The Value of an MBA?

I know that many in the US won’t cry for me when I say that my income is probably twice what the national average is. (I don’t know what the national average, so you can stop figuring now.) I’m a software engineer. However, living in the Boston area, that kind of income is more or less necessary.

I believe that there are times in every software engineer’s career where they have thought about the “business folks”, “Hey I could do that.” I really believe it to be true more than 80% of the time. In fact, in many cases, I just deal with the client and cut my manager out because his whole job is simply to be a buffer to keep the client from bothering me when I should be coding.

It seems my skill as a software engineer is “more valuable” to the company if I’m coding. However, when I do the job of a “business folk” who is paid twice as much as me, it’s “not a good use of my time.” For this reason, I’ve been thinking of going to get an MBA. I’ve taken a few sample GMAT tests and I’m close to getting the kind of the score that could get me into a top ten school. The starting salaries are pretty high with a degree from any of those schools. However, you have to go full-time for at least two years, and at that point your debt is sky high.

This Wharton Grad does the math to figure out the value of an MBA and he’s not overly convinced it’s worth it. Probably means the top online MBA program isn’t worth it either. In my study of it, it seems the value. In my study of it, it seems the value is largely in networking. I’m not big on networking and would rather have the piece of paper that says, “I’m smart. I have the skills. Pay me what I’m worth.”