Skip navigation

 Login or Register | Member Centre

The big payoff

CATHRYN ATKINSON

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 3:15 AM EDT 12/11/07

Whether an MBA raises their salary or extends the career ladder — or just makes them better at their jobs — graduates say the effort is worth it, Cathryn Atkinson reports. ...Read the full article

This conversation is closed

  1. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: I just read some very interesting stats (on the McClean's website) on the relative salary potential of Canadian men in their late 30's with various educational backgrounds. It seems that the highest salaries are being earned by two groups:

    1) Those with university degrees with a heavy math content.
    2) Those with college trade certificates (skilled trades or journeyman).

    The moral of the story is that if you want the big dough, do your post-graduate studies at a college as a steamfitter, pipe-welder, industrial electrician, etc. Or better yet, go straight into a trade, start your own business (like Magna), and then hire your lackey's from the local MBA school.
  2. N Miller from Toronto, Canada writes: Carbon Blob, I am looking for that article. Could you post the link to it?
  3. N Miller from Toronto, Canada writes: Carbon Blob, I am looking for that article. Could you post the link to it, or perhaps tell me where to find it? thanks......
  4. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: To N Miller from Toronto:

    I'm sorry...that was supposed to be "Macleans.ca", under "Education", "17th ANNUAL RANKINGS You have so many options" by Tony Keller. The data quoted is from statscan.

    http://www.macleans.ca/education/universities/article.jsp?content=200711081028074368&page=1

    There are some very interesting numbers and analysis in this article, especially when liberal arts educations are thrown into the mix. The G&M should really do a thorough report on this aspect of the post-secondary meat grinder before hundred of thousands of our children are marched off to get the BA's.
  5. Luke R from Toronto, Canada writes: What that Mclean's article fails to mention is that those are all avgs. Avgs can be misleading. If you take the MBA separately and compare them to the avg they are way ahead of the pack. Hardly the lackeys. More ignorance from the proliteriat.
  6. brokeback mountain from toronto, Canada writes: i deal with a lot MBA's at work who don't even use common sense... I think you can learn that without going thru a 2 yr programme and can take you further in whatever career you are trying to pursue
  7. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: To Luke R from Toronto: I'm sure that the following list of tradesman who started successful Canadian companies might disagree with being referred to as the 'proletariat'...although they all certainly experienced getting their hands personally dirty in the business!

    Frank Hasenfratz - Linamar;
    Frank Stronach - Magna;
    Robert Schad - Husky Injection;
    Vic De Zen - Royal Plastics;
    Klaus Woerner - ATS.

    Having worked in the senior management of one of these firms I can assure you that the senior managers, who were mostly tradesmen, DID consider their MBA grads their lackeys.

    You have a point regarding the use of averages however. I'm sure that the mean wage of a pressure pipe-welder (for example) has gone up significantly since the data was collected 6-years ago (since I read about this type of shortage almost daily in the business section), however it has been a while since I saw an ad for lackeys.
  8. Luke R from Toronto, Canada writes: Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: To Luke R from Toronto: I'm sure that the following list of tradesman who started successful Canadian companies might disagree with being referred to as the 'proletariat'...although they all certainly experienced getting their hands personally dirty in the business!

    Frank Hasenfratz - Linamar;
    Frank Stronach - Magna;
    Robert Schad - Husky Injection;
    Vic De Zen - Royal Plastics;
    Klaus Woerner - ATS.

    Having worked in the senior management of one of these firms I can assure you that the senior managers, who were mostly tradesmen, DID consider their MBA grads their lackeys.

    You have a point regarding the use of averages however. I'm sure that the mean wage of a pressure pipe-welder (for example) has gone up significantly since the data was collected 6-years ago (since I read about this type of shortage almost daily in the business section), however it has been a while since I saw an ad for lackeys.
    *********
    Blob, no one is saying that trades people are stupid. What I'm saying is that anyone who believes that the avg trades person makes more than an MBA is stupid. Get it.
  9. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: Luke R from Toronto, Canada writes: "Blob, no one is saying that trades people are stupid."...No, I guess that when you wrote: "More ignorance from the proliteriat." (and incorrectly spelled the word 'proletariat' BTW)...I should have automatically assumed that you were implying intelligence amongst the lowly working class slobs like me who have a journeyman’s certificate and couldn't possibly understand the advanced concept of an 'average income'.

    P.S. - When I left the manufacturing world a couple of years ago as a Plant Manager...I was doing pretty darn well thank-you for a blue-collar member of the proletariat who worked his way up from the 'tools' as we called it. As a matter of fact we used to eat MBA's for breakfast almost every morning!
  10. P S from Toronto, Canada writes: This article gives a false impression and seems to focus on best-case situations.

    I have an MBA and I have a number of friends who also have their MBAs. None of us managed to double our salaries. In fact, it is often hard to be sure it has had any impact on salary. How do you know for sure what you would be making if you hadn't taken the course?

    I also question the stats for before and after. In some cases these are undergrads with part time jobs as the before side.

    That said, there is a general feeling it was worthwhile.

    I'm not sure this is the most balance story though - too much talking to managers of MBA programs at the schools?
  11. T B from Canada writes: MBA is most useful if you want to run your own show. Of course you can learn it all through experience. Or you can hire MBA's to set up the business for you
  12. Matthew Peterson from Canada writes: Pretty thin analytical soup from The Globe.

    The use of 'across the board' metrics, such as candidates' pre-MBA salary and post-MBA salary is weak at best. Schulich accepts MBA students with no practical experience. Queens, Ivey, and Rotman do, but far less often. So the pre-MBA salary is lower to begin with. Recruiters tend to pay standard salary bands for MBA graduates--without considering (or caring) what the student's pre-MBA salary was. So the use of "MBA lift" as a comparable metric between universities is weak. It may say a lot for the degree itself (my salary doubled), though.

    Media ratings have had an unfortunate effect on the quality of education too. Recruiters are most often consulted by media who compile the ratings, and asked to give quantitative feedback on each of the schools. Three Canadian schools have seen very substantial changes to their curriculum in the past 5 years to suit their recruiters' preferences rather than their students' needs.

    Then, of course, the media like to throw their analytical hats in the ring, seasoning the 'analysis' with such socially, politically, and emotionally apt metrics as 'proportion of international students to domestic students', and 'proportion of female students to the entire class'. The higher the proportions, the more points a business school received. What short sightedness! Guess what happened the following year? Rather than adhere to strict admissions criteria, two of the schools enroled proportions of international and female students for the sake of their rankings. The quality of education remained the same, but the quality of graduate did not.

    And, like Adam Smith's invisible hand, recruiters let the media know about it in subsequent years' evaluations.
    It's a bitter pill for an eager MBA student to swallow--the quickest route to $100,000 may require getting hands dirty, rather than copying spreadsheets before exams.

Comments are closed

Thanks for your interest in commenting on this article, however we are no longer accepting submissions. If you would like, you may send a letter to the editor.

Report an abusive comment to our editorial staff

close

Alert us about this comment

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.

Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.

Back to top