I’ve seen a couple national security or intelligence analyst. That’s a newer major - but sounds really cool. I have to check the curriculums. I wonder if that’s a “new” trendy major like neuroscience.
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Your son, if he can afford it, is potentially a prime candidate for an MBA 
That’s from another thread - but career changers. But being able to pay the bills - that’s the first requirement of any citizen (and to pay taxes which helps society) and great for him that he’s able to contribute!! Hopefully, he eventually lands up in a role at work or elsewhere to give him a big more satisfaction.
Intelligence Analysis is pretty niche, but it’s definitely an interesting major. He walked away with several FEMA certifications related to chemical, biological and radiological events.
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PT MBA can be a good option if it’s done through a company paid program. However most firms will partner with somewhat no name business schools to offer such benefits. This can still be great for someone already on a great trajectory within a company and they need to purely up skill.
Executive MBA (e.g the Wharton EMBA in SF) can keep the total cost low while allowing to earn a top MBA along with the networking benefits of being in a high net worth well connected cohort.
In the case of full time MBAs, there is always a short term financial pain but it can lead to significant ROI long term. If you are MBB, the cost of mba could be low if you decide to go back to the same firm. B schools love these kids because they are low risk and are guaranteed to pad the outcome #s. For everyone else, the value primarily comes being able to have a new vantage point from which to shift careers dramatically. Here are some career transitions I saw first hand.
Musician → MBB
Teacher → Product Manager at Amazon
Outsourced IT → Bulge Bracket IB
MBB → VC
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Kid #1 --Quantitate economics, BA and then an MBA. She’s now #2 person of the governing body of an Olympic sport. (It was a sport in which she competed.)
Kid#2–Independent Major (Russian studies and theater) BA and then MFA in Acting. She’s an actor in NY. To support herself, she coaches students applying for MFA programs and works 10 hours a week as an assistant for a woman who has several online businesses (all D’s work is online). D got the job because of a reference from a fellow student in her MFA program.
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Is #2 happy - meaning, if she needs to supplement income for the next 20 years, is she willing to or is there a point where they’d transition to something else due to lack of ability to support herself in the primary job?
It’s always interesting to me how different kids in the same family are - my family included.
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Could you please explain this?
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COA + lost wages during the two year program. Offset by summer earnings between the two school years.
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2 yrs tuition + expenses: 150k + interest
Lost income: 100k a year
This is fairly typical.
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Cost of attendance at M7 business schools is about $125k per year, so that is $250k. Plus the opportunity cost of not working those 2 years; for most applicants an annual salary entering g business school is likely $125k or more. That can be offset a bit by the summer salary between 1st and 2nd year of business school ( maybe 25-30k for the summer). So around $500k is right.
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Well…like any program where you need to leave your job to study full time…it’s an investment in your future.
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Whether that investment yields a positive rate of return is not always certain. Columbia, for example, has yearly cost of $127k; median salary upon completion of $175k. Depending upon one’s field/location, that may not be much of an increase.
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I do think - the CC crew is not - typical.
If you had a student making $75K a year and loses two years - that’s $150K. Many won’t even be making that when they go into school. Of course, if they get an internship - let’s be conservative - $6K a month - so that’s $18K back - that’s $132K.
Not everyone is going to Harvard but everyone should go to a top 50. So UF is a fine school - one of many fine MBAs.
It’s #26 - so not an easy admit.
Tuition is $62K total out of state for two years. Add in Room and Board - let’s say $95K.
So that’s under a quarter of a million.
But again - the average person isn’t working MBB or making $150K at 26 years old.
So I think a lot is perspective - of who’s going to school and from where.
The CC audience and the real world audience are vastly different.
When I went, I was a TA and got paid to go to school. Not sure if it’s the same today but there may be some ways to mitigate some of the expense as well.
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Others above have explained this really well.
This is the number I gave my kids – not that they were thinking business school, but if they were…
In terms of opportunity cost, at the time I gave them the number, I thought they’d be leaving a tech job. So yes – it depends on what you are leaving behind, and where you are going.
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Personally, I think one has to look at the long game when considering ROI for an MBA.
Depending on what one was doing before entering a full-time MBA program, the initial pay increase may not be all that much (if any). But how about 10 - 15 years out? One would hope it pays off and makes sense in the long run, but as you said - no certainties.
I personally believe one should consider non-financial value added as well.
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And to which schools. The M7 graduates tend to congregate in a narrow set of fields and jobs. Those attending other schools may land in other fields, where the upswing benefit is more substantial as a percentage of a lower income to begin with. For many years ASU had the most upswing between its BA and MBA grads.
For example, the average salary of 2021 ASU mba grads was $106k. That is great for most of those attending, but not so great if you started out at $100k with a BA.
Someone just posted an ROI yesterday - will see if I can find it. It was on the ASU MBA page actually When I was there, the supply chain kids were crushing it.
My point simply was - when we talk about MBB - that’s not the normal kid. Yes, they’re in a different position - but they’re the exception, not the rule. I think our contributing audience here is the creme de la creme of initial outcomes. Most 26 year olds aren’t doing in life what I read about here.
Interesting - my son’s intern friend went to CU Boulder for some sort of engineering. Went to Ga Tech for a Masters in Data Analytics. The intern company offered him $80K - which was apparently less than he was making b4 he went back. He got a job at Procter at I’m told $120K so he got lucky. But not everyone or every program is goign to work out perfectly for all.
But generally getting a full time MBA will be a positive for most.
Here it is.
28 MBAs With the Highest Return for Grads Earning $100,000 or More (usnews.com)
As you are fond of saying, the school doesn’t matter.
It is the person :-).
There will be a wide range of outcomes from each school.
Depending on the personal characteristics of the person involved.
We don’t need to look at averages.
The best return on investment is if you can avoid another two years of school all together, and land in the industry you want to land in, straight out of undergrad, where possible. Of course some industries want an MBA.
There are some 10-30% of the MBB analysts who move to associate roles in the same company, without an MBA these days from what I hear.
Likewise with kids who are in IB, moving from analyst to associate, without an intervening MBA.
And so on.
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OK - in certain cases the school matters. But there are Elon grads at Goldman, ASU grads at McKinesey.
And plenty more like this.
The best return on investment is if you can avoid another two years of school all together
When I had my first class, Org Behavior and was sitting in a pool reading the text - I wasn’t agreeing with this statement. I was thinking -maybe I should keep going and get a PhD.
There’s more to it than immediate financial gain.
But yes you are correct - there are wide ranges of people and wide ranges of schools.
In terms of short term ROI, MBAs generally benefit those with a lower pre-MBA salary since the opportunity cost is lower for those folks.
There is a segment of folks who get huge scholarships for diversity purposes. As an example I had a classmate who came from Macedonia on a full ride. For her, the MBB post MBA at no cost was a huge ROI not because the pre-mba salary was low but because she paid nothing and upgraded to a T1 consulting firm, landing in the SF office during the boom years of tech.
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