Okay, I'm going to relate a little story. Take it for what it's worth. Hopefully someone will learn something from it and not have to rely on pure luck as I did.

I've been in IT for about 15 years now. Let's say I'm pretty good at what I do. But there comes a time where you have to move on with things, right? Keep going forward.

So I had an MBA in mind.

Well, I live in Madison, WI and actually work on campus so it seemed like a slam dunk to take Madison's Evening MBA Program. I mean why wouldn't I right?

It's set up for part-time, evening courses. I would be able to continue working full-time. I'm already on campus anyway so the two evenings a week wouldn't be that out of my way...

So that was the plan. The 3-year program was a total of $40,000 which is a punch in the gut to be sure, but it's an investment so while I wasn't elated by the expense, I thought it was a valid trade-off for future options. In my case, understand that I didn't have anything certain lined up in the future such that if I had an MBA, I would be guaranteed such and such. For me, it was a risk/reward play. I would take some risk (by spending $40,000 in exchange for an MBA degree) to get possible future rewards.

Well, I took off a couple weeks early this past summer to gear up for the GMAT. I was going to cross all my t's and dot all my i's. I'm familiar with large, complicated projects and this project was simple to many of those projects in comparison. I had my goal firmly in mind and I was simply and pointedly set to implement that goal into reality.

Then I got completely lucky.

Everything fell through for me.

Astoundingly.

In a way that didn't make any sense to me at the time.

For instance, I studied for the math section, but not for the way the math questions would be presented. I ended up doing poorly on that section, even though I knew the material. So that was a problem. More enrollments were sent in that particular year than ever before, and because of that I ended up sending the materials in rather late, so I was at a disadvantage. In addition, my back-pocket reference (my most certain "lock") completely forgot to send it in on time and so that was another major problem.

All in all, it was a crushing case of not achieving a clear objective. It was jaw-dropping astounding from my perspective. As most are probably familiar in their own lives, I'm used to having a firm vision in mind and then methodically and overwhelmingly setting that vision into reality. I doubt others are that different. If you put your mind and focus toward something very specific, you tend to get what you want.

That did not happen here. 

Put yourself in that position. How confusing that is. You thought you had things mapped out, and then the very floor you thought you were standing upon is yanked right from under you.

I gave out hope that well maybe something later will come along that will have this all make sense in retrospect. I definitely had that thought at the time, but it was certainly a hollow consolation since it was predicated on future uncertainty.

A couple of months passed. 

And then some book I came across mentioned the idea of getting an MBA online. That thought had never occurred to me before. I knew about online degrees, but getting an MBA degree online had never fired off a synapse in my brain before for some reason.

So I did some research and found some interesting things. The first truly helpful site I came across was this one:

http://www.geteducated.com/

And then more stumbling and bumbling later I came across the University of Aspen, which offers the complete program for a total of $4,500. 

http://www.aspen.edu/

Yes, that's $4,500, not $40,000. Basically an order of magnitude difference in price. Plus it's all online so much more time flexible, especially since you have a total of 5 years to complete the program. So if some sort of life things comes up you're not wrapped up in a straight-jacket, you got some breathing room. That's important since during this time I ended up getting a nice contract to develop a new site, which I could never have accepted had I been in the Evening Program, (and which in turn would pay for the Aspen MBA program and then some). Importantly, if during the program I were to receive another big well-paying project I could took take some time off from the MBA to do complete it (bear in mind, these projects are currently outside of my fulltime IT job, so time is definitely a factor here).

And I wouldn't have to waste time to invest in a course to ridiculously assist me in getting high marks on a math section of the GMAT which categorically does not test for understanding of content material. That is a fact. You can argue that it still has some validity (although I'd stress how debatable a point you're making). This is a full-blown online university (no buildings). They've been around for about 20 years. Nationally accredited (not regional): basics on that is the business world accepts either, but regional schools might not accept national schools (although national schools would accept regional). Important point is that a school has to be either national or regional, otherwise it's a degree mill.

Each program is designed to be about 8 weeks in length (figure about 10 hours work per week). You can choose between an interactive study and an independent study. From what I understand, interactive just means it's a little more structured and there would be some communication with others in forums and such. The work can be done on your own timeline. If you follow the built-in timeline, the course should be completed in a couple of years. But you have 5 years total to complete the program. All exams are open book. The final program exam is proctored locally on a pass/fail basis (you choose 3 essays out of 8).
  
Pre-paid, this program once again costs $4,500 (roughly an order of magnitude difference in price as opposed to Madison). Knowing this difference, I now find it hard to believe that I was actually prepared to go down that expensive road. An MBA degree is an MBA degree and if it's from an accredited school it's from an accredited school.

Okay, but is it legitimate? I mean if it's just a degree mill scam then obviously I'm not going to do it anyway, so then I had to bone up on accreditations and the following shows demonstrable proofs of its accreditation:

http://highered.colorado.gov/Academics/Colleges/privateaccredited.asp

http://www.state.co.us/cche/authlist.pdf

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-bus/grad/upload/GetEducatedBDLGS_BM0605.pdf#page=12

Now I won't be enrolling in the Aspen MBA program until after I complete my current project. But going back to my initial risk/reward play I'm much more comfortable risking $4,500 on an uncertain future rewards than I am risking $40,000. At the end of the day, a degree is a degree. An MBA degree carries more weight than the particular school it comes from, unless it's a Harvard or a Yale (and then, rightly or wrongly, the school actually carries more weight). The wild-card variable that I might be missing out on concerns the contacts and relationships that might have developed in the Evening Program. Sure the online program allows for its own brand of contact and relationships, but it probably won't be quite the same. Thing is, it's still a wild-card, an unknown either way. It would be a stretch to suggest that Madison is worth the extra $36,000 based on that issue alone since it's a suggestion based on pure speculation. 

Anyway, kind of crazy huh?

And I think I'm smart. I actually think I go through life knowing what I'm doing.

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