[elements]

I would agree with this completely. I was in an MBA program from the ages of 23-25. A year later, the company I was working for started to run out of money. I had a lot of time on my hands throughout the day, so I started going through programming tutorials thinking it might be good mental exercise.

I started really getting into it, and now I've spent a ton of time over the intervening year learning and practicing. I think back and wonder where I might be now if I had started at 23 instead of going back to school.

It's not that what I learned wasn't worthwhile; it's that it took an amount of time and money disproportionate to its value.

On top of that, while I only (ha) paid about $58k for mine, having that amount of debt really hinders one's flexibility.

[biggerboy]

At 23, how much work experience did you have? Going into an MBA without adequate work (and life) experience is indeed a waste.

[elements]

That might be true for certain classes or certain programs, but it didn't matter a bit for 90% of what I did.

Life experience doesn't help you project free cash flow, consider the complexities of pricing strategy, understand accounting rules, or really, do anything else we did over the course of those two years.

Maybe it helps with management classes, but the only management class I took was a complete throwaway.

Edit- Got hung up on the life experience bit and didn't address work experience, but in many cases, much of the same applies. There was nothing conceptually difficult about any of the classes I took. At times, my work experience was relevant, but the only benefit was needing less time than some of my classmates to internalize some of the ideas.

Now, I realize that I can't just jump in to a position where someone with 10 years of experience in X + an MBA would be, but that was never my expectation. My expectation was to get good foundational knowledge in a variety of areas. And I got that, just not to the extent I expected. I was just disappointed in how easy a lot of it was.

[biggerboy]

What's important about the experience is being able to put the information you're receiving in context and understanding how great the opportunity is to build long-lasting relationships with a group of people that will have a high percentage of successful members.

Getting an MBA is not just about the mechanical absorption of how to do a free cash flow or doing a paper on organizational behavior.

Frankly, more insight and knowledge was gained from classmates than from the textbooks and case studies we had.