<p>I understand that their is a large amount of younger students that are going into their MBA program with dreams of being a millionaire, and in that case forking out 40k a year does not seem that bad. I would argue that their are many of them that fall short and regret their huge ammount of debt, and then there are many of them who do become very wealthy.
But for every one of those students, their is 2 people that are slightly older, say 35+, and simply attempting to better themselves for the sake of having a better life. In this case, keeping debt low is a major factor.
The 25k they spend on the entire MBA program at their state university which gets them a promotion and raises their salary 20k+ a year is a very good ROI. This is something that is very exciting to someone who has a family, mortgage and saving for their kids education.</p>