Top 5 Reasons an MBA is a Bad Investment

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The once-golden MBA is quickly losing its luster

For years, an MBA degree has been seen as a first-class ticket to the management fast track. People spend $100,000 (or more!) to earn the degree, confident that it will propel their career into overdrive.

Even so, the once-golden MBA is quickly losing its luster. Let’s face it: the degree has been WAY over-hyped, MBA curricula are out of touch with real-world demands, and many programs have a culture that fosters some awful management habits.

With that in mind, here are the top five reasons your MBA may not be worth the money you’ll pay for it.

REASON #1: THE ROI SUCKS

When it comes to goosing up your lifetime income, the MBA just ain’t what it used to be.

Writing in a research piece for “The Academy of Management Learning and Education” several years ago, two business school professors, Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford and Christina Fong of the University of Washington, dropped this bomb on academia: “What data there are suggest that business schools are not very effective. Neither possessing an MBA degree nor grades earned in courses correlate with career success.”

The report debunked many of the traditional claims of B-school recruiters. Pfeffer and Fong cited multiple studies that, for instance, compared the salaries earned by MBAs with their non-degreed peers. All research concluded that although MBA grads earned higher starting salaries than college grads, mid-career MBAs saw no salary boost after earning the degree. Some studies even found that those who pursued an MBA full time suffered from the disruption in their employment…