MBA or Not in the New Digital Age?

The Wall Street Journal has a great piece that suggests an alternative route to the traditional MBA. In other words, imagine that you have the option to go somewhere prestigious on paper, such as Harvard or Stanford for your MBA and can spend time with other go-getter types among ivy-covered buildings and high-powered faculty for a couple of years.  

Photo credit: Brian Stauffer

Yet, after you're out the door, who would a progressive CEO rather hire? the candidate who built a profitable business in two years, or the candidate who sat in lectures? They suggest that a 'smart investor' would skip the MBA candidate.

The piece suggests that what matters "exponentially more than that M.B.A. is the set of skills and accomplishments that got you into business school in the first place. What if those same students, instead of spending two years and $174,400 at Harvard Business School, took the same amount of money and invested it in themselves? How would they compare after two years? If you want a business education, the odds aren't with you, unfortunately, in business school. Professors are rewarded for publishing journal articles, not for being good teachers."

Read the original article here.