MBA in Europe‘œAll the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.’ ‘“ Martin H. Fischer

I’ve often wondered who has the time and money to get their MBA. I’m not alone in pondering the ROI when it comes to business school as noted by John in his post. The verdict is still out on its value especially if the degree isn’t from a top tier school like Wharton but merely an MBA.

However, that’s an opinion dished out wearing my US-centric thinking cap. Although the first European university offering the MBA degree popped up in the late 1950s, the Financial Times recently explained the benefits and newfound popularity of heading abroad:

European business schools are riding high as students are queuing up for courses. Furthermore, even better times may be on the way. Business schools tend to do well in rocky economic times, and the subprime housing loans debacle in the US may result in an increase in applications because executives often opt to acquire an MBA instead of working through a recession.

That’s a thought process that sounds familiar based on this post from BlogHer’s Jory Des Jardins:

Waaaaaaay back in the deep recesses of the Dot Com Bust, but before the company I had worked for had gone under, I was in a panic. I couldn’t accept the cliff that I was approaching, much less the inevitable freefall that was to follow. I bought a pile of GMAT study guides and pored over them during my lunch hours. I hated math, but I figured that re-learning algebra was preferable to being unemployed without fallback. A business degree would be like a suit of armor that would protect me from the recessions that affected the less-marketable folk.

Fast forward several paragraphs and you’ll learn why she didn’t move forward with business school:

I wasn’t sure what I should do and ended up taking several months to figure things out, but I knew that I needed to find more direct means of reaching my goals. And this required a new bravery, of learning to off-road. I wanted to go to business school because it was like a highway leading me in the direction I wanted, but until I was courageous enough to take the smaller routes–or even forge my own–I would never get to exactly where I wanted to go.

Penelope Trunk at Brazen Careerist agrees and offers reasons why you shouldn’t go to grad school:

Most people don’t need to go to graduate school. Sure, you need an MBA to run a Fortune 500 company, and you need to go to medical school to be a doctor, but in most cases, a graduate degree doesn’t provide a ticket to play – because anyone can play – but rather, the degree provides a security blanket. And at some point, you need to admit that walking around with a security blanket makes you look bad. You can do adult life without one.

She continues on with additional reasons in this follow up post:

For decades, the MBA was a ticket to prestige and riches. But things aren’t so clear anymore. For one thing, the MBA is often the entrance fee to climb the corporate ladder, but there are few corporate ladders to climb anymore ‘” and people are increasingly experimenting with ways to speed up that climb anyway. One way is to skip the MBA altogether.

I agree with her analysis, but is there something to be gained instead by skipping America and heading to Europe? According to the Financial Times article, the IE Business School in Madrid (a European Top 10 Business School) had 21 US participants in their international MBA program this year. What’s drawing students to Madrid? Well, besides being able to get your MBA in one year, there is international diversity on offer.

It’s not just business schools either. Aundi offered up why it was personally important to look outside the US for grad school:

To be honest, a large percentage of my grad school selection process had to do with what kind of traveling was easily accessible on weekends. Nina asked me some time ago to consider writing a post about whether or not grad school is actually worth it. With an attitude like the one I just mentioned, many would say it is not, that perhaps it is even foolish. But, for my postgraduate education, I was looking for something that I kept characterizing as ‘œexponential.’

I wanted to go to a school with a good creative writing program, which American institutions will argue exists exclusively in America, but I was also looking for a submersion of exposure to attitudes that were not exclusively American. Traces of such, no doubt, can be found worldwide, but I wanted more than a ‘œdiverse community.’ I wanted to live abroad and far, far away from that which is the regionally introspective American frame of mind.

We live in a global world and there’s more to life and learning beyond the good ole USA as The Guardian reports:

[A] key practical difference is that MBAs in Europe tend to be one-year courses – whereas American MBAs tend to take two years. Caroline Diarte Edwards, director of admissions, marketing and external relations at Insead – which has campuses in France and Singapore – says a one-year course offers advantages to students wanting to get back to work quickly.

‘œThere’s a huge benefit to doing an MBA in one year versus two years,’ she says. ‘œIf you think about the return on investment, you’re paying less fees, you’re paying less in living expenses, and you’re losing less in terms of the salary that you forgo during the time that you’re studying.’

If you’re considering your MBA, think twice about our place in the world and perhaps an approach is to pursue it in a place with a global outlook and benefits.