Getting An MBA Without Quitting Your Job

It used to be that part-time MBA programs were ideal for young professionals who wanted an MBA but didn’t want to quit their jobs to get it. By going to classes twice a week during the evenings, you could often earn the degree at your own pace within three to five years.

But in the past five years in particular, advances in technology have online learning a preferable option. It was always a slog to show up in a downtown classroom after a long day’s work. And if you had to travel for business, it could mean missing class. Besides many business schools put adjunct professors in those evening sessions, not the senior tenured faculty.

The flexibility and convenience of online learning has changed the game. The most highly ranked online MBA options offer superb learning experiences. While the best of them also feature live weekly Internet classes, those sessions can be taken from anywhere, without a commute through traffic and the need to sit in a physical classroom. And if you can’t attend an online MBA class live, they are all recorded so you can watch them when it’s most convenient for you.

What’s more, student satisfaction with the top online MBA program experience is extremely high (see How Online MBA Graduates Rate Their Programs). When we asked the latest graduating classes if they would recommend the program to a friend or relative, all the ranked schools did well across the board. Some 39 separate programs received a score of 9 or above on a ten-point scale, with ten reflecting the strongest recommendation from graduates.

No less important, satisfaction was high at a large variety of programs at all different price points. At the very top was the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga with a perfect 10. The next highest were Lehigh University, Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, the University of Denver Daniels College of Business, and the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

Only in the past year or two, a new fascinating trend has emerged. Several schools are beginning to offer their part-time MBA students the option of taking online classes or attending them in-person. This year alone both UC-Berkeley Haas and New York University’s Stern School are launching an online cohort for their part-time programs.

Even more impressive, Johns Hopkins University’s flexible MBA allows students to take their MBA courses online, in-person, or a combination of both. So when your workload or personal demands rise, you can go online. When they are more normal, you could go in-person in either Baltimore or Washington, D.C.

Earlier this year, the University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Business announced that it would put every single graduate business course from the core curriculum to its entire elective offerings in its catalog online (see A Look At The Flexible Future Of The MBA). Tippie already boasts 32 fully online MBA courses along with a portfolio of seven business analytics courses in its master’s program in that subject. By the spring semester of 2022, the school expects to have developed a total of 50 online courses with the goal of putting its entire portfolio online by spring of 2022.

The pandemic, which abruptly shifted all learning virtual for a time, led the school to its decision. “When we moved everything to online because of COVID what we learned was that many of those students enjoyed the flexibility of an online option,” says Tippie Dean Amy Kristof-Brown. “Our survey showed that 70% of the face-to-face students said they wanted an online option. Only 10% said they now only want face-to-face classes. It is a dramatic shift. I think it is a sea change. Everybody now has had a taste of online. They’ve done it in meetings at their companies and in their graduate work. What we are hearing from them is that they want online to be an option. They are saying it loud and clear.”

Kristof-Brown expects the new flexibility to provide another boost to the growth of the school’s part-time MBA programs. With an online option for coursework, moreover, she expects more students will complete their degrees more quickly. “People won’t have to wait for an elective or a class that they need to graduate,” she notes. That was often an issue in teaching face-to-face in three different locations. “Now electives are offered every single semester not just once every three semesters. We are really trying to make it as easy as possible for students to get all the content they want while still having that interaction with faculty.”

For prospective students considering the old-styled part-time evening MBA grind, you just might want to wait until your chosen school jumps on top of what will be the next big trend in the MBA space: Programs that allow you to jump in and out of in-person or online classes at any given time during your course of study.