Why an MBA Is a Waste of Time and Money

MBA applications always go up during a bad economy. That is because business school generally attracts people who are lost, and more people who feel more lost when the bad job market is lousy.

But let's be clear: This is not the type of recession where there are no jobs for young people. This is a recession where there are no GOOD jobs. McDonald's is hiring in management. There is a bank teller shortage and a shortage of actuaries. There is a shortage of insurance agents. It's just that people don't grow up dreaming of these jobs. So they don't take them. Instead, people who are early in their career - in that time when an MBA sounds like it might work - those people are determined to have only a good job. And if they can't have that, they get an MBA.

The problem is that an MBA makes it worse.

Here are seven reasons why you should take a bad job instead of getting an MBA.

1. Business school won't help you be a good entrepreneur.
There is no correlation between being a good entrepreneur and going to business school. In fact, according to Saras Sarasvathy, professor at University of Virginia's Darden Business School, the most important skill for an entrepreneur is that you know your weakness and you can find people to fill in your gaps. So you pay a bundle to go to school to learn what you don't and how to find people who can do stuff you can't? Sorry, that doesn't add up. The ultimate irony: entrepreneur programs are booming at business schools.

2. You likely don't need an MBA for what you want to do.
There are some jobs, very few, where you cannot land if you don't have an MBA. These are mostly high-level officer-type positions in the Fortune 500. Even then, though, you probably don't need an MBA. In fact, Forbes reports that CEOs without MBAs bring more value to investors than CEOs who went to business school.

3. MBAs who are not from a top 10 school don't increase their earning power.
So if you're not one of the elite, the degree won't help you earn more. According to the recruiting firm Challenger & Gray, the degree simply does not separate you from other people in any significant way; it's too easy to get an MBA from a second-tier school. The cost of the degree is so much more than the combined cost of taking two years off of work and paying for the degree that you are better off taking a job you don't particularly like and getting a night-school MBA after work hours.

4. It's pointless after a certain age.
Let's say you do get into a top-ten school. Don't go if you are older than 28. You are too far along in your career to leverage the degree enough to increase your earning power enough to make up for the sticker cost of the degree. In fact, it is so important to get the degree early in your career that Wharton and Harvard have started accepting women earlier than men because the biological clock truncates a woman's ability to leverage the MBA early enough in their career to make it worth the money.

5. An MBA is too limiting.
You can't take an entry-level job after you get an MBA, so you had better know what you like to do. And can't take a job in a low-paying industry because you have to pay back the loans. So not only is an MBA useless for most jobs, but it also makes you unqualified for more jobs that it qualifies you for

6. An MBA makes you look desperate
Top ten business schools will not accept you unless you have a clear plan for what you will do with the degree after you graduate. You need to have shown that you have a propensity for some sort of business and that you need the degree to get where you want in that business. Unfortunately, most other schools will take you if you don't have a plan even though it's been shown that people who go to business school with no plan for their career graduate with no plan for their career. And then you look not just lost, but desperate.

7. Business school puts off the inevitable.
Look, it's really hard to be an adult. You go to school for twenty years being told what to learn and what to think and when to show up, and then you get tossed into adult life and there is no one telling you what's right for you. You have to figure it out, but you didn't go to school for that. In fact, school is the opposite of that. So it looks fine to be lost in your 20s. This is when everyone is taking time to figure things out. It does not look fine to spend $150,000 to go back to school just to put off the hard knocks of figuring out where you belong in the workforce. Face reality. Join the workforce.

[IntheknowUK]

This misrepresentation of further education in the REAL business world, is part of nothing more than a wave creative green eyed monsters!

The MBA is respected in the world over as a solid basis for best business practice and understanding. This article does however clearly show that it doesn't make you good at what you do or the right person for a job. An MBA with a good personality is a winner in almost every business.

Brazen Careerist maybe you could re-name it to the amazing Brazen B*ll Sh*tters?


Go suck some more lemons then ger back to an education Penelope Trunk. oh and by the way Linkedin is THE only business social network.

[tedzyco]

FYI People, this post was written by an English major who "went to graduate school for English". She did not even graduate from a masters program in English as she says she tried attending graduate school to get a jump on her career and it didn't work. It's all in her Bio. This post of mine is more researched than her article and far more objective so take her words lightly.

[IntheknowUK]

The English don't have Major's???

[jgoldenb]

This blogger is a stay at home mother from Wisconsin, who home schools her kids. I'd take her ideas on business with a grain of salt.

[RobbFosteriii]

This article is totally accurate. Sorry guys. If your luck with an MBA has been goods thats great. Maybe u can share some of your success secrets. However, my experience post MBA has been just like this article describes.

[RC64]

I'm glad you posted this. I've been looking at MBA programs and have been trying to figure out if it's worth it in what's left of this "economy". I'm 47 and stalled. Can't get back into the career I like so I'm doing "whatever".

I figured an MBA, added to some IFMA certs would give me a "leg up" to get back into a Facility Management career. I've been wondering how new MBA's are faring in todays market though. No point in taking on a buttload of new debt if I can't pay it back.

[IntheknowUK]

Time to get some spark then, life is what you make it, sell yourself, use your education to your advantage. Talk like a loser your become one.

[cmf1111]

There is no basis for your article or supporting documentation. Just a rant from a woman who seems like she has an ax to grind. I am so disappointed that CBS would print such crap. Your editor should have thought twice before publishing sh==!!

Your article is completely unfounded and here is why, point by point:
1) Good schools have excellent incubator programs and tons of resources - take 500 business oriented people, stick them together, and you have the worlds best consulting firm for a startup
2) An MBA is exactly what people need to be acknowledged in a world-class firm. Go ahead and present a merger, cost cutting measure, or marketing strategy to the board w/o an MBA
3) Top 10 then wouldn't include Darden, LBS, Thunderbird, Stern, UCLA, or USC....all of which are proven to increase salary, due to the added value.
4) Actually this is spot on, congrats 1 of 7.
5) An MBA is the most generalist of all masters programs... how limiting do you think a Masters in Bioengineering is? Also, isn't a Masters program SUPPOSED to help you specialize in something?
6) I'm not sure what a higher education says about someones desperation - desperate to Learn more? Develop rational thinking strategies? To network better? You, my friend, are way more desperate writing this crap on a website, not even print (which costs CBS zero dollars, I might add)
7) Why do you keep thinking an MBA is a place for people to hide from the world? Actually, MBA programs offer way more breadth and depth than most jobs would. People use MBA's to expand their horizons, such as to take an internship in the fashion industry in Milan or oil industry in Dubai.

This article is ****, I can't believe your editor gave you a keyboard.

[imoored]

Thank you for the rebuttal! Perhaps Penelope is only correct for people who are directionless and simply use going back to school as an excuse to "figure" things out...which is the point of an under-grad. Anyone with the dedication to go work hard, learn more, and have the ambition to be more will succeed with a MBA and go further with one than without one.