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# What is The average time to recover $$investment in MBA  new topic post reply Question banks Downloads My Bookmarks Reviews Important topics ### What is The average time to recover$$$investment in MBA • 3% [7] • 6% [13] • 22% [44] • 54% [106] • 11% [23] Author Message TAGS: ### Hide Tags GMAT Club Legend Affiliations: HHonors Diamond, BGS Honor Society Joined: 05 Apr 2006 Posts: 5926 Schools: Chicago (Booth) - Class of 2009 GMAT 1: 730 Q45 V45 WE: Business Development (Consumer Products) Followers: 305 Kudos [?]: 1966 [1] , given: 7 [#permalink] ### Show Tags 02 Mar 2007, 17:52 1 This post received KUDOS kidderek wrote: I wouldn't count opportunity cost, it is bogus. Why would you include two years salary when you're not working during those two years? The only debt you incur is the bottom line. If you slum it, you can pay off the 80k within a few years and you're golden. Of course, that's if you're single or attached to someone who is independent. You need a course in economics and finance Because its a real cost, not an imagined one. Thats actual money you wont make, so its a true cost of attendance. Put it this way - if you are a contractor and you make$50 an hour, and you take a week off work to go on vacation, what did that vacation cost you? Did it cost you the flight ticket and hotel, or did it cost you the flight ticket, hotel, and $50 * 40 ? Hopefully you realize its the latter. What if it wasn't? What would that imply? That would suggest that whether or not I worked for a living, there would be no difference. Of course, as anyone will tell you, there is a difference between employment and unemployment. Where I do think its wrong is to count the lost income AND living expenses because those are expenses you would have incurred ANYWAY, and they aren't arguably, any larger than those you would have incurred. If you count living expenses on one side, you cant count salary as well, or your double counting. Lets look at a simpler example first. Lets say I have a car that I pay$400 a month for, and I pay $100 a month in insurance, and$100 a month in gas. Lets say I own the parking spot its on because renting one would have cost $250 a month, and for the sake of simplicity, I pay no taxes on that property. How much does the car actually cost me? If you said$600 a month, you'd be wrong.

$600 per month is the fixed cost of the car.$250 a month is the lost opportunity of owning the car.

Put it this way -

If I own the car, I spend $600 a month. If I dont own the car, I save the$600 a month but I ALSO make $250 a month on the own car spot by renting it out. Thus, my PERCEPTION is that the car is costing me$600, but really, its costing me $850. So if we look at the previous problem from a cash flow perspective: Year 0: -40000 (tuition) + -90000 (salary) Year 1: -40000 (tuition) + -90000 (salary) Total outflows: -260,000 Year 2: +100,000 - 90000 Year 3: +120,000 - 92000 Year 4: +130,000 - 94000 Year 5: +140,000 - 95000 Right? (assuming you get SOME KIND of raise year over year if you didnt get an MBA) Do you see why? Year 0 and Year 1 represent the both the actual cost of attendance, above and beyond the cost I would normally incur (or id be double counting), AND the lost income. You have to consider this just like you have to consider it in the parking example I had above. So whats this all come out to? -260,000 + 10,000 + 28,000 + 36000 + 45000 -260K + 119K = -$141K

So were still short, a couple more years here. Assuming you plateau out at about $140 for a couple years, you'll recoup in 3 more, or a total of 7 years. The reality of it, is that its a bit higher, because of time value of money, but were simplifying a bit here anyway. Of course, for a lot of people, it wouldnt matter if the figure was 7 months, 7 years or 7 decades, they'd still want to go. Why? Well, of course we put a utility on changing jobs. To put it differently, in fact, the function we could use to define how much you are willing to pay to change careers is defined by the utility U() of a new job. Thus, the price you are willing to pay for a new job can be defined as : U(new job) - U(old job) That is, the utility of your new job minus the utility of your old job. As it turns out, if you stop and think about it, this is the function that defines how you decide whether or not to go to school. If U(new job) - U(old job) >= 0 , then you attend an MBA program. If U(new job) - U(old job) < 0, then you don't. Understand that the function U can be in whatever units you want - dollars, penguins per yard, whatever. Just define the areas that matter and quantify each (this is hte hard part that economists must do). So, in my case, I define my Utility based on: Vacation Pay Interest Level Long term prospects Overall enjoyment of position Cost I can weigh this to create a personal function. .10 Vac + .20 Pay + .30 Interest + .20 Long Term + .10 Overall Enjoyment - .10 Cost So how do you work with this function when pay is in dollars, and interest level isn't? Easy, you just ask yourself, how much money youd be willing to part with to have a job that is interesting, how much for one with long term, bla bla. So going through this excercise would get you to a defined value of utility for your MBA. If however, you want to simplify the whole thing, we can just say that U(X) varies with V, P, I, L, O (variables above) where each variable is +, except C which is -ne. Thus, if v is constant between U(new) and U(old), but P increases, as does I and L and O, though C increases with a -ne effect, then the question becomes by how much does C have to change to offset the increase in P,I,L,O ? Well, PILO is .8 of the equation, C is .1 of the equation. Thus, C must be 8 times PILO to negate the effect of PILO assuming an even distribution across PILO. Needless to say, .1 of$80,000 isn't much - the pay value alone of the mba exceeds that. Even if we talk about .1 of 260,000 were talking -26.

So now we know:

U(new job, V,P,I,L,O,C) > U(old job, V,P,I,L,O)

ARGH !@(#!(@# I need a smoke. Ok screw the rest of this proof. Thus, an MBA is worth it. This of course depends on your own personal utility curve but the point is not what the total actual cost of an mba is - no one cares.

And this is really how people make their decisions - not based on some arbitrary payback period.
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02 Mar 2007, 19:07
rhyme wrote:
kidderek wrote:
I wouldn't count opportunity cost, it is bogus. Why would you include two years salary when you're not working during those two years? The only debt you incur is the bottom line. If you slum it, you can pay off the 80k within a few years and you're golden.

Of course, that's if you're single or attached to someone who is independent.

You need a course in economics and finance

Because its a real cost, not an imagined one. Thats actual money you wont make, so its a true cost of attendance. Put it this way - if you are a contractor and you make $50 an hour, and you take a week off work to go on vacation, what did that vacation cost you? Did it cost you the flight ticket and hotel, or did it cost you the flight ticket, hotel, and$50 * 40 ? Hopefully you realize its the latter.

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17 Feb 2011, 19:24
Wow back from the dead...almost 4 years later. I will let you know in 4 more years how my loans are doing haha.
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19 Feb 2011, 04:53
in light of that 2 yrs pyback sound amazing...

rhyme - i have sent u a pm...request u to pls chk the same whenever u have some time...
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01 Sep 2015, 02:53
If the bachelor degree is of 4 years in hons the MBA would only be of 1.5 years but if the graduation done is of 2 years ,the MBA would be of 3.5 years.

Bob |Optimum Expense Recovery and Consulting