Free MBA

You need a business education but can't afford an MBA?  Here are some low-cost and time-saving alternatives.

Home work

Obtaining a Masters in Business Administration is expensive and time consuming.  Recent figures from a poll of top business schools put the cost at over $150,000 and two years of very hard work that preclude gainful employment.  Do you really need to invest all that time and money?  In order to get into senior management, it appears as if those seated in the executive offices are all alumni of the top MBA programs.  So unless you get into the top 10, your MBA may not be worth the effort.

An alternative is The Personal MBA Manifesto.  Supported by Amazon, it's gaining popularity.  According to Josh Kaufman, the author of The Personal MBA Manifesto, all you really need to do is order his now 99 top business books from Amazon.com and read them.  In doing that you will get the same information that you you would have obtained from attending the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania at an estimated cost of $150,000.  In addition to reading, you would keep gaining relevant work experience and continue earning money.  Also, you could reduce costs even more by obtaining the reading list from your local library. 

Those with a vested interest in keeping up MBA enrollment insist that it is not that simple.

THE APPEAL
If you ask some entrepreneurs about their education, they may respond that they were too busy creating their company to worry about school.  If you think about it as two paths you can take; one is to obtain an education from all the right schools and develop a network that leads to high-paying jobs and a career of advancement to the boardroom.  The other is to be a high risk taking entrepreneur and beat all others to the market with a great idea.  Bill Gates of Microsoft is the prime example of the latter group. 

THE REALITY
The reality is that much of the knowledge gained at top business schools can be read in these books.  But to move up in a political corporate organization takes a top school degree entry card and an active network of likewise connected allies.  The real value of the top business school is the branded sheepskin diploma and the "friends" you make there as well as any other contacts you can generate.

The entrepreneur who creates a company and does not pursue education as a career path, may end up selling his company to an MBA working for a larger aquisitive company.  The education the entrepreneur needs is accounting and marketing because they are the essence of business.  But most important is the hands on experience, the best way to learn management is to manage and then examine and learn from the experience.

Both groups need to do the required reading, this blog reviews and suggests books to help make that happen. 

FROM PERSONAL MBA:  "Unless you want to be a consultant or an I-banker (where a top MBA is nothing but a screen for admission)," he (Seth Godin) wrote, "it's hard for me to understand why this is a better use of time and money than actual experience combined with a dedicated reading of 30 or 40 books."