Making the leap to further education can feel tricky at times. In today’s job market, you may be looking for a foolproof degree – something that can immediately demonstrate your marketable skills to employers and easily showcase your potential value.
Fortunately, there are qualifications such as an online MBA (Masters in Business Administration) that can help you get the edge in your next role. From empowering you with the skills and knowledge needed to take the lead in business to teach you practical business scenarios that you can adapt to your learnings, an MBA can be a vital next step to a successful career change.
In this piece, we’ll explore why you should get an MBA – from the job opportunities it unlocks to the salary benefits qualified graduates can hope to achieve. By the end of this article, you’re expected to no longer ask, ‘should I get an MBA?’ and instead feel empowered to make the next step in your educational journey.
An MBA Can Lead To New Roles
An MBA can be a powerful pivot in many industries. By completing an MBA, you’ll be exposed to a range of different business contexts and get exposure to a range of different mentorship opportunities, both from peers and course leaders.
Simply put, an MBA offers a much broader selection of career opportunities upon graduation than a teaching degree. There’s a range of roles across different industries that become within reach as an MBA graduate, including:
- Operations Lead – for those looking to take charge and support major projects across public and private sectors.
- Managing Director – for those looking to use their skills to help apply a broader economic and strategic lens to organizations.
- People and Culture Manager – using your finely crafted soft skills to drive positive change within some of the most complicated areas of an organization.
Crunching The Numbers – The Opportunity Cost
In economics, there’s a term called the opportunity cost. It refers to the impact of selecting one option ahead of another – attempting to calculate the potential cost difference of item selection. Interestingly enough, an interested individual may wish to use it to calculate the potential lost salary from staying in a current role versus upskilling with an MBA and jumping into something new.
According to recruitment website Talent, the average Australian graduate salary is approximately $73,994 per year. Comparatively, a generic MBA salary is much higher, reporting an average salary of $98,355 annually. Note this doesn’t consider roles such as an operations lead or project manager, which will typically offer far higher salaries.
At a cursory glance, it’s evident that simply having an MBA can demand a higher salary. Nearly $25,000 a year for the average MBA is massive, particularly in today’s cost of living crisis.
No matter how you crunch the numbers, the MBA represents a valuable opportunity cost when comparing graduate salaries.
The Downsides of Further Study
One of the downsides of further study may feel like that by spending extra time after an undergraduate degree, working on a qualification, you’re not immediately stepping foot into a role and, as such, making it harder for yourself to gain valuable work experience.
MBA graduates often gather a mix of working experiences provided by university work placement opportunities and private organizations that may wish to hire budding graduates.
While taking on further education can seem risky, aiming to complete a course in a well-regarded and high-demand field is not necessarily bad. After the Global Financial Crisis, many bankers lost their jobs – however, many MBA holders could pivot into other industries and maintain employment successfully.
Ultimately, rather than considering the downsides to studying, another area must be considered – what does it cost to wait to complete an MBA? Earlier in this piece, we explored the massive difference in listed salaries on talent websites – it’s essential to consider the financial impact of putting off future studies. If you’re looking to jump to a high-paying and well-regarded career, now may be the right time.
