商学院毕业生炮轰MBA学位不值钱

    问起是否觉得自己对学位的看法同样适用于哈佛、斯坦福（Stanford）和其他顶级商学院的MBA，萨内蒂回答说，毫无疑问是一样的。她坚称：“哈佛或者其他任何一家学院，因为哈佛的学费比一般的还高三倍。得到这座学府的光环需要付出的代价大得多。假如你和一些没有学位的人竞争，学位会成为你打破僵局的决定性筹码。可要是有些人虽然没有MBA学位，却具备雇主需要的某些稀缺技能，他们就会战胜你，赢得工作机会。”

    萨内蒂透露自己以前就对MBA学位怀有这些猜疑和担忧。从商学院毕业后，她有一年时间失业赋闲，那期间她的疑虑更重了。可她把基本上都这类心思都深埋于心，直到离开商界一年出头之后才吐露了心声。“我一直希望经营自己的事业，拿起教鞭，”萨内蒂接着透露。“我以前并没打算写这本书。”

    后来，她用法语发表了一篇文章，表达自己对MBA的看法。这篇评论文章似乎得到了很多人的共鸣，所以萨内蒂后来又写了“MBA泡沫”这本书。本周，这部作品的英文版已经问世，法语版将在明年出版。她建了一个网站为这本书做宣传，但并没有公开披露自己获得企业学院MBA学位的教育背景。“我读的学校不是秘密。”萨内蒂对此解释，她已经在个人LinkedIn简历页面列出了自己的学历证书。

    萨内蒂主要有哪些反对MBA学位的看法？她认为，在一些圆滑的营销活动推助下，商学院过分自卖自夸。大多数人修习MBA时并没有真正认识到这种学位的局限性：教育成本太高，产生的价值又太少。这些得到MBA学位的毕业生常常因此负债累累，这类沉重的债务包袱又限制了他们追求心中真正理想的能力。到头来，他们不得不为了偿还学生贷款从事自己并不喜欢的工作。甚至一位MBA毕业生获得学位后拥有的人脉网络也掺了水分，夸大了价值。

    有数据显示，得到MBA学位后平均收入会比得到学位以前增加46-120%。而且这是指所有商学院毕业生的平均薪资水平，并不是取样于那些名牌学府的精英。面对这样的数据，就算萨内蒂还没有彻头彻尾地怀疑，起码也是无动于衷。而一些显示毕业生普遍满意MBA学位的调查确实引起萨内蒂怀疑。最近一项调查采访了4135位MBA校友，其中2011年毕业的受访者就有963人。调查结果发现，每四位已经找到工作的2011年毕业生之中就有三人表示，如果没有接受这种管理学位的教育，就不可能找到工作。

    “大家依然如故，趋之若鹜，”萨内蒂感叹。“他们想当然地觉得这就是项不错的投资。商学院在玩数字游戏……在法国，一家商学院会聘请公司在互联网论坛上发表正面评论。这些学院顶着自己所在大学的光环，谈到人才市场的时候简直好像自己是解决就业问题不可或缺的功臣，可事实并非如此。他们还在兜售那些一文不值的东西，因为那么做可以让他们财源滚滚。”

    萨内蒂对自己在企业学院的求学经历并不满意。“商学院没有把学生视为客户，”她说。“申请入学的人不该忘记自己的身份就是客户，学MBA就是在买东西。我们甚至还受到了侮辱。有一天，我们来到一间会议室，那里有位专职的职业规划管理主管对大家说：‘滚出去，你们这帮渣滓。’他这席话可真够逗的，我当即回敬他：‘干嘛开这种玩笑？你拿的薪水可是我给的。’”

    她说，企业学院的职业管理主管还告诉学生，很难改变各行各业对MBA学位的看法的。“可他们用这作为一种营销宣传，”萨内蒂指出。“其实根本不是这样。你确实不得不为了转变业内看法而奋斗，我也改变了业内的成见，不过是利用同样的工作职能做到的。”

    萨内蒂估计，自己那一年商学院学习MBA期间掌握的知识最多只用上了20-30%。至于人际关系网，萨内蒂耸耸肩不置可否：“你花时间和一些精英打交道，可你在很多地方都能花时间结交一些了不起的人。这没什么特别的。有时间还读MBA的贷款，还不如用来打造自己的品牌呢，而且需要花的时间更少。”（财富中文网）

    译者：若离

    Asked if she thinks her opinion would apply to MBAs from Harvard, Stanford and other elite business schools, Zanetti says she has no doubt. "The same would apply to Harvard or whatever school because Harvard is three times more expensive," she insists. "The benefits would have cost much more. It breaks a tie if you're competing with someone who doesn't have the degree, but people who have scarce skills an employer needs will get the job over you."

    Zanetti says she harbored these doubts and concerns about the degree, especially after being unemployed for a year after graduation. But she largely kept them to herself until leaving the corporate world a little more than a year ago. "I always wanted to have my own business and to teach," she adds. "I didn't intend to write this book."

    Then, she published an article in France about her ideas. The opinion piece seemed to resonate with a lot of people, so she wrote The MBA Bubble, which will be published in France next year and was self-published in English this week. She has built a website to promote the book, but she does not openly identify herself as an IE MBA. "My school is not a secret," says Zanetti, who lists her diploma on her LinkedIn profile.

    Her primary arguments against the degree? It is oversold by business schools with slick marketing campaigns. Most people enter MBA programs without really understanding the limits of the degree. The education costs too much and delivers too little value. And graduates are often saddled with so much debt that it limits their ability to follow their true passions. They take jobs they don't want simply to pay off their student loans. Even the value of the network a graduate acquires with the degree is exaggerated.

    She's unimpressed, if downright skeptical, of data that shows MBAs get average increases ovetheir pre-MBA base salaries of between 120% to 46%. And those averages are for all business schools, not just the prestige brand-name places. Zanetti is also skeptical of surveys that show widespread satisfaction with the degree. One recent survey, based on the opinions of 4,135 MBA alumni, including 963 members of the class of 2011, found that three out of four alumni of the class of 2011 with jobs reported that they could not have obtained their job without their graduate management education.

    "Everybody is doing it and everybody still goes," Zanetti sighs. "They take for granted that it is a good investment. Business schools manipulate the statistics.... In France, one school hired a company to make fake [positive] comments in Internet forums. These schools have this university halo around them and talk about the labor market as if they are impartial, but they are not. They continue selling things that do not have value because it has profit."

    Zanetti says her experience at IE was not satisfying. "Business schools don't treat you as a customer," she says. "Applicants should not forget that they are customers and are buying something. We were even insulted. One day we were in a meeting room and the professional career director said to us, 'Get out of here you scum.' It was funny to him. I told him, 'What's so funny? I am paying your salary.'"

    She says that IE's director of career management also told students it was really hard to change industries with an MBA. "Yet they use it as a marketing claim," she points out. But it is really not true. You really have to fight to change industries. I did change industry but in the same job function."

    Zanetti estimates that she uses no more than 20% to 30% of what she learned in her one-year MBA program. As for networking, she shrugs. "You spend time with great people, but you can spend time with great people in many places. It is not unique. You can build your own brand in less time than it would take to pay back your loans."