The MBA: Is Business School A Charade?

Filed in archive Careers and Money on September 12, 2006

I'm just finishing up a very interesting book called The Accidental investment banker by Jonathan Knee (I'll have a review tomorrow or the day after). One section in particular struck me, and I'm interested to hear your views on it.

Knee, the author, has little positive feeling toward business school. Here's a key paragraph:

Honest MBAs will tell you that they pursued it primarily to signal future employers of their worth and secondarily to develop friendships that can be exploited later in life. For them, the focus is on getting their tickets punched and networking. One widely cited recent study suggests that with the exception of the very top MBA programs, where the networking is truly first-rate, an MBA is one of the poorest educational investments one can make.

That's a pretty darn cynical statement. But is it true? Is getting an MBA more about the resume and the connections than about the actual learning?

Well, it certainly wouldn't be shocking if it was. My undergraduate education was more about building a resume and drinking beer than truly preparing for a career. Although we might expect an MBA program to be of higher quality--it is a master's degree after all--it wouldn't be astounding to find that students are more interested in meeting peers who'll make good contacts down the road than worrying about basic accounting or economic principles.

Knee feels that faculty play a role in the whole charade--they know that the actual education isn't all that important, so they do research for personal glory while spending as little time as possible with students.

(BTW, that "widely cited recent study" Knee mentions is called "The end of business schools? Less success than meets the eye." from a 2002 issue of Academy of Management Learning and Education.)

What do you MBAs think? Did your two years of advanced education actually advance your knowledge, or did it merely raise your credibility in the eyes of high-paying employers, while simultaneously widening your network for future climbs up the ladder?