@tkb

I like the way you think, a brilliant mind will always be brilliant . Have a friend who went to a no name biz school and ended up with a Million dollar a year job ( Base + commision) with BOA . Depends on how you sell yourself

I have nothing against spending 100K on an ivy league MBA , if you can afford or are willing to take the loans to do it fine.

Very interesting debate, I'd say.
Up till recently, I'd have taken Sagamite's (and other similar) position, as per I can't imaging plunking down $100k for an Ivy league education. But then, as I realise nowadays, I live and work in Nigeria. So my scope is a bit limited, depending on how you see it. Even though I work in a industry that's doing its best to be abreast with the wider world, despite the challenges of the environment, and renumeration is similar, and in some cases exceed, some developed markets.

Recently vacationing in the States, the topic came up while having dinner with friends, and the major objective we all looked at was the networking opportunity. I'm a businessman part-time, and I work as a new business development person anyway, and the issue is, networking is invaluable. Nothing works more than pushing the right buttons. So an Ivy league MBA is definitely something I will look at in the not too far future, though maybe not for the same reasons as many of my friends here. My future interests revolve around entrepreneurship, and I'd love to rub minds with the best of them, Silicon Valley types, and make valuable contacts.

Someone here made a point about Nigerians being narrow-minded in their worldview (well, he said it not in too many words, maybe not exactly the way I put it!), and I 100% agree. I am personally concerned that as a people, we bicker and fight each other and run each other down, while Asians who are not particularly smarter synergize effectively and take advantage of opportunities available to them. I once wrote a post here about the international job pool, and how we Nigerians, despite our population, are not taking advantage.

 Its Idealistic I must say. quality cost money. Even in the US you cant compare schools in the hood to those catholic private schools which charge a lot.

If you want quality you must pay, Most of the time mediocrity is cheap.

Just like in anything Gucci is expensive while the aba made "Reebox" is cheap

Buying C ronaldo is expensive while Opabunmi would be cheap.

Quality education is expensivebut its a sacrifice for the future

True it gets you in the door, but after that its up to you. You will very quickly find that the brilliant guy next to  you went to a no name business school and will beat your earning power in years to come. The anomaly being wall street where blue blood counts

AjanleKoko:

Very interesting debate, I'd say.
Up till recently, I'd have taken Sagamite's (and other similar) position, as per I can't imaging plunking down $100k for an Ivy league education. But then, as I realise nowadays, I live and work in Nigeria. So my scope is a bit limited, depending on how you see it. Even though I work in a industry that's doing its best to be abreast with the wider world, despite the challenges of the environment, and renumeration is similar, and in some cases exceed, some developed markets.

Recently vacationing in the States, the topic came up while having dinner with friends, and the major objective we all looked at was the networking opportunity. I'm a businessman part-time, and I work as a new business development person anyway, and the issue is, networking is invaluable. Nothing works more than pushing the right buttons. So an Ivy league MBA is definitely something I will look at in the not too far future, though maybe not for the same reasons as many of my friends here. My future interests revolve around entrepreneurship, and I'd love to rub minds with the best of them, Silicon Valley types, and make valuable contacts.

Someone here made a point about Nigerians being narrow-minded in their worldview (well, he said it not in too many words, maybe not exactly the way I put it!), and I 100% agree. I am personally concerned that as a people, we bicker and fight each other and run each other down, while Asians who are not particularly smarter synergize effectively and take advantage of opportunities available to them. I once wrote a post here about the international job pool, and how we Nigerians, despite our population, are not taking advantage.

u don come back? olowo

Pittbaby:

@tkb

I like the way you think, a brilliant mind will always be brilliant . Have a friend who went to a no name biz school and ended up with a Million dollar a year job ( Base + commision) with BOA . Depends on how you sell yourself

I have nothing against spending 100K on an ivy league MBA , if you can afford or are willing to take the loans to do it fine.

exactly!.  .   .   .
i know ill get to a stage in my life where i wont have a choice other than to attend executive MBA classes, when that times comes, ill grab it.
There are a lot of management stuffs i can learn, a lot of networking i can get from the various SMP programmes by these schools and all sorts

even CFA organises so much in a year that i wont be able to attend all due to costs of these programs.

i cant go to Tanaka and sit down for 12-24 months cos i wanna simulate biz scenarios
abeggi, i can do all that without sitting down in front of a professor

Ajanlekoko is right tho, our different aspirations in life will definitely shape what we do with our time and money

ill stick with CFA and experiential learning to get there

waow,
one of the most educative, intellectual and interesting threads on nairaland so far.
good change from the usual "can i marry a 16year old",

@topic
IMO,
as much as MBAs might be over-hyped, you cannot write off an MBA holder from an IVY league while remembering it all boils down to the individual.

candylips,
you need to listen to pitbaby's advice, she got it right. MBA's are very very very challenging. Even the school that i am in, my friend who just got his MBA there said he struggled heavily because it was very challenging. I know of someone who got laid of and he told me that no matter what i do i should try and get a management degree because when they start firing the accountants or the other specialists. If you are not versatile or you don't have anything extra then there might be no reason to keep you.

sagamite and candylips
Concerning what i said about free tuition, i meant for undergrad and not for grad school. Also COST IS NOT ALWAYS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO QUALITY. Because a school is expensive does not mean its a great school if it were so Bucknell university would be one of the best universities in the country. Georgia institute of technology (Georgia tech) is a very cheap school yet one of the best, infact, they have the number 3 engineering program in the country. University of Michigan is another cheap quality school. In the field of business, university of Virginia is also in the top 10 (in some cases top 5) but it is also a cheap business school.

You are right when you are talking about the Adesoye's kids ending up being fake American wannabe gangsters, i know some of them here sef. By the way, not a lot of this guys are impressive at all and its because our educational institutions in naija are just CRAMMING INSTITUTIONS. Our students spend time craming definitions, advantages and disadvantages, merits and demerits, "factors millitating against" e.t.c.
Instead of having science competitions that bring out the creativity in our kids, they spend time craming and craming and craming. I remember spending 95% of my time in class when i was taking physical education craming on how to shoot a basketball . Even in our exams, they might even ask yout to define physics. Here, they don't have time for that, they give you problems to solve and the problems are designed in such a way that if you don't understand the concepts you can't answer the question. That means instead of wasting time writing 10 foolscap sheets of answers, you are actually solving real world problems.

By the way, Richard Fuld never went to an ivy league school. Besides he was also not a crook, all  he did was over-leverage his firm to a ratio of 33:1 (that's another topic for another day sha) and made dangerous investments (over-gambling). Waren Buffet also attended two ivy league schools: the university of pennsylvania (one semester) and he got  his MSc. at Columbia University.

LaNiger,
You are incredibly on point. A GREAT MBA IS WORTH EVERY PENNY.

tolu10,
If Obama and several other world leaders or power players in there industry never "broke the bank", they would not be where they are today. If you want something in life, then go for it. Leverage (debt) is not bad as long as you can pay for it, infact, credit is what makes businesses grow. I am not saying that you should bad investments like going to borrow 100,000K to go and study history or russian philosophy (unless you can afford to pay it back), i am saying make a good investment where you know that you can get good returns. A lot of students who go to medical school or law school here "broke" the bank but they are reaping the fruits of there labors. You have to  plan in life to get what you want. You don't just jump in to an MBA because everybody is doing it but you have to know what you want to get it for, then when you calculate the cost benefit ratio, and you decide that it is worth it then you should be willing to do what it takes to get it, even if it means breaking the bank.

and I'd love to rub minds with the best of them, Silicon Valley types, and make valuable contacts.

ajanlekeko
In that case, then you might want to go to either Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, or California Institute of technology.

Pittbaby:

Maybe a 100K MBA is not for you then. From what I have seen so far you get a MBA for one of two reasons

1) You need a change in career or you want to take a big step forward in your current career ( requires changing jobs , companies)

2) You are not interested in an immediate career change only want to take advantage of the management skills a MBA will provide; and you feel it will be good to have as you grow your career, you probably already have significant experience (years) in your chosen field

If you fall into the latter group you should not be spending a lot of money getting a MBA, a good accredited business school should be your only requirement

Good points. In concurment with mine earlier.

tkb417:

yeah ure spot on!!
will finish my CFA soon and ive got 4 years experience in Investment banking/Corporate finance
dont wanna change ma career nor will like to take any course in MGT to the extent of me dashin them 100k

ill do distace learning or buy mgt books if the need arises

Omo, we dey mentally connect o!!!

canuck:

Very interesting discussants:
Sagamite & Co are anti-Ivy League MBA due to costs, etc. While dayokanu & co are bleeding MBA.

While I believe some MBAs are over-priced (up Sagamite!), with an effective personal plan behind it, a top MBA will pay off (way to go dayokanu!). Remember, no good education is ever lost; at some point, it will serve as a differentiator.

But $100K MBA is no longer a meal ticket; you need a total package of prestine experience, street smarts, drive, etc, to reap exceptional rewards.

Standing ovation!!! Insight of those that are out there for real in the professional world seeing the trends.

AjanleKoko:

Very interesting debate, I'd say.
Up till recently, I'd have taken Sagamite's (and other similar) position, as per I can't imaging plunking down $100k for an Ivy league education. But then, as I realise nowadays, I live and work in Nigeria. So my scope is a bit limited, depending on how you see it. Even though I work in a industry that's doing its best to be abreast with the wider world, despite the challenges of the environment, and renumeration is similar, and in some cases exceed, some developed markets.

Recently vacationing in the States, the topic came up while having dinner with friends, and the major objective we all looked at was the networking opportunity. I'm a businessman part-time, and I work as a new business development person anyway, and the issue is, networking is invaluable. Nothing works more than pushing the right buttons. So an Ivy league MBA is definitely something I will look at in the not too far future, though maybe not for the same reasons as many of my friends here. My future interests revolve around entrepreneurship, and I'd love to rub minds with the best of them, Silicon Valley types, and make valuable contacts.

Someone here made a point about Nigerians being narrow-minded in their worldview (well, he said it not in too many words, maybe not exactly the way I put it!), and I 100% agree. I am personally concerned that as a people, we bicker and fight each other and run each other down, while Asians who are not particularly smarter synergize effectively and take advantage of opportunities available to them. I once wrote a post here about the international job pool, and how we Nigerians, despite our population, are not taking advantage.

Good points.

Noted!

What abt us engineers wey just get common MSc in Engineering? so y'all are saying nothing for us in the corporate world?
on the flipside, give me the 100K and i promise you that money will be doubled within a year's time span.

no nigerian school among

@ jaybee , there are a lof of oppurtunities in the corporate world for Engineers . Especially with technology firms you will find that they are more willing to place Engineers in management positions than the average joe with a business school degree. The reason is your ability to understand the products they have to offer .

My company for instance has a leadership program that is targeted at engineers who are looking to move onto management positions. You start the program out with a 6 figure salary, work in two different positions with two different business groups and then get placed in a permanent position as a business leader ( depending on your performance during the program).

To be frank you hardly see any leaders in my firm who do not have an engineering degree or have not worked with any technonolgy firms in the past . For the most part the ones that have Ivy league degrees it is just icing on the cake for them.

jay bee:

What abt us engineers wey just get common MSc in Engineering? so y'all are saying nothing for us in the corporate world?
on the flipside, give me the 100K and i promise you that money will be doubled within a year's time span.

Chairman, abi o.

@Ajanlekoko

For you, it might make sense as you are based in Naija. I meet and network with a high variety of people from top schools in the City in London every year so I doubt I really need to shell out $100K just for the networking. But I can see the point for a Naija professional that wants to connect externally.

Pittbaby:

If you can't afford an ivy league (or Top 50) and be guaranteed the 120K and up salary bracket you can pay less for a school that is a regional leader and still rest comfortably in the 90K to 110K bracket

Pittbaby,

I would have thought the salary bracket for regional leaders would have fallen in the 75K to 90K bracket?

davidif:

By the way, Richard Fuld never went to an ivy league school. Besides he was also not a crook, all he did was over-leverage his firm to a ratio of 33:1 (that's another topic for another day sha) and made dangerous investments (over-gambling).

D.ick Fuld is still one of the Masters of the Universe that some people want to be like.

And what did Dangote and Otedola do?

Sagamite:

D.ick Fuld is still one of the Masters of the Universe that some people want to be like.

And what did Dangote and Otedola do?

Isn't d.ick fuld in hiding (from the media) now? I watched the documentary on lehman's collapse yesterday on TV.

Very Interesting post. I just read the write-up (on page one) by Goldman, and I must admit I was really impressed. Given his insightful piece, I was particularly surprised to learn, at the end of his piece, that he hadn't already gained an MBA from one of those 'prestige' institutions.

The value of the right MBA can hardly be over-emphasized. I recently completed an executive programme on strategy and decision making at the London Business School as well as an executive MBA from the Imperial College London. Besides the direct academic and network benefits, these institutions can also confer an aura of authourity and CONFIDENCE that can easily set you apart. You leave knowing you've been thought by the very best brains and networked with the very best minds in the world.

As for contacts though, I don't think an MBA is altogether necessary. There are short executive courses that run in most of these institutions one can avail oneself off. You could easily meet as many as 200 top business leaders in the space of three weeks living / networking on the Harvard campus. This is a particularly usefull asset particularly for any future entrepreneural plans.

Sagamite:

@Ajanlekoko

For you, it might make sense as you are based in Naija. I meet and network with a high variety of people from top schools in the City in London every year so I doubt I really need to shell out $100K just for the networking. But I can see the point for a Naija professional that wants to connect externally.

Bro,
Not quite the same as the Silicon Valley area, no disrespect intended to London. I'm in the high tech business, and nowhere for me is like that place.
Silicon valley is unique in that the college community and the industry are intertwined. Even the dropouts are all Stanford, UC Berkely, and Caltech dropouts. Sun is basically a colony of ex-Stanford men.
Even if I was a professional living and working in London, I would still want to spend some time in that place. For me, home is naija, no matter what. But I am a fervent believer in the theory that exposure and interaction maketh a man, not only $70 or $7 books.

bigbois:

As for contacts though, I don't think an MBA is altogether necessary. There are short executive courses that run in most of these institutions one can avail oneself off. You could easily meet as many as 200 top business leaders in the space of three weeks living / networking on the Harvard campus. This is a particularly usefull asset particularly for any future entrepreneural plans.

May be true, but not all the time. For me, three weeks doing some sort of SMP or AMP would not quite cut it. Too short, too fast, too limited interaction opportunities.

No 9ja school they among the best 600 in the world

where does nigerian institution stand in the world

Sagamite,

Its Idealistic I must say. quality cost money. Even in the US you cant compare schools in the hood to those catholic private schools which charge a lot.

If you want quality you must pay, Most of the time mediocrity is cheap.

Just like in anything Gucci is expensive while the aba made "Reebox" is cheap

Buying C ronaldo is expensive while Opabunmi would be cheap.

Quality education is expensivebut its a sacrifice for the future.

That is what i have been trying to tell them. Even Barack Obama took out loans to go to Columbia and Harvard just like a lottttttttttttttts of American students at those schools decide to. If Obama had decided to play it safe and not risk it or if he had the same Naija mentality that a lot of folks here have, i guarantee you that homeboy would not be in office right now. Nigerians need to learn that an excellent education is a business investment.

I repeat Stiglitz and Krugman would never have your time. It is just a sales pitch for the biz school to get their hands on your $100K.

Sagamite
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF OFFICE HOURS?? In yanki, people actually take that seriously my guy. If you want to learn, why not learn from the best?

There is nothing like an excellent tertiary education. Going to an MIT instead of a Uni of florida is not going to improve your intellegence. Whatever you become in this life is 90% of your internal intelligence schools only provide an enabling enviroment for you to nature them.

Candylips
Did i just read that from you? Intelligence is something that you develop and the school you go to helps you develop that. You want to tell me that if you leave LASU and go to Caltech that you would not be smarter. I don't know about you my brother but i can definitely say that i definitely know a lot more than i did when i was in naija.
There is a famous quote that somebody made, i think it was Albert Einstein, he said that there is one thing that can be expanded beyond limit and that is the human brain (or something like that).
Oh, by the way, THERE ARE EXCELLENT TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS.

davidif:

Sagamite
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF OFFICE HOURS?? In yanki, people actually take that seriously my guy. If you want to learn, why not learn from the best?

I don't understand this, mate.

If you are referring to the 2 laurettes, I guess being in school doing research rather than teaching an MBA class still class as office hours?

Office hours simply means that the lecturer or proffessor has certain designated hours which he uses to focus on "one on ones" with his students. For example, if i have a problem with a problem in my class, i would go meet my proffessor.

davidif:

Office hours simply means that the lecturer or proffessor has certain designated hours which he uses to focus on "one on ones" with his students. For example, if i have a problem with a problem in my class, i would go meet my proffessor.

I sincerely doubt the likes of these professors would be included in the one-to-ones. I would expect there would be other junior professors that carry this out and the star professors only occassionally come out on selected days to just justify the $100K.

Most likely the people that have one-to-ones with the stars are the Phd students in their academic teams. Not some swanky MBA candidate that is not particular interested in his field.