Thinking of doing an MBA: Is an $80K top MBA school better than a $24K online MBA school?
If you can get into the top school, it's a no-brainer to go that route.  An MBA at a top school will not only give you an education taught by world-renowned professors but also a large network of students and alumni. "I met two MBA graduates from Harvard - both made VPs at large Canadian companies (i.e. $1B or greater annual revenue) after working 2-5 years as management consultants post-graduation - one is now a divisional president making over $500K in salary along. When I asked one of them (one that is not yet making $500K in salary) about the Harvard MBA difference, he said the brand-name and the network probably set it apart from others, since most MBA schools now uses the same material as Harvard's.   I tend to agree with his thoughts - I never did felt the caliber of my professor had much to do with my ability to apply what I learn to practical use.  In my own MBA education, the professor did more facilitation than ""teaching"".  Apparently that is the norm, as MBA is less about being fed information than it is about demonstrating the ability to analyze and present information.  Back to M.Attia's question, I would go with the highest ranked MBA education I could afford (both financially and lifestyle).  A friend of mine was able to get his employer to pay for the $90K tuition fee from Rotman, along with job security for 5 years (not a bad idea in this economy).  I settled for Lansbridge University in Fedricton because the flexibility of distance learning and cost was important to me, though I was able to get my employer to pay for the MBA after I started (I switched group within the company shortly after I started my MBA and my new boss was able to get the approval without locking me in)."
"I highly recommend http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/ Professor Damodaran. He's written some of the best valuation books in existence (my favorite, simply ""Investment Valuation""). On his website you'll find a big pile of spreadsheets, that are models for working the various approaches to valuing a company.  Also, he teaches an MBA-level valuation course at Stern School of Business in NYC. And he videotapes it and you can watch it for free. Very smart, kind, generous man." Lol that's what you think buddy, my portfolio is flawless. It's doesn't take a scientist to be a good broker but someone who has information, I have nothing to prove to you because you are no one, just someone on reddit. It's nice you read my post, guess I got you pretty upset. It's funny because you don't know what I have available for myself in the finance industry. You read post about me that seem like idk what I'm doing that's because I'm thinking 2 steps ahead while you stand still. Like I said you are no one, even if I showed you my portfolio and proved you wrong everything would still be the same so why share stuff that I know that you don't? If you do not get where I'm coming from then you are a very bad businessman.   Oh and another thing because I got into mba program right out of college, that makes it a bad one? Didn't know pace university was a bad mba program lol. You gave me a opportunity to prove myself? Dude.. It's reddit not a interview. There are well established recruiting paths into the big bulge bracket banks. They recruit heavily from target schools, both undergrad and MBA. You don't just career switch into a front office role.  If you want to become a banker, you would typically enter as an Analyst, with a two or three year stint directly out of undergrad. You would have needed to get top grades from a target school and be successfully chosen from a very, very competitive recruiting pool.  If you already graduated, you will need a few years at a top firm, score 700+ on the gmat, get into a top bschool, deal with similar recruiting situations, and then enter as an Associate from your target MBA.   Competition is so tight I see CFA on everyone's resume. Lots of MBAs.   source: i work at a BB in NYC thats my main regret - similar to cfa vs. mba  they only hire kids right out of top tier schools with inflated gpas (harvard im looking at you) and these kids dont know their asses from their elbows and they immediately get into the models and bottles mindset  id take a state schooler with a level head any day over wanna be rainmakers The virtual classrooms won't replace the expensive schools at the high end (for many of the reasons you describe).  They'll compete on the low end with public schools.  I agree it won't happen in the near future -- it'll happen when prices get so high that there's a significant increase in student loan defaults.  That will be the breaking point, and people will start to look for alternatives. 20k a year for in-state university is a lot more believable (and let's leave out 'good' because then we would have to account for USNWR rankings and tuitions would definitely be higher). I'm pretty sure the private college tuition average is closer to 40k/yr, maybe even over it. No studies are cited about the education of corporate management.  I bet you'd find a lot of those MBA's have undergrad degrees in engineering and science.  The company presidents where I worked were all former scientists or engineers with MBA's, including two astronauts.  Other aerospace companies were the same. The more technical the business, the more I bet this is true. "in undergrad business, you will have a broad scope of information to cover, and schools and professors will vary widely in how they approach it.  it will be hard to say for certain how you can edge out your peers before knowing what they are looking for. however, finance and business are intellectually nebulous, especially at the undergrad level. your best bet is to maintain a broad set of interests and stay well read on them.  i would recommend watching Bloomberg fairly regularly, opening a brokerage account and taking advantage of the reps you can talk to, and reading news like The Atlantic and Washington Post,  among others, as long as they are well reasoned and contemporary accounts. classic and modern economics books will give you superior frameworks in which to look at the ""smaller"" world of finance, which should set you apart from your peers as well."