He is the Executive Director, Emeritus Institute of Management. Ashwin is passionate about making education accessible to all, and is an MBA from Harvard Business School himself. An avid entrepreneur, he is also the Founder of Travelguru.com and the Co-founder of ERUDITUS Education.

Recently, the IIMs and ISB raised their fees to more than Rs.20 lakhs. That makes business education in such premier B-schools very expensive and puts it out of reach for many. As a result, many end up opting for lower ranked business schools, but the career placements at these institutions are poor. The news that Flipkart and a few other startups deferred or reneged on their job offers to IIM students made headlines recently. For a student who has invested time and money (many times borrowed money), this is a scary situation.

This leads one to question – what is the return on investment (ROI) of a full time MBA? Let’s narrow the discussion to working professionals with 3-5 years of work experience. The below table estimates tuition costs, accommodation and other costs, and most importantly, the loss of pay for the time spent in a full-time program. Contrast this with a part-time, online program and the differences are apparent immediately.

So, in reality, a full-time program at a top Indian school is about 20 times more expensive than a part time PG Diploma program done online. But of course, if you are one of the lucky few to get a $100,000 offer along with an international placement; that does not matter. But what if you are one of those at the bottom rung of the placement, or whose offer was rescinded, or if you didn’t even get a placement as you were with a lower tier school?

Global Online Education is Now Available in India