A thought: the real “opportunity cost” of an MBA isn’t the total amount of money you would make in those two years, but how much of your salary you would have saved at the end of those two years...

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Don’t overthink it. Total cost of MBA is the sum of:
- Tuition and fees
- Forgone total comp (net of internship comp)
- Incremental cost of lifestyle choices (up or down)
- Cost of capital (loan interest or HYSA interest)

How much you would have saved is a function of the middle 2 bullets but that’s only part of the cost.

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Maybe factor in the trajectory of your lifestyle/earnings:

If I stay at the 1M lifestyle, assuming I’d like to be at a 2M lifestyle instead, do I want to reach the 2M lifestyle quicker, at the potential expense of long-term lifestyle increases?

Or am I okay to reduce my 1M lifestyle for 2 years, with the assumption post MBA that I can have a (1M + n*) lifestyle?

*assume n > (2M - 1M) and that n continues to accelerate over time at a pace faster than staying constant

Thanks everyone for having this dialogue in a respectful and productive way - I half expected people to respond rudely, pretentiously insulting my imperfect understanding of economics. I really appreciate it!

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...in an extreme example, pretend I’m making $1M annually at my current job. With the extravagant lifestyle I live through my job, I spend roughly $950k a year and save 50k. If I did an MBA then at the end of those two years the only money I’d be missing that I would have had from working for those two years is the 100k (50k x 2) I would have saved. (I’m talking just opp cost, separate from tuition or loans)

This seems to me like a more logical way to think about it than “if I do an MBA then the opportunity cost will be my full potential salary of $2M”.

Thoughts?

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Yeah OP, you don’t understand the idea of an opportunity cost. Say your $950k lifestyle = 1 utile. Your value of going to business school has to be greater than 1 utile otherwise you would not go.

This is oversimplified (need to include other costs, etc) but you can’t just ignore it.

Don’t forget to consider loss of opportunity of putting all that money into an index fund that could have grown by 20-30% in the last 2 years. It will vary by year and US economy.

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 this only works in hindsight. If you’re doing a prospective analysis, you need to use an appropriate short term cost of capital eg HYSA or treasuries matched to your loan payback.

This would only make sense to me if a) you enjoy your lifestyle while at school equally to the lifestyle at work that would have cost you 950k, and b) that lifestyle costs you nothing while at school or its costs are already accounted for as part of your “direct costs” of school, to which you’re adding these opportunity costs. If you count the cost of lifestyle spending in one option and not the other, you aren’t setting up a fair comparison.

That said, it’s possible that the cost of an equal-utility lifestyle at school may be lower than while working - eg due to local cost of living, subsidized events, or just having greater access to low-cost but fun activities. But it’s not going to be free.

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I agree with the BCG 1 analysis, if you had access to the money then it should to be included. An argument can be made for only considering after tax income in lost compensation, but simplicity can be useful in these cases.

Also don't forget loss of 2YOE

Good point about not needing to be abstract about it. And yah, your solution is exactly how you'd get around it. -- I'm just describing a factor in that roi analysis.

I think that for many careers - especially those which top BSchools accept, people are already in situations where the extra 2YOE will net them better jobs than if they didn't MBA. Ex. If you're already in consulting at a low-tier or Big 4, depending on your level, the combination of YOE+Salary-Tuition may make it worthwhile to stay at the job instead.

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