long-distance MBA

February 17, 2005 8:25 AM

A friend of mine will be working in Nigeria for a while and he will be having lots of free time. He wants to do a long-distance MBA through the Internet(s). Any clues on good and cheap programs?
posted by carmina to education (8 answers total)

Good and cheap? Doesn't exist.

He can start his search here.
posted by trharlan at 8:34 AM on February 17, 2005

I just want to point out that my alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin, offers MBAs. While they aren't online per se, you can pay via Western Union.

Wisecracks don't help people find answers.
posted by grouse at 8:44 AM on February 17, 2005

UTA doesn't have a distance MBA, according to BusinessWeek.

grouse, if that remark was pointed at me, it was unwarranted.
posted by trharlan at 8:56 AM on February 17, 2005

Wayne State University offers an On-line MBA program.

I am a current student in the traditional (in-class) MBA program at Wayne and am finding it very worthwhile.

WSU is a state school and therefore relatively inexpensive for us In-staters. I imagine that tuition is reasonable for out-of-staters, but don't quote me on that.
posted by Armen Tanzarian at 10:03 AM on February 17, 2005

Universitas Global 21 is a consortium of 16 universities around the world who have put together an online MBA program. It is a fairly new program (started '03?), so there probably isn't that much written about it. However, the universities involved are (at least from an Australian point of view and for the other countries that I know something about) genuinely good universities. You need to fill in your country details to get them to give you a price, but it is roughly US$10,000 (give or take a bit). Think that is considered cheap..

The distance MBA program in Australia with the most students is the APESMA MBA which is a specialist masters in technology management - done by a lot of engineers. Likely to be much cheaper than US equivalents at about A$900/subject - but depends if he needs a recognisable brand (and of course, is into technology/engineering in some way!).

What your friend chooses to do might partly depend on what he wants to get out of it. If he's doing it for the 'instant big salary + networking opps', then an online gig might not do it for him. If it is because he needs it to progress in his current job, the online thing might work if it is reasonably reputable.
posted by AnnaRat at 10:03 AM on February 17, 2005

Trharlan, the remark was pointed at me, not you. Please accept my apologies for not being explicit about it.
posted by grouse at 10:12 AM on February 17, 2005

John Bear has useful information at his site.
posted by mduda at 11:22 AM on February 17, 2005

Another suggestion would be the University of Maryland University College. They're cheaper than most MBA programs and they have a lot of interesting specializations. I would not recommend your friend attend Cappella, U of Phoenix, Baker, or Walden, as those are all sort of sketchy from most employers' perspective.
posted by acridrabbit at 4:48 PM on February 17, 2005