Surprising Benefits of an MBA Education

If you’re considering an advanced degree to help you enhance your business career, you’ve probably already heard about some of the quantifiable benefits of an MBA. You likely already know, for instance, that an MBA can provide a serious boost to your salary, even if you are unaware that the median starting base salary for candidates with an MBA is $40,000 higher than that for candidates with only a bachelor’s degree.¹ Or you may know that the job market is hot for MBA graduates, even if you haven’t heard that 96 percent of Fortune 100 companies plan to hire them in the short term.¹

But what you might not know about some more subtle benefits of an MBA—ways in which the degree and the work of pursuing it can help you in your personal life as well as your professional role. Below, we’ve outlined four surprising benefits of an MBA to help you realize the full value of a graduate-level business education.

Successful business leaders are able to drive strategy for their organizations, and a key part of being able to do so is the ability to write and speak persuasively. MBA coursework—particularly in a collaboration- and communication-driven program like the Online MBA from Seattle University—often includes classes on negotiation and business communication to teach you to clearly and confidently advocate for your strategic insights in discussions with executives and stakeholders.

Increased persuasiveness is one of the benefits of an MBA that can help you out in multiple aspects of your life. If you rent or have ever rented an apartment, you know how difficult it can be to state your case to a landlord intent on charging you for damages. Or if you have ever tried to plan an outing with a large group of friends, you have experience trying to be heard over a cacophony of opinionated voices. Armed with the practiced ability to clearly, concisely, and convincingly articulate a well-reasoned position, you can give yourself a leg up on any similarly tricky situation.

A strong, efficient decision-making process is another of the key benefits of an MBA. The business leaders that emerge from effective MBA programs are armed with foundational knowledge in important aspects of business operations, in subject areas that may include finance, marketing, supply chain, accounting, and data management. However, they are also trained in ways to mobilize this knowledge to make strong decisions, through coursework specifically centered on decision-making strategies as well as through assignments in more generally focused classes.

We are asked to make countless choices every day, and they range from the trivial (What should I order for lunch today?) to the life-altering (Am I ready for a serious commitment?). The sharpened decision-making mindset you will develop in an MBA program can serve you well when faced with any of these challenges. The same skills you build to help you survey, synthesize, and mobilize information to drive a decision in a high-leverage business situation can be put to use at any time, both in and outside of the office.

An MBA education should impact both sides of your brain. Your coursework should strike a balance between quantitative subjects like finance and accounting that are essential for all business leaders to master and creative problem-solving to help you mobilize your new knowledge in insightful, innovative ways. Firms are finding that embracing human elements in the workplace like creativity and empathy along with a focus on the bottom line can be key to employee retention and overall productivity.²

By spending time nurturing all of these traits in an educational setting, you are not just setting yourself up to thrive in a business role. You are improving yourself as a person, growing into someone who can experience and communicate empathy in your personal relationships and who can think creatively when faced with challenges in your everyday life. And you may even find that your mind is just more active overall than it had been before embarking on an MBA, which could in turn lead you to seek and enjoy new creative outlets in your free time.

The last of our surprising benefits of an MBA is not just one that affects you; it affects everybody. It is becoming clearer by the day that ethical businesses are not just to be lauded for “doing things the right way,” they are also more profitable compared to their competition.³ The best MBA programs realize this, and train their students to address moral and ethical challenges whenever they may arise, in whatever field they go on to work.

If ethics are incentivised by a record of business success and supported by a strong business education, then the work you do upon graduation from your MBA program may be globally beneficial. Maybe you see yourself working for an innovator in green energy technology. Or perhaps you will improve customer data security practices for a popular app. Wherever you end up in the business world today, know that your ethical MBA education can help you make a positive impact.

The Online MBA program from Seattle University’s Albers School of Business and Economics can help you realize all of the above benefits through its ethically grounded, communication-focused curriculum designed to help you overcome leadership challenges in any organization. Read more about the specific benefits an MBA with Albers’ robust alumni network can have for your career.