Online MBA: €4,000 'thrown in the bin' and no career boost from ESADE

Online MBA: paying €4,000 and ending up exactly where you started

An engineer with three years of experience and a stable job is wondering which business school would suit him best as he aims to move into management positions. His shortlist —Bureau Veritas, IEP with CEU, EEN, ESEUNE and OBS— has one thing in common: they are all online MBA options and all fit his budget. The best ones, he admits, are beyond his price range. And that's where the problem starts, because the Spanish postgraduate market has become saturated with acronyms that promise leadership and deliver PDFs.

The answer he receives does not invite optimism. One forum user sums it up bluntly: more than €4,000 invested in the OBS MBA and the feeling of having thrown the money in the bin. The diagnosis is damning: a master's 'made from scraps', a collection of links with no cohesion where the student builds the syllabus through weekly debates on topics they know nothing about. Questions take weeks to get answered. If you don't like the method, the way out they offer you is to drop out.

The MBA as an expensive label

The scepticism is not limited to the cheap schools. Another account, this one about the ESADE Part Time MBA in 2005, claims that practically no one in his cohort improved their career prospects. The argument: too many people with MBAs and too few openings. And as for contacts —that intangible that justifies the price of elite schools— the same story dismisses them: you make them with people at your own level, so they add nothing distinctive.

Some go further and simply advise against all five options on the table. The argument is that these master's degrees only serve those who already hold a good position and have an employer willing to pay for a quick, cheap label to put next to their name. For those seeking the leap up, no.

Ten thousand euros and going freelance

The harshest first-hand experience comes from another angle: €10,000 spent on a master's that was good for nothing, trinc by specific courses and registering as self-employed. The conclusion drawn from this is that knowledge is better acquired through focused training than through a generalist degree. The recommendation that slips into the conversation points to CEF as an affordable and well-regarded alternative, with the added bonus of mingling with Spanish tax inspectors who teach there.

The consensus that gradually forms has little to do with academia and a lot to do with common sense: a postgraduate degree pays off when you lack experience, have money to spare or want to switch fields. In every other case, the effort and the outlay add little to your career.

In-person or nothing

The case for the in-person format appears early and without nuance: networking is what you really get out of it. The problem is that the protagonist cannot manage it schedule-wise, except Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. There he hits the usual wall: the golden goose.

The conversation drags on for years —the trail runs to four years later— and dies without anyone providing a solid reference for any of the five schools. All that remains are links to master's search engines, a newly published ten-point guide and the realisation that Google is the best adviser available. Interest in the online MBA remains undimmed. So does the lack of evidence that it's good for anything.