Forbes article on part-time MBA programs

Forbes had an article last year (Sep 2005) on the growing popularity of part-time MBA programs in the US because they allow people to keep earning while they study, thus keeping them out of huge debts that they incur with full time programs (link to article).

The article applies more truly to the US than India because first, average salaries for full-time MBA graduates from the top institutes like the IIMs have been increasing at a healthy pace over the years, and second, the demographics point to an increase in the number of people who will enter then 20-25 age group.

Here are some snippets from the article:

• Sharad Sundaresan, a programmer for Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., entered the part-time program at the University of Chicago. For three years Sundaresan boarded an 11 p.m. flight out of Seattle on Friday and arrived in Chicago at 5 a.m. He hung out at the airport until the school's shuttle bus picked him up for a full day of classes and then went back to the airport on the shuttle and caught a 7 p.m. return flight to Seattle. Tuition was $75,000 and flights cost another $30,000. E-mail, instant messaging and conference calls allowed Sundaresan to work on group projects with classmates in four different cities. "No regrets," says Sundaresan. "It afforded me the chance to keep my job, and the quality of the education and the networking opportunities were the same as the full-time program." The reward for his degree: a management consultant job at McKinsey & Co. and no debt.
• "... everyone is too busy to stop their careers and go through a concentrated two-year program.", says John Fernandes, president of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the M.B.A. accreditation group.
• The average base salary for a graduate of a U.S. school was $75,000 last year, the same as in 2000, while tuition has jumped 8%annually during that time. And getting a job isn't as easy. In 2000 the top schools placed 90% of their students in jobs by graduation. Last year only 70% of students at these schools had jobs. Cox's Niemi thinks that banks are hiring more undergrads with business degrees because they are cheaper and come with less of a sense of entitlement.
• Tuck's dean, Paul Danos, thinks that full-time is superior to part-time. "The total immersion experience students get in a full-time program allows them to create skills and get a depth of understanding that you can't get any other way," says Danos.

Thanks to Kautuk Khare (student of PGSEM 2005) for the mail about the article.