Part Time MBA vs Second Tier MBA vs MOOC MBA

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sharktale1212

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I was having an interesting discussion with some colleagues and friends around MBA.

Some of my colleagues have applied for MBA from a 2nd/3rd Tier colleges and have received degrees easily. Reason being, those colleges don't really have a strict attendance policy and allow most people to sit in the examination. Most people even pass it easily because the college wants an output.

Then there are couple of people who are took part time MBA from first tier colleges - IIMK, IIMC, etc. They spend time travelling to the colleges once two weeks or something. There are exams and a stricter policy on attendance than above and in turn maybe a better value of MBA than above too? (in terms of recognition)

Third part was the current wave of MOOC or Massive online open course. Sites like coursera, udemy, standford etc offering elective courses (not a complete MBA courses at once) which can be put together to create MBA course. One of the inspirations for this has been: http://www.nopaymba.com/ . The lady will complete the hypothetical degree in 3 yrs at a much lesser cost. Though considering these are self paced courses, people can pick and choose their loads to complete it earlier. Now obviously there are no "degrees" in this per se and all you get is an SoA (Statement of Accomplishment). While I know some people who have actually benefited from coursera but only in the US. Theoretically speaking, in my opinion this might be better than the first option; if it comes to hiring.

Whats your views guys?
 
A lot of it depends on the industry & the level of experience.
MBA from outside top 5 or 7 in India are considered equals on levels once they graduate.
MBA from top 5 or 7 are again filtered based on what they bring to the table. I have seen lot of people from IIMs who just couldnt handle work at top MNC's & quit or fired. They are doing fine in SMEs.

Part time MBA is great for people working in middle level who want to move to upper levels. 10 years back you would have 3 year part time MBA which was good. Now this 1 year courses are just not enough to cut it.

MOOCs or Online courses are ok for theoretical knowledge. Coursera and other providers do offer good introductory courses but thats what they are, introductory & basics from good institutions. Its nowhere near to their full time or online courses.
An online course from Harvard in Marketing cost around 1700$ and full time online MBA costs 20 to 70K US $.
These online paid short term courses are worth it than coursera. If you can self sponsor or get your employer to partly sponsor it, that is a great option.

But nothing compares real world word experience. Top CEO's & business owners have never done an MBA but they hire good MBA's to their work so there you go :)
 
it is really all about branding. in the real world i've never seen anyone who has gotten ahead solely thanks to the course content but saying that you are from an iim does open up a whole more job opportunities/salary bracket.
 
^ Thanks some great points there. Some of my opinions, I don't have much idea on MBA so just wondering really.

I agree on the dependency on industry and experience level. But are you sure MBA from outside top 10 = top 7 in India? The reason I ask this is most MBAs in India (except ISB) have a fresher intake which is too high. So I think people with zero experience (ie Indian MBA) about how a company runs will have "theoretical" knowledge at best too. Still just to clarify again, we are not talking about the big leagues here, rather 2nd tier college, think a local college or IIPM vs part time vs MOOC.

On the part time thing, I have seen many middle managers take it up. But is it really that valuable? I am just wondering cause I know some people who have completed courses from IIM-K (yeah not the best IIM but still a core IIM before the current glut) and they are no where really. Again there might be a huge difference in what others have experienced around them. I haven't seen anyone benefitting, hence curious.

Now if you see our current education system, it works on "one size fits all". There are lot of questions on quora(yep, not a good source of information but still) which say even many IIMs focus on rote education. So again the major difference would be an intern ship or the brand name value. If we were to discount that, what does other two options really offer in exchange? That said, it does have a huge roadblock of how do you present it to your employers?

@chiron - That is why I said 2nd tier colleges. IIM is a big brand name to even compare. Think some local MBA college. What do they offer in terms of names, compared to someone who can talk intelligently on a marketing strategy?
 
@sharktale12
By Tier-2 colleges here i dont know what exactly you are referring to here but i will tell you what the classifications are actually as per my understanding
i) Top 10 Colleges are the Ivy League institutes in India - Average/Median Salary >15-16 Lakhs PA, Get really a big headstart in the management roles , get into coveted positions of taking strategic decisions, senior consultants etc. To get into these colleges you need to have really good academics/ or a very strong unique CV and importantly a very high XAT/CAT score etc
ii) 10-20/25 ranked are the Tier 1 Colleges - Average/Medain Salary > 10-12 lakhs. Very few students get senior positions or coveted profiles like front end-IB in Finance, Area Sales Manager in Marketing area etc , most of the students end up with IT jobs as a Senior Business Analyst , Pre-Sales Consultant etc or get jobs as Back-end investment banking, Sales profile in some of the reputed industry etc
iii) 25-50 ranked are the Tier 2 Colleges :- Average/Median Salary > 8-9 lakhs, Hardly any student ends up getting strategy related positions unless really exception CV. Roles offered are similar to the colleges ranked 10-25 however you start at a lower position say as Senior Management Trainee. Unlike Tier 1 Colleges very few roles are offered in Back-end IB, consultancy and sales profile (roughly 10-15% of the batch compared to around 30-35% of batch in Tier 1 colleges)
iii) 50-80 are Tier-3 colleges - Average Salary - 4-6 Lakhs . Not much idea of the roles offered here , most of them end up getting relationship manager type roles in marketing, internal roles in IT industries etc
Rest all colleges are namesake colleges just providing you degrees
 
Addressing your 2nd part , if your work-ex is less than 4 years I would suggest you to go for a 1 year degree from colleges like Great Lakes Chennai etc where if you major in the same stream as your work experience area you get decent packages. If you have less than 3 years of work -ex you can consider Tier-2 Colleges but dont keep really high expectations, in most of the cases you can bag-in a salary of around 8-9 LPA in Tier 2 colleges with around 2+ year of workex.
From whatever i have read and observed i would rate Tier 2 colleges degree > Weekend Executive courses from IIM's(useful if you want to grow in a company but degree is the reason you are not able to make it into the top management) > Self Learning Online courses.

However at the end of the day as you said , the biggest businessman are the ones who have sharp mind and ability to adapt , these degrees are merely facilitators so go by your own assessment whether at this point of your career will going for an MBA give you the needed boost or is it just to get a PG degree
 
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