This article seemed a little strange to me: it seems almost obvious that getting an MBA is a bad idea for many areas of finance. I interned on a trading desk at a major investment bank last summer and will be starting a full time job there in a week. Very few of the younger people there had MBAs, and hardly anyone was planning to get one. The people who had MBAs seemed to be people who hadn't started off in trading but came from another career (e.g. computer programming). The MBA gave them an "in" at the bank, when they otherwise wouldn't have been considered.

It seemed like MBAs were more common in traditional investment banking and corporate finance. The people I knew in IB seemed to think of an MBA as a symbolic, but useful credential. That opinion may be changing though.

Finally, the article was spot on about people who are getting MBAs two years in. If you did well in your first two years at a bank, you're looking at 200k-300k in total compensation. Why would you give that up to get a degree that won't significantly increase your future earnings potential?

business school is good for: 1) building a network 2) changing careers 3) getting a brand on your resume.

Yeah, and it's a little surprising that the Harvard Business professor in the article basically acknowledged that.

indeed. and there will be a massive influx of banker, private equity, and hedge fund b-school applications this year. i'm guessing the majority of that article was penned +2 months ago.

I was considering posting something making fun of MBAs, but then I realized that would have made me feel guilty. Which almost says something in itself.

According to Jim Cramer (Mad Money guy), he has little interest in degrees - a track record or successful investing is the main thing. This viewpoint works well for software too.

cramer wants more people churning the stocks he talks about.

..."Some, of course, plan to stay in finance their entire careers, and they, too, are very focused on earning fat bonuses fast."

duh.

I'm not sure on the policy, but linking to articles that require registration seems like a bad idea.

Just use the NYT link generator http://nytimes.blogspace.com/ to get a url that doesn't require it.

NYT is free now.

Indeed it is, but it still requires registration AFAIK

I'm not doubting you, but how come I can see the full article? I have no subscription or account at all, yet the full thing shows up for me.

Because I fixed the url using this: http://nytimes.blogspace.com

Same here.

It does. I had to get a login from bugmenot.