What ROI can you expect from a Post Graduate Management programme?

By Virender Kapoor

Education is a solid investment like gold or real estate. There is a difference – in case you buy gold, it does not give you monthly returns but appreciates in value year on year. In case of real estate it is better – you get monthly returns as rent and also your property appreciates. In case of education, it is even better – it gives you monthly returns, it appreciates and the best part is that no one can steal it from you.

It is an irony and also a reality that today people look at education as a financial instrument. While it is good to know what you are getting into and what’s in it for you, it may not be right to view education as an instant cash cow or an ATM for that matter. This is a typical mindset of ‘instant gratification’ and it is time that young India understands education in the right perspective. It is unfortunate that parents as well as students have a myopic view in this regard. That is why many young boys and girls get mislead into choosing something that fails to pay dividends later in life. Good education is a long term investment if one still insists on looking at it as an investment.

Let us look at a simple example as an illustration. An IAS entrant or any first class gazetted officer in the early seventies started his career with a pay scale of less than Rs 500 a month. Forty years down the line, after the Sixth Pay Commission his salary is pegged today at around Rs 100,000 a month, which comes to a two hundred times jump! This happened because he or she got onto the ‘right track’ and the right grooming thereafter. Building up the knowledge base and grooming is what a good education will do for a student, and hence, will enable him to get on to the right track.

In case of a management discipline, one must look at it as more vocational than educational. A good management programme must not only give you a degree so to say, but should put a student through a grilling process so that a fully baked product is created which is ready to be employed. Such a programme should be able to change your track and put you on a fast track career in the corporate world. This is the key and the essence of education which students and their parents must understand.

OK, so let us assume you chose the right college which actually “grooms you to be job ready”. So you are on the right track and let us say after your two year management programme, you are employed at Rs 30,000 per month. Taking the multiplication factor of 200 arrived at earlier – though corporate sector gives you higher and faster raise than the government jobs – your remuneration in the last year of your career would be Rs 600,000 (sixty lakh) per month which is a whopping 7.2 crore per annum. Don’t forget you have also earned progressively for full forty years. A good management education should put you on the IAS track of the corporate world.

So what do we learn from this simple arithmetic? With good education, good paychecks will automatically follow you. There are no two ways about this. I get surprised and also dismayed when some students seeking admission to a management PG programme make their choices largely based on the fee factor and the kind of first job they expect from campus. Some of them are so ill informed that they feel that their first job should get them their entire fee back in one year. This is the biggest folly. Why do they forget that a good education and training will equip you to earn with compounded returns over the next four decades. But the bottom line here is that you must go for a programme which can groom you, grill you and make you job ready. So don’t kill that proverbial Golden goose that can give you a golden egg every day in order to get all the eggs together.

Therefore, when selecting a post graduate programme in management, you should ask a simple question:  “Will this college make a visible change in my attitude, my knowledge base, communication skills and confidence?” If the answer is 'yes' then go for it.

Always remember the quote: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

About the Author

Virender Kapoor is the former director of SITM and the current president of MILE. He has written various books on a wide range on subjects such as information systems and telecommunication, emotional intelligence, leadership and self help. He’s an alumnus of IIT Bombay.