun as hell. Business school is damn easy, you party nonstop, and come out with a high-paying job in a position that might not have been attainable without a MBA. But, as the other posters point out, make sure you're getting into a good school. I saved up enough cash while working ($35k) to cover my living expenses, and took out Stafford Loans to cover my in-state tuition (~$21k/yr). Here's how I think it plays out: M7 - the main 7 1. Harvard 2. Stanford 3. Wharton 4. Chicago 5. NW - Kellogg 6. MIT - Sloan 7. Columbia Best of the Rest: Berkeley - Haas Dartmouth - Tuck Michigan - Ross UCLA - Anderson NYU - Stern Texas - McCombs UVA - Darden UNC - Kenan-Flagler
that question is highly dependent on your personal situation. how much are you making right now? do you like your job? do you think you're progressing fast enough? do you want to make a career change? for me it was worth the cost. everyone has an undergrad degree these days. going to business school opened the door up to companies that wouldn't have normally been closed to me and i made a career change from the tech/IT field into a business management focus. so you really got to look at your situation. if you are going to a top top business school, then yea it's going to cost you the 6 figure range. but most business schools range from 60 to 80. many offer merit based scholarships and with financial aid, it becomes pretty manageable. going to a top business school isn't everything as well. my school isn't in the top 20 and i still managed to land the companies that i wanted. you should look at schools for how extensive their alumni network and what industries you're interested in. for example, any texas school will serve you will in the oil and gas industry.
Along with Texas, I've heard good things about the program at Rice. A friend of mine went through their executive (part-time) program and got a great job in management at TI out of it. She was very pleased with the program. I think it all depends on what you want to do and where you want to work. A business degree from UH won't open the same doors as one from UT, but for some people it may be preferable.
Getting an MBA will not automatically guarantee you a job. It'll just open doors for you that may not be otherwise open. Nothing more, nothing less. Baqui, happy (late) graduation! I'm sure you'll miss McCombs, as I have over the past year.
Am leaving 100+K job at end of month to enter business school. Believe me I've asked the ROI question myself. What I find to be the easiest question to determine the answer is: "can you acheive what you ultimately want to do, in a manner that doesn't protract your career timeline, without an MBA?" For me the answer was a clear no. Now the grey area comes when the answer is "Yes, it'll just take two more years net of working the corporate ladder or whatever, but I avoid the opportunity cost of b-school." Well in that case, it's a tough question.
I wanted to point out that MBA schools across the board is NOT "easy", especially the top few schools. I haven't gone to MBA school myself, but I have heard that the work load at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc is much larger than UT's. I actually went to UT for undergrad, so I'm definitely not knocking it in any way. Most of my friends in business school at UT have also said that the classes are surprisingly easy for a school ranked 18-20 in different magazines. From different recruiters, it seems like if you want to work in Texas and the surrounding states, UT is definitely a big name. However, if you want to go outside those states, UT may not be as highly regarded. Baqui, I wanted to email you to ask a few questions regarding UT's MBA school, but it didn't let me. Please email me at guoyu2222@gmail.com. Thanks.
So UH BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) Degree is a waste of money/time? What if you are doing Management Information Systems or Operations Management.
Thanks man! Relocated to San Francisco a few weeks ago, and am already missing Austin and being on campus. I agree that depending on the level of support from Career Services and on-campus recruitng the MBA will open doors for you. This is especially true for career switchers like myself.
I think I am going no where in my current job. I don't have to do to much work and I make pretty good money for my lack of experience. However I think I want to challenge myself, but potentially losing 250k+ minimum in a two year period is scary as hell. I just hope to hear some encouraging stories.
SF, isn't that crazy expensive? How is recruiting at UT? I know for UT eng every company under the sun was there.
Anyone who went through a technical undergraduate program such as in Engineering, Economics, or Natural Sciences will find ANY MBA program to be a pleasant change of pace. Word is that the case based programs such as Darden have much higher workloads -> reading and doing the full analysis and writeup for a case can take hours and hours. But in terms of being challenged, there's nothing you'll learn in b-school that's anything like doing a Fourier Transformation or calculating 3rd order non-linear ordinary differential equations.
I really don't get where you got your numbers in the first post. When I read your first post, I think it said something like 150K for 2 years of MBA school. The 2009 US News listed the most expensive MBA school to be $47,000 tuition per year. After all the school related expenses, you're looking at $120,000 maximum for 2 years. The rise in MBA applicants is due to the economy doing so well from 2003-2007. Tuition from 2006 to 2007 went up around 10% in many schools. Now that the economy has been sucking, I'm willing to bet on either a decline in tuition in the next few years, or a very small increase. If you are making 90-100K a year, then I'm assuming you're getting about 70k after taxes. If you're going to the most expensive school, you'll lost 250k in 2 years maximum. If you're going to an in-state school, it won't be nearly as expensive. I don't know how old you are, but you're basically giving yourself plenty of oppotunities with that MBA for at least 20-30 years. 250k for 30 years of increased salary, increased happiness from yourself and mainly your wife.....hmmm that's definitely worth the 250k.
SF is expensive, but it's a really fun and scenic city. I'm up in North Beach 4 blocks from the Wharf, surrounded by a ton of cool restaurants, have a view of Coit Tower, and go running along the Embarcadero 3-4 times a week. It's a pretty high quality of life over here, although I'm paying a lot for it. It's still much cheaper than living in Manhattan though. The nightlife is lacking compared to Austin though. : ) As far as recruiting goes, here are a just a few of the companies on campus: Oil, Gas, Power Chevron Exxon Mobil BP Conoco Philips Centerpoint TXU Koch Supply and Trading Louis Dreyfus Hyridge Anadarko Consulting Deloiitte McKinsey Booz Allen Hamilton The Boston Consulting Group PRTM Accenture Infosys Consulting Alvarez and Marsal I-Banking JP Morgan Citigroup Merrill Lynch Lehman Brothers Sanders Morris Harris CSFB Houlihan Lokey Wachovia Bank of America Miscellaneous (Mktg/IT/Ops/Corp. Finance) Dell Google American Airlines Frito Lay HP Cisco 3M CocaCola Heinz IBM Proctor and Gamble Best Buy Target
^^ everything Baqui has been sayin' is on point... lol. UT MBA. shaon is that you? we hung out a few times in Portland when you were at Intel and I was at Nike.
