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Comment by lunchladydoris | Hacker News Reader

Is this the sucker price and most people somehow get around paying all of this or is this what people actually pay?

I am a Stanford, but not in the MBA program. My understanding is that many students do pay full tuition. Graduating with an MBA from the GSB guarantees that you will find a high paying job that makes it well worth it. To put it one way, my one friend asked an MBA student friend "how does everyone in the GSB afford such nice cars while paying MBA tuition?" "When you are already paying 200 grand, whats an extra 50 thousand?" I think its very revealing of the mindset. Another interesting stat : 40% of incoming MBA students say they want to found a startup. Ultimately only 2% do. The reason for the differential not being for failure to do so, but for being unwilling to turn down lucrative job offers.

Your analysis of the situation is a bit off. The vast majority of MBA students have worked some amount of time since graduating from their undergraduate institutions. Not only that, many were working in highly lucrative industries like investment banking/consulting. It's really not far-fetched that they purchased these cars prior to entry into the program.

Also your note that 2% pursue startup opportunities seems to be incorrect, given that the 2012 employment report showed 13% of students not seeking employment to start a new business.

He is right though. Many MBAs have to relocate, and they buy the cars just for the two years of their program.

(About the 2%, the sample is very different so that should explain the difference with the report)

Source?

This doesn't really answer the question about whether everyone is paying full sticker, but debt loads for MBA graduates is a nice data point to check out. (2009/10 data)

http://poetsandquants.com/2011/04/25/25-b-schools-that-lead-...

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