Yeah … I was hoping that title would get your attention.

I read a lot of stuff on the web every day.  Education is a big topic I tend to troll for, for obvious reasons.  Yesterday, I came across an article on American Consumer News written by Matthew Paulson.  Just by reading the article, I’d be willing to bet this guy has never attended an accredited online university.

The title of the post is “Don’t Get Your MBA Online”, and it is filled with inaccuracies and generalizations that not only put online MBA programs in a bad light, but is factually inaccurate.  If anyone was actually doing research on how or why to get an online MBA, this is one article that I hope they would miss.  

The “meat” of the story is based on a Wall Street Journal / Harris Survey that polled recruiters to see how effective an online MBA program actually is.  I have several problems with this.

"What the survey found was rather shocking. They had asked a number of corporate recruiters what they found when looking at candidates who were full time versus those who were part time. 80% of the recruiters said that online degree programs are not nearly as effective at building and developing business skills as traditional full time programs. 40% of the recruiters actually said the programs were not effective at all!"

In my many years in the corporate world, I have found that “recruiters” are usually the lowest common denominator in the equation of business.  External recruiters are focused on the dollar signs, as finding potentially qualified referrals is how they make their money.  They are going to recommend the candidate they think will be the best fit.

Internal recruiters are usually nowhere near in touch with the actual job that the potential employee will be performing, and thus are in no better position to make a decision based on any of the accomplishments of the candidate. How can anyone with a conscience allow others to recruit for jobs that the recruiter has never done themselves?  Seems like a waste of resources to me.

A recruiter has no more knowledge or authority to determine how effective a degree program is that I have the knowledge to tell someone the best method to do a heart transplant.  The sole purpose of a recruiter is to locate and facilitate the hiring process of talented people.  Period.  As a manager in my company, I permit our recruiters to accept applications and resumes, and then forward them to me for review.  When I decide who I want to hire, I allow them to make the offer.  That’s it.  Recruiters have no business telling me who is qualified for a job in my group.

A more effective way to determine how good a degree is might be to ask the supervisors and managers of the person who holds the degree.  One might ask if that degreed employee actually seems to apply what he or she learned in the program.  What do the performance reviews of that employee look like?  How did they score on the GMAT?  There is a ton of criteria from which to measure.  

Determining the effectiveness of a program only by the method in which it was delivered is asinine.

Another fallacy promoted by the recruiters was “Others say that when you’re working for 8 hours a day at a job and working on an MBA for another 4, it can often be very difficult to put a large amount of focus on your pursuance of a masters in business administration.”

Sure, it can be difficult, but online degree programs of all types are designed for highly disciplined people who can manage the workload of a job, school, and family on top of that.  Not everyone is cut out for it.  And no matter how many hours a day one spends at work and on school, if the student is able to complete the curriculum and keep up with the class, then there isn’t a recruiter in existence that has the ability to accurately judge the quality of anything related to any individual’s educational pursuits.

Another misleading, blanket statement found in the article was, “A lot of the online MBA programs are not accredited, and often taught by professors and instructors who are less qualified than full time universities.”

Yet more proof that the writer has not done any research into online MBA programs.  I guess what bothers me about this is that we have a journalistic hack who is propagating false information about online MBA programs.  The best way to expose them is to do what I’m doing now.

What the writer failed to mention is that any online MBA program worth anything at all IS accredited by a regional agency, AACSB, or ACBSP.  So to say “A lot of the online MBA programs are not accredited” is blatantly false and reflects on the lack of research done for this article. 

Needless to say, it does get me fired up when someone not only writes about a topic which they are obviously uninformed, but also propagates disingenuous information about that topic.  This article is a classic case.