I'm a student at a top-ranked MBA program, and I spoke to caffemacchiavelli about this article. I agree with a lot of his points, and don't want to add too much right now since I'm in my first year and haven't fully had time to process and organize my thoughts around these complicated issues. However, I have a few points I'd like to make in response to people's comments:
Lumifer:
Quality of people is different, but quality of education may not be that different at a top 10 school.
MattG:
If you're in the Boston area and want to sit in on an MBA class, PM me. At my school, any MBA student can bring visitors into the class. And if you want to visit another school, just contact the admissions office and tell them you're interested in applying and would like to see what a class is like, they let people sit in all the time.
christopherj:
I disagree that business is primarily a zero-sum game, there are a lot of strategies where you increase the size of the market and share benefits with customers (blue ocean strategy), employees (efficiency wages/Fordism), or even competitors (defining and creating new markets). E.g., a company my friend works for helps their competitor with safety issues, because bad press for their competitor would reflect poorly on their entire industry.
Aussiekas:
It's true that MBA's as not useful for pursuing a PhD in business, and I think you're right that this is evidence against their educational value. At my school, they used to make the PhD students take MBA classes -- now it's optional, and PhD students I've spoken to say they like taking MBA classes to see how MBA's think, rather than for getting any educational value out of it. However, if you keep in mind that most of the value comes from the social experience/network, then it's not a case of the MBA being a ripoff that doesn't create value.
As for whether the schools make money on the MBA programs, I can say that at my school, the MBA program actually loses money, and is subsidized by executive education (which is ridiculously profitable). Also the school makes money when its rich alums donate.
I've been reading LessWrong for a while and know a lot of people in the community, but this is my first time posting, so if I'm out of sync with any of the norms here, please PM me and let me know.
I'm a student at a top-ranked MBA program, and I spoke to caffemacchiavelli about this article. I agree with a lot of his points, and don't want to add too much right now since I'm in my first year and haven't fully had time to process and organize my thoughts around these complicated issues. However, I have a few points I'd like to make in response to people's comments:
Lumifer: Quality of people is different, but quality of education may not be that different at a top 10 school.
MattG: If you're in the Boston area and want to sit in on an MBA class, PM me. At my school, any MBA student can bring visitors into the class. And if you want to visit another school, just contact the admissions office and tell them you're interested in applying and would like to see what a class is like, they let people sit in all the time.
christopherj: I disagree that business is primarily a zero-sum game, there are a lot of strategies where you increase the size of the market and share benefits with customers (blue ocean strategy), employees (efficiency wages/Fordism), or even competitors (defining and creating new markets). E.g., a company my friend works for helps their competitor with safety issues, because bad press for their competitor would reflect poorly on their entire industry.
Aussiekas: It's true that MBA's as not useful for pursuing a PhD in business, and I think you're right that this is evidence against their educational value. At my school, they used to make the PhD students take MBA classes -- now it's optional, and PhD students I've spoken to say they like taking MBA classes to see how MBA's think, rather than for getting any educational value out of it. However, if you keep in mind that most of the value comes from the social experience/network, then it's not a case of the MBA being a ripoff that doesn't create value. As for whether the schools make money on the MBA programs, I can say that at my school, the MBA program actually loses money, and is subsidized by executive education (which is ridiculously profitable). Also the school makes money when its rich alums donate.
I've been reading LessWrong for a while and know a lot of people in the community, but this is my first time posting, so if I'm out of sync with any of the norms here, please PM me and let me know.