Any professional looking forward to an Executive MBA (EMBA) would want to run a thorough Return on Investment calculation. And according to The Economist, it is only fair. EMBA programmes come at a cost - Not only those are a significant burn on the cash, they drain one's time too which otherwise would have been spent on wealth generation. After all this the return is handsome, sure, data from The Economist's rankings reveal - graduates after the completion of EMBAs earn about $167,000 a year.
Around 70 years ago, says the Economist article, the cost of EMBA was borne by companies, who wanted their executives to learn better business practices by sending them back to business schools. Lot has changed since, the companies' purse strings are getting tighter and employees' expectations are rising.
An EMBA students' survey by Economist in 2005 revealed about 69 per cent of the students were sponsored by employers. "Now, less than one in four firms pay their executives’ way," writes the author. The ones (companies) which does, attach strings to the support they extent. They want their employees to stick with them for a particular time period. Afterall, why an organisation would spend thousands of dollars in an employees' improvement and then watch him walk out of the company for a fatter paycheck.
Economist notes, EMBAs are also more executive focused now and not the company. These programmes, are simply catering to their prime consumers - professionals, afterall, most EMBA students turning out to be self sponsored. Click here to read more about this.