The Financial Times, in the United Kingdom have a very interesting article published a couple days ago on survey results from MBA students.  These students graduated in 2004 and the survey attempts to see their progress after 3 years, posting results for 2008.  Again further proof that an MBA pays in the long run, though perhaps not immediately.  

Here’s the short of it.  The survey was performed by the Graduate Admissions Management Counsel, you know the people who do the GMAT test.  The report encompasses 160 schools and of the 160 schools 64% post an increase in MBA applications.  All the while employers are snatching up valuable MBA talent and are willing to handsomely compensate the grads in order to retain them.  After all talent is a commodity right?  Now of course the article covers some heavy weight MBA programs like Stanford and Duke, but the average salary for MBA grads of the class of ’04 were making $120,000 in ’07 and an average of $126,000 so far in ’08.  Even in the fledgling economy we seem to be heading into, the MBA still carries solid weight with employers.  Oh, and the average salary for a top 5 school graduate?  $160,000.  The really exciting part is that a full 33% of the graduates have reportedly made it into senior management within their respective organizations.  

So what does this mean for those of us who did not go to Stanford, Harvard, Yale or Columbia?  Well, good things in my opinion.  The reality is that with an MBA from Ashford University I am probably not going to be a top candidate working for an investment firm on Wall Street in New York.  In fact I doubt I’ll even be a serious contender for the CEO of Tandy Corporation in Fort Worth or the President of Southwest Airlines in Dallas, but the beauty is that every one of these employers need talent and there is only so much of it to be had.  The MBA is a credential that in my opinion is one of the few that can outweigh the school from which it came.  The Ph.D. is another but I digress.  

The MBA has garnered respect in the business community.  To the extent that perhaps that even though I’ll never be a mover and a shaker in a fortune 500 company I might be your next city manager or the head of a department in a government agency, or a senior manager at a factory, an executive regional director over a chain of restaurants or even the manager of a very large building supply retail store.  These businesses compete for MBA graduates as well.  Of course none of these are as glamorous as wearing a $3,000.00 suits, having power brunches and making multimillion-dollar deals with boring regularity, but these people are critical to our economy.  These people also need most if not all of the skills taught in a conventional MBA program.  Oh, and often these people make a pretty good margin above the average salary of a degreed worker in their local area.  Call me a simple man with simple needs, but isn’t the money really the bottom-line (clever word play intended)?  Oh, sure there’s a lot to be said for being happy in what you do, but when they survey MBA graduates they generally aren’t asking “how happy are you” instead they are asking “how much do you make”.  The beauty of all of this is that there are a limited number of people out there that are disciplined enough, driven enough, courageous enough and maybe even crazy enough to put themselves through the process of getting an MBA.  There are rising applications true enough but I do not believe that they are keeping pace with the demand as indicative of the salaries being offered.  By the way, not every applicant is accepted and certainly not everyone accepted actually finishes.  From big to little, ultimately all of these businesses are fishing from the same pool, some just tend to fish at the deeper end.  

For more on the article see: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/149957da-cb44-11dc-97ff-000077b07658.html