Are ivy league degrees worth it? how about at the graduate level?

im going for an mba an am toying with paying tons of money for an ivy school...

Are ivy league degrees worth it? how about at the graduate level?
It's all what you make of it.



An ivy league degree will open more doors for you and perhaps give you access to one-on-one with better learned professors (although increasingly the profs avoid students like the plague, at least in undergrad classes). Someone going to a solid state school may learn just as much but probably wont’ be challenged to do so the way ivy league students are. Employers know this an thus they usually prefer an ivy league graduate when taking applications.



If you have the finances for it I would go with an ivy league school. If money may be an issue or your career field doesn’t require an ivy league reputation to get your foot in the door then I would go with a state school.



Edit: It's also important to note that most of the business managers I've spoken with regard experience and a history of successful leadership much more favorably than a degree.



Regards,

Armus
Reply:I disagree with the idea that an MBA from a non-Ivy isn't worth the paper it's printed on. If the school has a good reputation, but isn't an Ivy, and you have good grades and a good work history, then you will get a job. Also, if you want to go part-time, an Ivy really isn't open to you (except Kellogg, if you happen to be in IL.)



If you plan to get an MBA, you want to go to the school with the best reputation that you can get into. Keep in mind your local area, too - a school that has a great rep in one region may be unheard of in another.



But in general, there will be more doors open to you if you get an MBA from a big-name school. There are the connections, of course, which do help. There is the reputation of the school. Some firms won't hire MBAs for certain types of positions unless they come from the top 5-10 schools. I used to work for a firm like that. We offered a special training program open only to MBAs from specific schools: Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, Kellogg (Northwestern), Wharton (UPenn) and MIT (MIT offers a MM, not an MBA). But for other types of postions, we hired people with MBAs from any school with a strong rep, academically, so that included Fordham, Babson, and a few others.



With all that said, if you can go full time, and can get into one of the top 5-10 MBA programs, then it will be worth it to you, career-wise, to attend.
Reply:Worth every dime. It's not so much what you learn, but the network you plug into by going there.



An MBA from a second-rate "cheap" school is hardly worth the paper it is printed on. (At the other end of the spectrum.)