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Level the Playing Field

Many knock on the door but few exceed the bar set by the famous names, and so Chanel, BMW, Pininfarina, Don Perrier, Cartier, Rolex and Omega are just that-targets to aim at.  Everyone tries to copy the winner, hey our Mazda 3 with a 223 bhp FWD engine is faster than a BMW 2.5 3 series…

Well Sean Connery WAS James Bond and Roger Moore PLAYED James Bond, one’s the real thing, the other  an imitation.  See what I mean?

And so the same thing occurs in Academia.  Right here in the DFW area one can attend

SMU Cox MBA

UTA MBA

UNT MBA

Univ of Phoenix on line MBA

even UT Austin has a Chinese menu of M-F, nights, and weekends or hey come on out to the DFW airport on the weekend and some sort of extension course MBA

So what’s the real thing here?  I mentioned that with enrollment numbers down, even Harvard is saying come on in, the water’s fine, never mind work experience.

A couple of California business professors have proposed, finally, a national standard for MBA.  Yep, like CPA, law, or medicine, you take the courses and then take the tests, only the survivors get the brass ring.  No doubt this would separate a lot of wheat and chaff,   Clearly this would separate the men from the boys and women from the girls. 

What say you?  Are you ready to ‘run for the pink slips’ ( a reference to drag racing where the winner takes the loser’s car title)  I suspect this would seriously deflate the number of people attempting an MBA at lower level ‘schools.’  But maybe not. As I left Odessa, TX in 1999, there were ‘legal assistants’ popping up all over town.  These folks attended law school but, er ah ahem, never passed the Bar. So you could pay for advice but when it came time to go to court, you got handed off to someone else or were on your own.  Would there be a gray market MBA, oh I took the courses I just don’t have a piece of paper.  Don’t laugh, the recently dethroned Ethics Manager for Dallas Ind School District said just that when it was revealed he had lost his CPA license, after claiming he had one.

So would this inject a senese of reality?  A national standard? Sound off gang!

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2 responses to “Level the Playing Field”

  1. Jordan McClary Avatar
    Jordan McClary

    I myself think the idea of having a test to establish the winners from the losers would be a great idea. But how could you design a test so that everyone in the nation could be supcebtible to it, much like the CPA exam? It would be tough, but I think there would be a need for a new DESIGN at UNT, in order to ensure students are provided with the best education for mastering this test. And on a side question. What makes Ivy league colleges any better than ones like UNT? is it really the education or the amount of money that flows through their campuses? I mean do you really have to be a genious in order to graduate from Harvard? The reason I ask is wouldn’t such a test kind of make the value of all schools become equal? If I can go to UNT and pass such a test what makes Harvard any better other than its name and the amount of money that flows from its institution. I never have understood this logic. Please fill me in so that I may have a better understanding.

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  2. Jason Raper Avatar
    Jason Raper

    George W Bush graduated from Harvard with an MBA….but only after he was turned down by UT Law. I think the Harvard MBA is a piece of prestige, but we do need a standard and they certainly attempt to set one. The main reason that I chose UNT and did not look back was only because of the cost. I am a penny-pincher and I don’t see the value of paying higher money just to get the networking.
    Is anyone ever going to ask me if I have an MBA should I decide to start a company? Many w/my company think the MBA is not that great. I disagree because I think that any higher education will always benefit you. Reagardless of where yo went to school.

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