Benefits of an MBA Degree

MBA graduates from the top 50 business schools in the U.S. earn a median cash compensation
of $5.7 million after graduating and working for 35 years – nearly $2.3 million over those with just an undergraduate degree.

It’s no doubt that an MBA degree has great value, but how exactly does the degree help you advance outside of monetary value? Ilana Kowarski, a reporter at US News, recently discussed how an MBA can help you advance in your field.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

An MBA can offer a pathway to a higher job title. For one, the MBA education emphasizes leadership development with tangible skills and experience.

“A lot of times one of the key things that you are doing that gets harder and harder as you move up in an organization is the difficult conversations stuff, the things that you could have punted over to someone else when you were lower down in the organization, that you could have avoided,” Noam Wasserman, dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business in New York, tells US News.

Along with key leadership skills, the MBA education also imparts students with important soft skills, such as effective collaboration.

“In addition, an MBA teaches them how to enhance their contributions by working effectively with others, leveraging collaboration,” Gerardo Okhuysen, a professor of organization and management at the University of California—Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business, tells US News. “These are the primary ways in which an MBA helps students accelerate their career within their profession, because they can begin to take on more complex challenges at work as they learn about the different parts of business.”

Soft skills, from effective collaboration to leadership, are growing in importance. According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends report, 92% of talent and hiring managers rate soft skills just as highly, if not more important, than technical skills.

VALUABLE NETWORK

One of the biggest benefits of business school is the network to which you gain access.

“If people are leveraging their network well, it can lead to opportunities in the future,” Heidi Pozzo, an MBA alumna of the Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business, tells US News. “There are gaps in knowledge that get rounded out through the MBA program,” she says. “And it is a way to challenge ideas and learn from others what worked well and what didn’t in their companies.”

In fact, experts say that the MBA network is perhaps the most valuable part of the B-school experience.

“As most incoming MBA students know, the network you cultivate during business school is likely the most valuable part of the experience,” Stacy Blackman, founder of Stacy Blackman Consulting, writes. “In addition to making those two years a whole lot of fun, these relationships will also become a lasting set of connections that have the potential to change the course of your professional life forever.”

Sources: US News, Stacy Blackman Consulting, LinkedIn, P&Q