Payback period depends on your lifestyle. Schools you list and your industry of interest average base pay is between ~100,000-130,000 USD. After taxes ~80-110k. If your life style is low to moderate your payback period can be as low as 3-4 years for 100k of debt. If you have an expensive lifestyle then payback will be much longer. This is also dependent on region where you end up working after business school. MBA salaries are quite flat in the U.S regardless of region so your ability to pay back working in San Jose will be more difficult than out of Houston due to cost of living.
Now Return on Investment depends on your current salary. If you already make 100,000-130,000 k USD then the ROI might never be positive. If you currently make less than 80,000 k USD then from a financial standpoint the ROI will most likely be quite good in the long run.
You can not count on any scholarship money.
There are hundreds of students earning 100k+ salary pre MBA and still decide to take on the 350k+ in debt and opportunity cost to attend a top 10-15 business school every year.
Can you accomplish your short term goals without an MBA?
The decision is yours to make.
CinderellaBoy wrote:
I have been bothered myself with one question for some time and have posted on a few forums to seek some views. I want to solicit the views of GMATclub members on the same and appreciate if i can get some reasonable feedback here.
My interest is US B-schools (MIT, Wharton, Harvard,Stern,Cornell).
Following is a brief of my profile.
Major: Information science
Additional studies: PMI, Resource management classes from local business school.
Work experience:
3 years in software development, development and support various web-applications.
4 years in investment banking – software engineering manager for the top investment bank hired via local it outsourcing company to run offshore development team(25+ members) in Eastern Europe. Private equity business.
Age - 28,5
GMAT: Just started preparation
Interests: Toastmasters, leadership
Achilles’ heel:
(1) Level of English
(2) Financial background
Short-term goals:
Move to hi-tech industry preferably in US/Asia
Long-term goal:
Start own IT company
Key concern:
Given all my savings i probably have to take 80-100k of debt which is massive amount of money. General attitude towards debt in my country is very negative! I just started my family which make the overall situation even worse.
Would i be able to repay debt in 3-5-10 years? Do you think i have a chance to be accepted to business schools mentioned? What is the size of scholarship i can count?