Are MBAs finally on their way out?

One of the rare news reports that cheered me up immensely over the past month came from one of our reputed institutes of management Apparently over 100 firstyear MBA students from the institute in question failed to secure summer internships at recently held placements resulting in about one in six students with no offer in their hands If the rest of us were supposed to be saddened by this update I didnrsquot see any signs of itThe institute in questionmdashlike any institute desperate to keep charging exorbitant fees naturally wouldmdashwas quick to point out that there was no need for alarm This is just a blip it saidBlip or not it cheered me up For too long I have watched business schools spend millions on public relations trying to convince the world that it needs more business graduates even as the world has quietly but consistently been pushing back against this ridiculous notion If business graduates really were the answer we wouldnrsquot be a species spiralling so rapidly towards extinctionThe fact is MBAs have been falling from favour for over a decade now for all kinds of reasons In the West it isnrsquot only because more companies need candidates with broader qualifications Itrsquos also a prolonged shift towards a better worklife balance and an increasing emphasis on individual wellbeing over corporate success In India the reasons are probably just financial A report published earlier this year analysed MBA fees at top business schools and found that the bottom 50 per cent of graduates were leaving with an average debt of R1706 lakh It added that a twoyear MBA programme risked placing students in debt for over 12 yearsFour years ago Forbes published a damning report on American MBA programmes approaching a state of crisis It quoted the dean of a reputed institute predicting that 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the top 100 MBA programmes in the US would close in the next few years with greater fallout among second and thirdtier schools That hasnrsquot happened yet but itrsquos nice to know a shakeup is inevitableHowever while announcements of this degreersquos demise have been making the rounds for a long time and business schools will argue that this doesnrsquot reflect reality regular conversations about its validity should still be encouraged We know the MBA wonrsquot die obviously not because it offers any real value but because therersquos too much money at stake MBA graduates wonrsquot buy this argument because anyone paying that kind of money for something so dubious is primed to do everything in their power to perpetuate the myth of its importance Like an academic Ponzi scheme todayrsquos MBAs will continue to hire tomorrowrsquos MBAs and the rest of us will continue paying the priceOne of the saddest things about an MBA is what compels it to exist in the first place It isnrsquot a degree about making humanity better it exists simply to help people earn more money for themselves or more often than not for a corporation or company that hires them specifically for that role What we end up with is a bunch of people desperate to recoup what they have paid to buy into this idea at the cost of everything that is good about humanityMBAs create nothing of value they are simply gatekeepers tasked with policing those who do create and finding ways of monetising anything that can be turned into a commodity Itrsquos why ironically they may inadvertently cause their own demise In a recent Forbes survey half of the CEOs believed AI could potentially replace lsquomostrsquo or even all aspects of their own positions Itrsquos only a matter of timeI am painfully aware of how easily these arguments can be dismissed I can be accused of not knowing the first thing about business and may be laughed out of a room for not accepting that even journalists need money to do their job well The point Irsquom trying to make however is about what we push our children to do Why do so many of us as Indians value only an academic path that leads to financial success as opposed to a path that leads to creative or intellectual fulfilment It is only when we encourage our children to do what they like as opposed to studying for a degree that can only take them to an executive suite that we may bring about the kind of intellectual change this country so desperately needsWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereiraSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper