With all the news going on, I am nervous for the future. I’m enrolled in a M7 Part Time program, no scholarships, attempting to pay out of pocket other than the 1 credit employee reimbursement I receive. I was able to waive out of a few courses, saving me a few thousand, but the cost of the entire program is still way over $100K. For reference, I make a $100K pre-MBA. Is it worth taking on federal loans for this program? I am just anxious with all the news going on with Trump’s policies, which could end up affecting me. Any thoughts?
Is it worth getting a M7 Part-Time MBA in the current economy, relying solely on myself for funding?
Depends on where you are and where you want to be. It’s likely industry dependent.
A part time is harder to pivot. Is your company supportive ?
In my world, getting a part time where you are does nothing. They already think of you what they do. Your world may be different.
So you’d need to pivot but what can you expect to earn elsewhere? In the past, part time programs would let you recruit so as not to offend your current employer. But since they’re barely paying……check with your program.
So it depends on what you seek - and of course some just want it for themselves.
Good luck and congrats on a great careeer already.
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I agree with tsbna…what’s your career goal and do you need the MBA to achieve it? You can think about this in terms of expected ROI. I wouldn’t worry about politics, unless you are talking some very specific risk in your desired industry/career. The political situation is not in your control, make the decisions that are right for your at this point.
Other considerations….How many classes do you have left? Are you taking one or two classes per quarter? What other responsibilities or debt do you have? And yes…clarify the potential recruiting issue as tsbna also said. If you can’t recruit, you can quit your job before you are done with school if that could work. If that doesn’t make sense, the career center is available to alum forever.
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Thanks for the response!
I’m in federal contracting right now. I don’t mind it so far, but it does feel very stagnant and I don’t see myself growing much outside of my current role. Want to pivot to tech, possibly into a PM, analytics, or a marketing role (the school I’m attending is strong for marketing, and would have great resources).
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I just started, so have the entirty of the program in front of me. Luckily graduated with no debt, but I am a first gen student so I am trying to figure out how I should tackle on finances. I will likely have to take out loans in order to not spend 80% of my income trying to save up for school. Relatively still young and no plans of starting a family/ in a rush, so was planning on stretching out my time in school to space out the cost.
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I would confirm that you will ultimately be able to go through recruiting if you stay in your current job and continue/finish your MBA. If work isn’t paying much for the degree, I expect you can, but I would verify with both the school and your employer.
It’s a tough decision. If you got your MBA and stayed in your current role, the ROI likely is not there. How much will the total cost be…$150K-ish?
Can you pivot to any of these roles now, without the MBA? How many years work experience do you have?
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Thanks for the response! I appreciate your input.
Yeah, would definitely need to leave my role in order to get the most out of the MBA. The total cost will be $130K since I waived out of a few classes.
I have 3 years of work experience. I feel like I don’t have the breadth of experience to actually pivot to any of these since my role is very niche at the moment.
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That’s why one goes to a full time MBA.
But today people make too much to justify it.
If you make $50K, it’s an easy call.
Six figures, when you might come out making the same or less, a tougher call.
I’d have to think there are jobs where you are that you can pivot. Everyone today uses analytics - so what you do might be niche, but you are only 3 years in and I promise you there are skill sets transferable to other roles. But you have to position your resume to do this. Perhaps the career center can help you do this.
What do you do in federal contracting? Are you in purchasing? That’s supply chain - lots of transferable skills.
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Hmm yeah, makes a lot of sense. I suspect if I stay at my current role, I would get at least a 3-4% raise YoY and would be around the $110K range by the time I graduate.
Apart from the skills, one other big benefit is the network that staying in the program would give me. The school throws on a lot of events, and I’ve been able to meet people in cool industries already. And as you mentioned, I would gain lifetime access to the career center as well if I graduate from this program, which would be a great resource to have throughout my life.
I’m in a role that focuses heavily on data visualization for the client. Not an industry expert by any means, but I would work with product owners and SME to help them.
Thank you for your input again. It helps to think it out in chunks like this and weighing out the benefits (which may be more intangible in my case) versus the huge financial cost.
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I would start here and work backwards. Oddly, I think of education to be about learning and what the monetized value of the acquired skills will look like over a career.
Would you be learning subject matter that is currently a blind spot that you can leverage against the contacts and alumni network an MBA can provide? If so the investment decision is relatively modest when spread across a 30 year career.
Marketability, flexibility, optionality and most importantly knowledge that would be gained that allows you to have a professional impact should drive your decision in my opinion.
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Are you sure that the waivers will result in tuition savings ? Did you waive out of core courses ?
There’s MBA programs that are much cheaper than 100k. That’s financial suicide. If you want to pivot to tech, that’s good too, it would be fairly easy to get an IT degree, because most of them are business type degrees. Go cheaper, especially with tech.
I think the lifetime access is overplayed. I have lifetime access - it’s mostly trying to sell me. I did one workshop which was ultimately a sales event to get me into exec education, at a discounted rate, of course.
And you will be in a place later career wise above the jobs listed - if they even give you access to the personnel for life or counseling - it won’t be for listings.
If you are doing data visualization, you have great skills for many roles - from sales, to data architect to marketing - already.
You know how to synthesize and tell a story.
Get the MBA for you but I certainly think you can present yourself to pivot without - if that’s your expertise.
I’m personally not a fan of part time programs. I’ve seen some work but the person has always had to leave - and a few times the leaving came from “classmates.” who poached them.
Best of luck.
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Yes, all the ones that I could possibly waive out of. Cost of tuition went down from 160K to 130K because of it.
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I agree the idea is to spread the cost of this education over a career, and sounds like this MBA would help OP pivot at some point either once the degree is complete/maybe even when it is close to being complete.
OP is at one of two programs and I’m familiar with both, and personally attended one. At this level of program, the lifetime career center access is valuable, not to mention the access to peers, alum, and profs. These schools have job boards full of jobs that aren’t publicly listed. They also offer resume and interviewing assistance, advice on need to upskill (not necessarily via exec ed), oodles of free programming/webinars, etc. The people staffing M7 career centers are leaders in that world.
Edited to add: It sounds like OP will need at least 2.5 years to complete the classes, during which time they will be making a decent salary that can handle the debt payments. So, I don’t necessarily see that level of debt as ‘too much’, of course each person’s financial situation is unique to them.
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Difficult question to answer without knowing more specific information. (I will PM you so that you can correspond with me if you are willing to share more detailed information, but do not want it available for public viewing.)
Also, part-time MBA program results are not as clear as are the results for full-time MBA programs.
If I understand, your main concern is whether or not to borrow approximately $130,000 over the next few years in order to pay for your part-time MBA program.
In order to address your concern, there a several areas that should be addressed. The first area is placement results for your particular part-time MBA program as attending part-time significantly dilutes the two main benefits of attending an M-7 MBA program.
FWIW Your current annual earnings of $100,000 is below the median earnings for all M-7 MBA programs with respect to full-time students.
Companies tend to not care if the MBA from these schools is full-time, part-time or EMBA. One’s resume would not say full-time, or part-time…it would just say MBA from X school.
However, OP should (as several of us have already said) confirm they can go thru the recruiting process (that’s the same recruiting as for full time students.) Often, these programs don’t let students whose companies are footing the bill (or part of it) go through recruiting.
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Really appreciate all your input here. The sticker cost of the program is daunting, but reading a more holistic thought process to the benefits beyond the financials is really helpful. Thank you again!
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Yes, but OP may still be missing out on the two main benefits of attending a an M-7 MBA program because it is a part-time program so no internship and greatly diminished networking with fellow students. This greatly affects the value of attending an M-7 MBA program especially in light of the OP’s main concern regarding borrowing funds to finance an expensive MBA.
Agreed no internship is a downside, but networking need not suffer.
And just to talk about the internship thing, because OP is making a good salary, I probably wouldn’t recommend they quit and go full-time, giving up 21 months of income (and maybe a promotion, who knows?) just to have an internship. OP’s degree, if they choose to get it, will be powerful in the marketplace.
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