What's an MBA worth?

What’s the value of a newly-minted MBA degree? In their new book, Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, Harvard Business School professors Srikant M. Datar and David A. Garvin and research associate Patrick G. Cullen employ a wealth of interviews and quantitative data to examine the worth of an MBA in our evolving global marketplace.

“Business schools are at a crossroads and will have to take a hard look at their value propositions,” the authors write in the introduction. “This was true before the economic crisis, but is even truer in its aftermath. The world has changed, and with it the security that used to come almost automatically with an MBA degree. High-paying jobs are no longer guaranteed to graduates, and the opportunity costs of two years of training—especially for those who still hold jobs and are not looking to change fields—loom ever larger. To remain relevant, business schools will have to rethink many of their most cherished assumptions.”

To train knowledgeable, principled, and skilled leaders, the authors stress that business schools must move away from their emphasis on analytics, models, and statistics to embrace leadership development; critical, creative, and integrative thinking; and understanding organizational realities.

If you are in business, it is worth looking at how this shift might impact your business.  If you are a student or looking to get your MBA, you should understand this trend as you undertake your degree.