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MBA Vs. House

If you were to choose between owning a 2 bedroom house/flat in a decent locality (fully paid, no EMI/loans) and a 2 year MBA which one would you choose?
If you are wondering why I am asking this, then consider the tuition fees, add to it the boarding, lodging costs and the opportunity cost for lost wages, you could easily afford a house with the same money.
I do not doubt that education is important in one’s life and one should not put a price to it. However the life does not stop the day you enroll into a B-school. The loans esp. student loan for your under-graduation, home loan needs to be taken care of. The family obligations do not stop just because you have taken a sabbatical or vacation. What’s worse is that earning money makes us addicted to a certain standard of living and it is difficult to scale back. As a result it is harder for anybody who has worked for a few years to resume studies.
Your friends and colleagues who continued to work would have earned many accolades & laurels over the two years. Most of them would be promoted as well and would be well regarded in their streams. While invariably MBA graduates have to start afresh. Many of them are considered too old for fresher jobs and too inexperienced for the higher level jobs.
You get invited to the funding/sell-off parties of your colleagues while staring at your empty bank balances. Actually MBA makes it harder for people to pursue their dream as an entrepreneur. You have lost some precious years and capital due to the two year program and that’s put you in a catch-up mode. No wonder IIMs boast of many things, but IITs still have an edge over the number of entrepreneurs they have churned out.
I am not ranting, but cautioning the CAT/MBA aspirants that the world does not owe you a living. Take cold calculated decisions about the viability of your dream. MBA might make you book-smart, but are you ready to compete with a street smart in a knife-fight at the end of your program?

5 replies on “MBA Vs. House”

Totally depends on the value of the MBA you are getting.
Some will be worth it others not so much.
You have to take everything into account, the value of any education is also dependant on how much you use it.

@sid…
if you assume that 2 years lost wages = 30L
and cost of MBA another 20L
then to recover in 5 years, you should be earning 10L more than your peers annually.
just remember your peers would have got promotion & increment during the 2 year study leave.
@mavensandip.
i know… just want everybody to realize life is not rosy where where

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