The ROI of an MBA for an OD

Seven months ago, on Friday, May 8, I walked across the stage wearing a graduation gown and hood to receive my fourth and final (for now) degree. It was nearly six years to the day after my graduation from OD school in 2009.

When I started the MBA program just one year after my residency in 2011, it was almost by accident. I had always wondered about the MBA program, having an interest in business and the prospect of someday owning my own practice. I felt very intimidated by the business world: by negotiation, the loan process, accounting, and finance in general. I sent an email to the admissions department, and it seemed before I could blink, I was enrolled for that fall’s courses.

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In the course of getting an MBA, the concept of return on investment (ROI) is discussed in just about every single class. ROI quite simply calculates the benefit, i.e., the “return” of investing in an opportunity. Calculating an ROI is typically done with cold hard numbers, and to be honest, if you crunch the numbers in my case, the ROI is negative. The money I put into the program has not and will not lead to a raise. My earning power is the same today as it was on May 7. Many of my classmates in other industries were looking forward to promotions and raises. That won’t happen in my field, of course.

If your world is black and white, there’s your answer: don’t get an MBA. But for me, the qualitative benefit has been appreciable. Sometimes numbers cannot tell the whole story.

 

The investment

Enrolling in an MBA program will require an investment of both time and money. Of course, there’s the tuition paid every semester as well as the money spent on books and supplies. I’ve never been one to not buy the books for a class, even if they are just suggested reading. The tuition will of course vary depending on the program chosen, but let’s just say it’s not an insignificant amount at the beginning of every semester.

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Time is potentially the larger investment. At the beginning of my program I was taking classes one at a time, which was only one night weekly. Although this was easier in terms of getting assignments done, after four semesters and two years of one class at a time, I changed to two classes per semester. The two classes made things much more difficult. I worked full time, went to class two nights a week, and tried to get all homework done on the weekends. It was extremely difficult to meet with my groups, and there are a lot of group projects in graduate school. 

Lost earnings are another consideration. I maintained full-time work while completing my MBA, but if a person were to suspend working while pursuing her degree, it would get much more costly.

Overall, my investment into the program was a significant amount-not only in cash but time. There were many weekends I wished I were doing something more fun than accounting homework.

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