For Part-Time MBAs, a Full-Size ROI

Part-time MBA students at New York University’s Stern School of Business. NYU Stern

By Francesca Di Meglio

Wondering whether a part-time MBA degree offers the same—or better—return on investment than a full-time degree? Well, you're not alone. Applicants to part-time programs frequently raise this issue, as they did recently on the Bloomberg Businessweek Business Schools Forum. But they rarely get any answers. It can be months or even years before part-timers see a return on their investment in the form of a raise, a promotion, or a new job, and B-schools for the most part don't survey them postgraduation to check on their career progress.

In the past decade, as more part-time MBA students have been paying their own way, as opposed to getting sponsorship from their companies, return on investment has become even more important. Simply broadening one's mind and picking up new skills—without the ability to change careers or increase one's salary—was all well and good back when students were largely financed by others and knew exactly where they'd be working for at least a few years out of school, says Peter Giulioni, assistant dean and director of MBA Career Services at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business (Marshall Part-Time MBA Profile). Nowadays part-time MBA students need more career help, which the Marshall School and other business schools have recently begun providing.

In the 2010-11 academic year, a third of Marshall's 300 part-time MBA students interviewed with recruiters through the career services office, and about 40 of them eventually changed jobs as a result. The numbers will continue to rise, says Giulioni, who adds that the part-time MBA offers good return on investment even if it remains somewhat harder to quantify than that of full-time programs.

"At 30 years old, you have 35-plus years of work ahead of you," says Giulioni. "The part-time MBA can help you decide how you want to spend those 35 years."

That's just what many part-time MBA graduates have done: used their degrees to find the career path that's right for them. Of those contacted by Bloomberg Businessweek, some have more money than before, others not so much. None regret having made a sizable investment in business education, and all say their degrees have resulted in significant advantages—giving all three the tools they needed to advance in their careers, and ultimately the confidence to strike out on their own.

Brad Kuhn was a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, covering the savings and loan crisis, when he decided to get an MBA. "I had to learn the rules of the game, so I'd be intelligent enough to ask the right questions," he says. "At first I went for an MBA to do my job better."

From 1992 to 1994 he attended the part-time MBA program at the Rollins College Crummer Graduate School of Business (Crummer Part-Time MBA Profile) in Winter Park, Fla. He paid $28,000 in tuition and his employer paid $2,000, says Kuhn. Because the sum was the same as the employer would pay for any ad hoc course a reporter would take to improve his writing, Kuhn was not bound to stay at the company. Still, the business school would not allow him to use career services because the employer was sharing the burden of his tuition, a common practice at the time.

No matter. Kuhn stayed at the newspaper. Eventually he applied for the job of long-range planning manager; although he did not get hired, he was placed on the team to create a future vision for the paper. Then he was promoted to retail distribution manager.

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