Is Getting an MBA Worth It? Part 1
June 21, 2008 – 6:12 am
This post is the first in a four part series on pursuing an MBA. I’ve been asked to write a bit more on career development, and clearly pursuing a degree can have an impact on your career path. College degrees won’t always improve your skill sett or make you more valuable, but they can if selected and pursued in the correct way. I will relate my experiences and hopefully shed some perspective on the value of getting an MBA.
I have some experience with this question, because I returned to school to get an MBA five years ago. At the time I was working for a technology consulting firm as a project manager and had watched the firm grow from 86 employees to 1,200. I love small companies and I enjoyed some of my work, but I was also interested in learning how to run a business. As it turned out I had been promoted very quickly and ended up in a job I liked less than I thought I would.
As a technology person I had value to add but at the end of the day I was always a “cost-center” type of employee. By this I mean that I never got to participate on the key business decisions that helped my clients succeed. We developed some great software that helped parts of their businesses, but ultimately the work only supported their business and its operation.
The decision to pursue an MBA should be based on these factors:
- current compensation and post-MBA compensation
- personal benefits
- full-time or part-time
- investment required
- lifestyle
- desired type of work
Compensation
From a compensation perspective, getting an MBA full-time was not that great of an idea for me. My small company had a generous bonus package and I earned a reasonable salary. There are online calculators available that let you input current pay, post-MBA pay, the cost of the program, etc to help you figure these things out. I did some research to find out what an “average” MBA earns right out of school, and it was less than my current compensation. Therefore most of the online calculators said that it didn’t make sense to go back to school, because the investment would never pay itself back.
One point to consider, however, is how much head room you have from a compensation perspective. I was 28 when I went back to school, but at that point I didn’t see much potential upside in my pay structure in the near term. I’m sure I could have make director at some point, but at my old company a director did more sales work than I wanted to do. Although I could have increased my income eventually, I felt I was near a ceiling that would be very difficult to move past.
When I did graduate my pay was in line with the research I had done, and it’s taken me three years to get back to my previous salary (five full years from the day I quit my old job). Given my skill set now though and my career trajectory, I’ve got a lot more head-room in my career path.
It’s been my observation that getting a part-time MBA probably won’t dramatically improve your compensation at your current firm. It’s possible you’ll get a small raise or become eligible for a promotion, but I think that hard work and success in your current role can get you those things as well.
Come back on monday for my next post in this series!
Image Credit: gadgetdude
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