What an MBA Will Actually Get You Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises, it costs nothing. —EDMUND BURKE, POLITICIAN AND POLITICAL THEORIST

Business schools don’t create wealthy and well-connected people. They accept them, then take credit for their success.

Breaking Out the Benjamins Who goeth a borrowing, goeth a sorrowing … A fool and his money are soon parted. —THOMAS TUSSER, SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH FARMER AND POET

Your Money AND Your Life There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. —ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, AUTHOR OF STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND AND THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS

Delusions of Grandeur The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET

3. MBA programs won’t guarantee you a high-paying job, let alone make you a skilled manager or leader with a shot at the executive suite.

2. MBA programs teach many worthless, outdated, even outright damaging concepts and practices—

College: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books. —JOHN CAGE, SELF-TAUGHT WRITER AND COMPOSER

1. MBA programs have become so expensive you must mortgage your life to pay the price of admission.