商学院毕业生炮轰MBA学位不值钱

    丈夫升职调任马德里从事新的工作以前，阿根廷本地人玛丽安娜•萨内蒂一直在布宜诺斯艾利斯担任壳牌公司（Shell）的产品经理。一位从哈佛商学院毕业（Harvard Business School）的同事这时建议她，到了西班牙之后应该去商学院求学，攻读MBA学位。

    萨内蒂采纳了那位男同事的建议，在马德里一家名为企业学院（Instituto de Empresa）的商学院报名学习为期一年的MBA课程。她向家人借钱付了这个学位要负担的学费。2003年，萨内蒂从商学院毕业，然后花了整整一年时间才找到一份和自己三年前没有MBA学位时收入完全相同的工作，在一家类似美国建材家居零售商家得宝（Home Depot）的西班牙公司任产品经理。

    萨内蒂说，这些年来，她希望能写一本书，讲述自己的亲身经历。但由于害怕影响自己的职业生涯，比如可能在应聘建材业巨头圣戈班集团（Saint-Gobain）和医药供应商瑞思迈（ResMed）的产品经理期间被视为职业污点，萨内蒂并没有将这个愿望付诸行动。如今，她说既然自己已经离开了那个企业圈子，就可以道出MBA学位的真相。

    萨内蒂给这部自行出版的个人作品命名为《MBA泡沫：并非货真价实的投资》（ The MBA Bubble: It's just not worth the investment）。她解释说：“它是与这类学位有关的一种教育界泡沫。我认为这些学位对大家的职业道路没有多少影响。当然也有例外，MBA在管理咨询业和投资银行界一直是价值不菲的金字招牌。可在其他领域，这个学位只是锦上添花。它对人没害处。但我为写这本书采访的所有市场专家都说，今天需要的是专业的知识与技术，而MBA是培训通才的。”

    萨内蒂如今住在法国，已届不惑之年。她坦言，巴黎的生活和毫无价值的学位截然不同，“我和一些非凡的人见面，还见了一些有头脑的教授。我在这儿学到了一些别有深意的商业概念，它们让我对商业有了全球的视角。不值得为学位投入那些时光，付出那些金钱。MBA毕业的人可以拿到高薪，但他们的薪水和这个学位无关。有公司能聘请我，那是因为我以前有在壳牌的工作经历。”

    萨内蒂甚至建议人们申请顶级学府，争取高等学府录取，然后再主动拒绝入学。如此一来，这份求学经历便会成为个人简历的一段真实记录。萨内蒂认为，这其中的价值几乎与学习两年的MBA课程不相上下。她在书中写道：“就像是获得了奥斯卡金像奖提名却没拿到奖项一样。得到入学认可后去上学和没上学的区别在于，前者是将我们的未来做了抵押，同时还要承担背负巨额学生贷款的风险。”萨内蒂建议，如果有雇主问起为什么没去读美国西北大学凯洛格商学院（Kellogg）或者耶鲁大学的MBA，只需要回答：“我更愿意利用念MBA的时间和资金开发有战略意义的技术，它们会有利于今后雇用我的公司占据竞争优势……”

    当然，萨内蒂对MBA的这种怨言并不少见。它们与一些越来越抵制高等教育的反对人士不谋而合，那些反对派谴责高等学府一方面不断提高教育成本，一方面缺少对学生未来就业的任何保障。而萨内蒂对MBA的抨击与他们有所不同。差别在于，她拥有一家欧洲名牌商学院的学位，却又决定写一本232页的书，设法利用这本书说服他人放弃过去60-70年来教育业经营最成功的学位——MBA。

    她认为，如果不是出于表露反对立场会危及职业发展这个现实，其他商学院的毕业生也会坦率地表达与自己相同的结论。“很少有人批评MBA课程，因为说什么对自身学历品牌不利的话没有任何意义，”萨内蒂说。“这本书不会让我交到多少朋友，可也不会给我树敌。”

    Mariana Zanetti had been working as a product manager for Shell (RDSA) in Buenos Aires when her husband got a promotion to a new job in Madrid. One of her colleagues, a Harvard Business School graduate, suggested that the Argentina native go to business school for her MBA while in Spain.

    She took his advice, enrolling in the one-year MBA program at Instituto de Empresa (IE) Business School In Madrid. Zanetti borrowed money from her family to pay for the degree. And when she graduated in 2003, it took her a full year to land a job as a product manager at a Spanish version of Home Depot, at exactly the same salary she was earning three years earlier, without the MBA.

    For years, Zanetti says, she wanted to write a book on her experience but didn't out of fear that it would hurt her career, which included stints as a product manager for Saint-Gobain and ResMed, a medical supplier. Now that she has left the corporate world, Zanetti says, she can tell the truth about the MBA degree.

    Her take, in a self-published book called The MBA Bubble: It's just not worth the investment. "There is an education bubble around these kind of degrees," she says. "I don't think they have much impact on people's careers. There are exceptions, of course, in management consulting and investment banking, where the MBA is always valued. But for the rest, it's a nice-to-have degree. It's not that it is harmful to you, but every market expert I interviewed for the book says that what is needed today is specialized knowledge and skills, and an MBA is generalist training."

    Zanetti, now 40 and living in France, says it's not like the degree had no value. "I met wonderful people. I met brilliant professors. I learned some interesting business concepts that gave me a global vision about business. It just wasn't worth the cost in time and money. MBAs get high salaries, but the degree has nothing to do with it. I was hired because of my previous work experience at Shell."

    She is even advising people to apply to a top school, get an acceptance, and then decline to go. Put the fact on your resume and Zanetti thinks it will have nearly the same value as going to an MBA program for two years. "It's like being an Academy Award nominee instead of an Academy Award winner," she writes. "But the difference between the two is mortgaging our future and accepting the risk of getting stuck with a monumental student loan." When an employer asks why you didn't go to Kellogg or Yale for your MBA, she advises, just tell them, "I preferred to use that time and money to develop strategic skills to benefit my employers' competitive advantage…."

    Of course, Zanetti's complaint about the MBA is hardly new. It falls neatly into the growing genre of anti-higher education tirades that decry the rising cost of education and the lack of any guarantees. But what makes her MBA bashing somewhat different is that she has a degree from a prominent European business school and has decided to write a 232-page book trying to convince others to pass on the MBA, the most successful degree in the education industry in the last 60 to 70 years.

    She believes that other business graduates would fess up to the same conclusion, if not for the fact that their views would endanger their careers. "There are few people criticizing MBA programs because it makes no sense to say anything bad against their brands," Zanetti says. "I will not make a lot of friends with this book, but I won't make enemies, either."