Hi,
I’m an MBA graduate and considering a Ph.D in business. I’m 45 with a lot of work experience and also have family obligation. Does it make sense for me to start a Ph.D at this age? Will programs admit me at this age? How long will the program really takes? They usually post it as a 4 years program, but I believe that it is more towards 5-6 years.
what are my chances to be hired at 51 and in what types of universities will I most likely be hired? will I be tenured at 57? How many publications per year will I be expected to publish in order to be tenured?
Additionally, my husband is also an academic, so I will have to find a job in our area
( Oklahoma city), and I assume that the institute you do the PH.D in will not hire you. Does it worth it to go to that route or I’ll be better off continuing my job and in 5-6 years I’ll be in a higher position that pays similar to what I will make as an assistant professor ?
I’ve had two classes taught by people who received either their doctorate or masters from the University of Oklahoma, although I’m not a business major.
Call up the Price College of Business (I’m assuming you can’t relocate for a phD program) and ask these questions. They will likely be incredibly frank with you regarding the time to phD, local job prospects, and whether the program is worth it. I have no idea what the admission rate for business phD students is, although the admissions staff would likely be able to answer that question.
Given that you aren’t able to relocate, you really should talk to folks at local universities that offer a doctorate in business. They would have some idea of your chances for employment. Also–find out if there is funding for a doctorate in business. If you have to pay for it yourself, it may not be worth it if your academic employment opportunities are limited to your current geographic area.
Normally, I would answer no - the combination of age, family obligations, and geographic restrictions make an academic career unlikely for the majority of people.
HOWEVER. Business is one of those underserved fields - it’s actually a field in which there are more faculty openings than applicants. I think this is more true in accounting and finance than marketing and management, but even the latter two fields are undersubscribed. This might be especially true in rural Midwestern areas.
So, you might actually have a decent chance despite geographic restrictions and the other factors. It’s also a lot more common for people to become business professors late in life after many years of experience. So i agree with the advice - you might want to make an appointment with a business professor for 30-45 minutes of their time to do an informational-type interview asking them some of these questions.
How many publications per year you will be expected to publish will entirely depend on the university you want to teach at. It will be more at an R1 university than at a smaller teaching college or regional school. Also, some universities hire lots of their own alumni and some hire none - it just really depends.
Also…assistant professors in business might not make more than what you make with an MBA already. A couple of years ago I read that the average new assistant prof in business made $86,000 a year - more than the average prof in other fields, but still not necessarily what highly-paid experienced MBAs make.
so does it worth it? If I’ll go for ph.D I will loose income for 4-6 years(even though I’ll get a tiny stipend) and will not be able to save for retirement. If I’ll invest these 4-6 years at work, I’ll probably be promoted to higher positions in the organization that pay $86,000 or closer to that. Does it make sense to go to ph.D?
The only person who can answer that question is you.
From a purely financial standpoint: as you noted, you’ll probably have a small stipend around the order of $30K for the 4-6 years it takes you to do the PhD, but like you said, you won’t be able to save for retirement (or much of anything).
There is also the matter of where you will go. If you have to stay in your area for your PhD, you have two choices - the University of Oklahoma, and - if you are willing to commute the hour - Oklahoma State University. I think those are the only two universities with PhD programs in business (I checked University of Tulsa but not many others). You have to hope that there is a professor there whose research interests align with yours and who is willing to take you as a student.
I checked; the Chronicle of Higher Education has [updated numbers](http://chronicle.com/article/Average-Salaries-of-Tenured/145283/). It appears that the average salary of a new assistant professor of business is $107,066 per year. Of course, that varies by university - at research universities they average over $130K per year, whereas at bachelor’s level universities it’s closer to $75K per year. Also, remember that these are averages; roughly half the professors in the surveys are going to be making less. I think it’s safe to assume that you likely won’t be at a big doctoral/research university if you are geographically restricted; you’ll probably end up at a small regional bachelor’s or master’s level university. So let’s say that you’ll make somewhere between $75K and $95K if you find a tenure-track job in your area.
If you’re going to get promoted to positions that make nearly $86K in the next 4-6 years, then you’re probably already making pretty close to that now (I mean, within $10-15K) so that’s forfeiting a lot of money over the next 4-6 years, plus whatever interest it would’ve earned in retirement accounts. Then you won’t be making that much more money as a professor than you would by merely getting promoted - not enough, it appears, to offset the years of lost work.
But of course, there are other considerations besides financial. The years of graduate school are long and hard, and require a lot of work for very little compensation. Even when one is unrestricted geographically the rewards are low. Do you really want to do research in some specific area of business? Would you be happy with a career focused at least partly on scholarship on some business issue? Do you love to teach and do you have a burning desire to teach business to students - perhaps primarily undergraduate students, since there are not a bevy of research universities in OK and since you won’t be able to move anywhere else? (Unless your husband is willing to try to move with you.)
I don’t know, personally if I were you and I was reasonably happy with what I was doing now I wouldn’t go get a PhD. If you have a master’s you might try seeing if you can teach a few courses at a local community college.
I hear you, Julliet. I know that PH.D program in Business is very demanding and I have 2 kids, 10 and 7. I don’t know if this is the right timing to go for that. I really don’t know what will be the return on investment, considering that I will have to find a job in the area. If I’ll find a job in a small school, they probably will not pay much. Moving again will be problematic, family-wise. If I I’ll enter the academia when I’m 51-51, when will I retire? when I’m 70? ideally, I wish to retire a little bit earlier, maybe 65.
I didn’t consider teaching in a community college because I think its not rewarding comparing to an office job. I don’t make close to 86,000 right now, but even if I’ll make 70-75 in 6 years from now, at least I did not spend 6 years in school.