From Business Schools Rush to Counter Study That Says MBA Degree Not Worth the Money, Effort (newslink - may not last long):
Not everyone agrees:
What thinketh the TM?
Having just finished my MBA (part-time program) in July, I have a somewhat strong opinion on this. The degree itself is no more or less helpful than any other degree, you get out what you put in. I did see some people that were just there to add three letters after their name and expected employers to come crawling upon graduation.
The majority of us saw an MBA as another set of tools in our skills bag. Not as important as experience and on the job learning, but most likely more important and relevant than our undergrad degrees that we had decided upon at 17 or 18 years old.
More than half of my class got new, higher-paying jobs (in some case, much higher paying) and others got promotions at their existing jobs. You can argue that these people would eventually get to higher levels of employment anyway because of their work ethic, intelligence or whatever, but then you could say that about any degree.
Having said that, the study makes some points that are worth noting such as heavy theory classes that don’t connect much with the real world and many schools cranking out so many MBA’s that the schools themselves may have devalued the degree.
In my opinion, while an MBA is obviously not sensible for eveyone it was worth it for me. The value of the degree is much less than the value of the experience, the education and the friends and contacts I made.
I’ll echo jk1245’s sentiment. I’m two classes away from my MBA, and the reason I did it was not to pump up my salary to astronomical levels. Basically, what I wanted to do was give myself the skill set necessary to be an effective manager. In my field (engineering), I’ve noticed a dearth of truly talented managers. It seems that a lot of people became managers simply because of their length of tenure (“Bob’s been here fifteen years, about time we made him a manager, huh?”) and not because they know how to manager projects, programs or teams. At least in my experience, a lot of managers don’t know about things like accounting practices, motivating teams, organization… the things that make a manager effective.
I knew that I eventually wanted to move into the management ranks and I started my MBA so I could learn about those subjects I didn’t take while I was working on my undergrad – accounting, marketing, economics, et cetera. It’s been a worthwhile experience overall. There have been some fluffy classes (especially Marketing, International Business and Executive Leadership) but I believe they were fluffy because of the instruction (or lack thereof) rather than the subject material itself.
So I’d say if you go into it looking for tools that will make you effective management material, then go for it, but if you’re looking for the magic key that will unlock six-figure salaries and company cars, you’re looking in the wrong spot.
(Or, what jk1245 said. 
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Some potential pitfalls one might not realise: oftentimes you have to switch companies to get that big promotion in a timely manner.
It’s a really bad idea to get an MBA straight out of undergrad. Conventional wisdom states that 3 plus years of solid work experience is needed before embarking on an MBA.
All MBA’s are not created equal and an MBA from Bob’s College may not be the answer for you.
Many people question the wisdom of getting an MBA if your undergrad is in business (Accounting, Marketing, Finance, Management, Int’l Business, etc.) because you’ll get a lot of overlap in your coursework.
Most people who get an MBA stay in their pre-MBA career field of expertise, leaving a staff position for a management job. If your work background is in retail, fast food or education or such your possibilities may be a bit more limited vs if your background is in engineering or nursing, for example.
There are two kinds of MBA programs: case study or quantitative. Harvard is case study. University of Illinois is quantitative. Both have strangths and it’s good to know yours prior to enrolling.
You won’t get much out of it if you don’t put much into it.
Look at the net present value and do the numbers. (quantitative)
If you are young and can complete the program in a relatively short period of time for a relatively low out-of-pocket cost, your MBA will be worth more than the guy in his peak earning years who takes the maximum five years, pays top dollar and gets no financial aid. You also have to look at the non-cash costs. Will your SO leave you? Will your children stop recognising you? Will your co-workers find you insuferable? Will you become a big crab? What else could you be doing instead of earning your MBA?
If you’re into the quantitative side of life, you can learn of new ways to look at the world and solve problems even if you never do land that great big promotion. Plus, if you so decide, you can accumulate a significant collection of thick, impressive looking bound books with titles like “Principles of Corporate Finance” and “Int’l Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics.”
More and more schools seem to be offering MBA’s every few years and more and more MBA’s get minted every year wheras it has not been established that the need for MBA’s now is that much greater than it was in 1979, when the value of the Harvard MBA may have peaked in real terms.
Like anywhere else in life, politics plays a role. The best internships don’t always go to the best and the brightest. It helps to know the rules and play the game.
How about - does employing a person with an MBA actually increase the bottom line for said company as opposed to not, all other things being equal?
I think Duckster encapsulated it - does employing a person with an MBA actually increase the bottom line for said company as opposed to not, all other things being equal?
I think, in general, no. The common wisdom of the eighties was that your typical MBA had acquired, above all, the ability to speak with authority on subjects about which they knew little or nothing. Has that changed?
I’ve spent most of the last ten years in marketing and public relations. While I know this is not universal (it couldn’t be, lease tell me it couldn’t be), every single person I have encountered in my professional duties who was incompetent, uncreative, rigid and detrimental to project or campaign success turned out to have an MBA.
Many of these people were very smart and got thir degrees from “good” schools, like Syracuse and (I think) Auburn, but every single person who could justifyably put those three letters after their names was dirt stupid when it came to running an effective campaign, thinking creatively and, most of all, TAKING ACTION AND RESPONSIBILITY when the need arose.
As a result, they hurt the bottom lines of the companies we worked for because they couldn’t do the kinds of things necessary for success. They could crunch numbers all the livelong day, but effective communication and branding were beyond them. My old assistant, who had an associate’s degree in marketing and a few years of real-world life experience, was an amazing, go-getting, creative, fun and warm person who would find a way to tackle any task effectively and who never failed no matter how much effort it took.
So, IMHO, the degree isn’t worth it because it doesn’t necessarily improve your skills, doesn’t teach you anything you can’t pick up on the job or from a For Dummies book, and can’t give you any skills you don’t already possess.
Again , that’s just from my personal experience, but I don’t see wasting the time or money to get one for marketing or PR. General business, maybe. I don’t have any first hand experience with MBAs there as far as I know.
At least from what I’ve seen, yes. The MBA isn’t the door-opener it was in the eighties – it seemed that back then, an MBA was a sure ticket to a six-figure salary and a corner office. I think the importance and significance of the MBA has diminished and employers see it more realistically; it’s an additional two years of training in business practices and tools, nothing more. To address yours and FallenAngel’s points, an MBA may help you become a more effective manager, if you’ve already got the basic tools (intelligence, good organizational skills, people skills, et cetera), but it won’t work miracles and it won’t automatically create good management material. If you’re one of those management boobs FA talks about, you need more than an MBA (possibly a brain transplant). 
Up-front disclaimer - I have an MBA from Kellogg, a school that is typically ranked in the top 5 or so in the more well-known rankings.
Here is my $.02:
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MBAs can help people (or even be required to) get certain types of jobs, e.g., investment banking, consulting, certain management positions, etc. So, in a practical way, they are valuable, because they get you past a first-level resume screen. This, of course, typically implies that the MBA is from a “top-tier” school.
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An MBA degree is the victim of its own success. MBAs, while they have endured for 100 years, have really been a phenomenon for the past 20 - 35 years. Given the capitalist booms of the 80’s (banking and consulting) and 90’s (dot.com’s and venture capital), and the use of an MBA on resumes to screen (see above), people have flocked to MBAs. The result? Like any over-hyped business phenomenon (dot.com’s, re-engineering, seven habits, etc…), while there is a core group of people and businesses who benefit from the phenomenon, 95% of the people who follow on don’t reap the value and end up dirtying the reputation of the thing - by the way, although I went to a good school, I in NO WAY claim to be in the “5%” - I jumped on the bandwagon, too.
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A top MBA, while teaching some business fundamentals, is just as much about “finishing school” - learning how to walk and talk like a mature businessperson - as it is about learning content. Going in as a very immature computer geek (even with 3 years of experience before entering) I found the finishing school aspect of the experience invaluable.
Bottom line? If you can get into a top school that can serve you on your resume as much as it can provide a fundamental business education, it is probably worth it. Beyond that, it really depends on your situation, your goals, etc. MBA degrees are - like any advanced college degree - used to indicate accomplishment, but because they are over-hyped, people may discount them unless they have the right pedigree. And since pedigree can matter, it can quickly getting snobby and class-distinctive (“well, Mr. Harvard MBA” and so on…).
A final note: success in business is result of many, many factors. Getting into a business school, while it does typically require business experience, is a results of many, many factors, only some of which correlate with being good in business. The point? I know a ton of folks from top B-schools who are: a) assholes; and b) unsuccessful. I also know some who are great and/or successful. Same holds true for folks with non-top MBAs or no MBAs at all. People are people - in a capitalist society, anything that can produce money will attract all kinds.