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text | appearance and inside, author | yu liling, editors | cao binling, fu xiaoling

after two years of classes, he lost 1.1 million yuan, couldn’t find a job after graduation, and was tricked by his classmates into buying insurance... the middle class needs "three things" to get out of poverty, but xixi only needs to get an mba to get out of poverty.

munching on dry bread, rushing to the next interview point on the subway, she hated the hardships she was going through today, all because of the water that had entered her brain back then.

when she first stepped into the mba classroom of a well-known 985 university in china, she was full of energy and vowed to live a "counterattack life."

after all, how many people who failed the college entrance examination have become graduates of prestigious universities through mba, and how many lucky ones have met ceos of famous companies, government officials, and cultural celebrities in business schools, and have played around in the world of fame and fortune where "ability, resources, and opportunities" all come together.

however, xixi, who quit her job with an annual salary of 300,000 yuan at the age of 30 and paid 500,000 yuan in tuition, did not wait for a turning point in her life, but bad news of her fate.

the classmate who claimed to be a "financial tycoon" was actually an insurance salesman in disguise. the academic certificate that should have opened the door to multinational companies instead led to a career in civil service examinations, and his wallet became increasingly empty as expected.

xixi is not the only one who is trapped by an mba. in this article, whether it is a middle-level leader at the headquarters of a financial company or a senior p in a large company with ten years of work experience, they have all felt the "job-shrinking force" of an mba without exception.

how come mba, the “lifetime ticket” to a better world, has become invalid?

1. a 300,000 yuan degree is a gold-plated course for a decade

"if i hadn't studied for an mba, i would have been very breathless when arguing with my colleagues." liu zhi went back to school to get his reputation back.

as a manager in the compliance department of a financial group, his rank would have allowed him to be the second-in-command in a local company, but he was often criticized by younger colleagues in public, and he did not dare to speak back loudly, thus forcibly squeezing into the track of "cowardly leader".

liu zhi also wanted to stand up straight, but he had a hard time with his academic qualifications - he graduated from a low-tier 985 university with a non-law or finance major, and he couldn't help feeling a little insecure when questioned by colleagues with a finance background from peking university or tsinghua university.

after losing the battle with his colleagues for the nth time, he spent more than 10,000 yuan to hire an agent and officially launched a sprint for mba programs such as tsinghua university's pbc school of management and peking university's guanghua school of management.

"as long as i can get in, i can earn it back." liu zhi has a plan. an mba can not only improve his academic qualifications, but its "jack of all trades" professional nature, which covers a wide range of business knowledge such as management, finance, and strategy, is also in line with the requirements of his job position.

more importantly, he can also take a gamble.

“insurance claims manager – corporate consulting – pevc investment vice president”, “big four accountant – transaction consulting consultant – private equity fund founder”… liu zhi had long observed thatsuccessful people in the industry who have achieved an annual salary of one million and a "triple jump in life" all have some experience studying for an mba around the age of 30.

what's more,initially, one only has three degrees, but after attending a 985 mba, one can be on par with the big guys who graduated from the same school with a bachelor's and master's degree. after attending the top2 training courses, one dares to call himself a "classmate of peking university and tsinghua university" when meeting others.

qingyu also discovered that academic qualifications bring not only the halo of a prestigious school to people in the workplace, but also the resources of the prestigious school circle. after returning from studying abroad at an ivy league university in the united states, she has always been outside the various alumni groups in the industry.

in order to be able to join the group, she borrowed 350,000 yuan to apply for an mba program at a 985 university. unexpectedly, before she even graduated, this became a stain on her resume.

"what exactly did you learn from your mba?" qingyu was asked again by the interviewer. she was fully alert to deal with it, but the other party's brows were still furrowed. looking at this situation, she knew that she was out of luck.

“in the eyes of many hrs, an mba can be obtained by paying money, so we are just "second-class citizens" among graduate students and have little value."qing yu said helplessly. although she suffered greatly from it, she had to admit that the prejudice of the outside world was not groundless.

looking back on her time in class, the teacher was just reading from a black ppt with a white background. half of the content was knowledge she had learned in undergraduate studies. some of the knowledge on borrowing and lending was from ten years ago and was completely out of touch with current accounting standards.

some teachers are even too lazy to be perfunctory. they brag in the classrooms that students have paid hard-earned money for, saying, "i gave a lecture to a fortune 500 company last week and charged 20,000 yuan for two hours," and "i recently published a new book." qingyu suspects that self-study on the internet will gain more than attending classes.

li li, a senior manager at a large company, also feels deeply about this. many of his classmates in the mba program at a 985 university have difficulty graduating: "they go out to eat and drink right after class, and they work harder socializing than studying. exchange students and international students study for half a year and play for half a year. it would be strange if they can succeed."

the number of students who graduate on time is not small. he once read a classmate's paper, which was full of holes, but successfully passed the blind review of the college. he couldn't help but sigh.faced with tuition fees of three or five hundred thousand yuan, even the most famous schools will turn a blind eye.

there is more than one university that is trying every means to open its doors for people in the workplace. in recent years, more and more colleges and universities have joined the ranks of mba admissions, among which 985 and 211 account for less than 40%.

what followed was the national line that plummeted all the way, and a large number of working people flocked to it. the number of mba applicants from 2016 to 2022 increased from 100,000 to 250,000.

this has further diluted the value of mba qualifications, making the reputation of "watered-down masters" more deeply rooted in people's minds.

of course, the mba programs of prestigious universities and famous business schools such as tsinghua university, peking university, fudan university, jiaotong university, cheung kong university, ceibs, and insead still have high entry requirements. liu zhi has always regretted not being able to be admitted to the mba program at peking university or tsinghua university and losing the opportunity to "change his fate."

until last week, a classmate who studied for an mba at peking university told him that he couldn't find a job.

two,after graduating from full-time studies, hr directly determined that i would have a "two-year gap"

5 years of work experience at a bank headquarters, 2 years of mba studies at peking university, 6 months of internship at an investment bank, working overtime until the early hours every day, but being squeezed out by fresh graduates with a master's degree in finance who had no background - the sad experience of his friend made liu zhi feel terrified.

after graduating from his mba, he was faced with a dilemma: should he go through campus recruitment or social recruitment?

participating in campus recruitment means competing for academic qualifications, but data shows that mba has been offered in my country for more than 30 years, and the total number of graduates is only more than 500,000. in the past decade, the number of economics master's and doctoral graduates has reached 600,000, and management sends more than 100,000 master's and doctoral talents to society every year.

in front of these fresh and useful young people, 30+ mba graduates do not have much competitiveness.

if you go for social recruitment, work experience is more important. however, as the popularity of "water master's degrees" grows, the job market is less and less interested in them: part-time mbas are equivalent to "academic slackers" who are half-hearted about their work.those who study full-time like liu zhi are even worse off, as they are directly judged by the interviewer as having "taken a gap of two years".

when he heard this, he became furious and wanted to argue on the spot, but in the end reason overcame impulse.

at that time, he had been at home for half a year, and most of the hundreds of resumes he sent out were ignored. he knew that the situation was stronger than people. this company could offer an annual salary of 200,000 yuan, which was almost half of the previous salary. it was no longer a management position, but it was the best job he could find.

unlike liu zhi, keke went through the campus recruitment channel, but she did not compete head-on with fresh graduates in the securities and investment banking sectors. instead, she headed to the end of the universe - taking the civil service exam.

"in this way, i have the status of a fresh graduate and have work experience, so my chances of getting a job are higher." in keke's original idea, he still had a place in the job market.

however, when she actually clicked into the registration interface for selected candidates, she found that the good places were all blocked by her major, and most mba graduates were not in the targeted range. the only positions she could apply for were marginal positions in remote provinces and third- and fourth-tier cities.

even if she had to settle for the second best, she would still have to compete with a large number of fresh graduates for the same position. in this sea of ​​people, the experience she had accumulated over the extra years of life would make her advantage negligible.

but keke had no choice but to sign up because she still had an "mba loan" of 380,000 yuan, and she would need a stable income to repay it in the next few years.

looking at the employment situation of the class, one-third of the students still don’t know where they will go after graduation, and the remaining students are mostly employed by unknown small companies. being a selected candidate may be her only lifeline.

“i studied for an mba in order to find a better job, but after completing it i found that only jobs were available to us.” coco was helpless.

compared to keke, xinyue is like "knowingly heading for the tiger mountain" - by the day when tuition was paid, more than half of the colleagues in the neighboring department were laid off, and there are rumors that there will be another large-scale optimization this year.

she struggled for a long time, but finally exchanged 300,000 yuan in tuition for an admission letter.

“when the economy is good, it doesn’t matter if you make the wrong choice. but when the economy is down, everything has to be cost-effective."xinyue obviously knows how important 300,000 yuan in cash is to an older, unmarried, childless worker.

however, as a graduate of a non-985 university, she could not hold her head up in the workplace, had difficulty making progress in the love field, and had failed in blind dates time and time again. a 985 degree certificate is not only a stepping stone to a career, but perhaps also a stepping stone in life.

"people who choose to study for an mba are not bad in terms of financial resources and abilities." compared with casting a wide net, she feels that it is more likely to find close friends in a circle with similar cognition. to put it another way, the class is full of elite students, and if you can make friends with a "noble person", the tuition fee will be recovered.

but after actually entering the mba classroom, xinyue found that she was still too naive.

3. “high-level cattle and horses” can only squeeze into the “insurance circle”

in the dim, enclosed space, 10 tables arranged in a fan shape were crowded with men and women of different ages, each of them staring at the chips on the table with a secretive look.

this is an immersive drama scene in the world of money. mba students from three universities gathered together to experience the "world of fame and fortune" of financial operations and make new friends. xinyue is one of them.

however, unlike the others, xinyue had an empty gaze, waiting for the show to end. this was the nth time that her thoughts had failed. at first, she set her sights on her classmates, but most of them were just for show. they were rarely seen in class and did not do group assignments. xinyue even helped clean up the mess several times.

after that, there were more cross-school social events, but the situation was not much better. many "elite men" were keen on various mba social events, aiming at "family background", and wandering among multiple girls to determine the best target.

a boy from the construction department once directly told xinyue,i hope to have a powerful father-in-law who can help him take a step forward in his career.。

the people i met at this party basically fell into these two categories. "there is no right or wrong here. after all, my purpose is not pure either." xinyue said frankly, but after repeated failures, she gradually gave up the idea of ​​catching a "rich husband".

however, although this is a pity, it cannot be considered a big deal. after all, the core purpose of studying for an mba is to exchange resources. li li, who quit his job to study for an mba, is just like this: he leverages the resources in his circle to promote a future in the workplace.

but as soon as he came in, he was poured cold water on his head. among his classmates, almost half were born after 1995. not to mention the big bosses, even the executives were rare, and most of them were senior staff."there are no resources that can be exchanged between high-level cattle and horses."li li said self-deprecatingly.

in fact, the "younger students" problem is not a problem of one school or even one place, but a common situation of mbas in recent years.

as shown in the figure below, from 2021 to 2023, the average age of peking university guanghua mba students dropped from 33 to 32 years old; the china europe international business school also dropped from 33.9 years old to 29.6 years old.

"younger age" often means limited resume and low experience value. they are unable to provide resources, but covet other people's resources and like to take what is useful.regarding this point, qingyu, who was almost being pulled bald, couldn't control his urge to complain.

in an investment class in the first semester, qingyu met the director of a well-known insurance company. the two got along very well and not only exchanged contact information on the spot, but also agreed to keep in touch in the future.

she thought this was the beginning of building her network, but she never expected that it was the beginning of her being "plundered". within two days of knowing each other, the other party started calling her, trying to sell her various products with emotional and logical appeals. she happened to be in need of an accident insurance at the time, so she bought one from her classmate.

this was like opening pandora's box, and she fell into a vortex of being chased and forced to order. "wouldn't you give your husband a copy?" "can i help you connect with your company?"... the other party was always available and had all kinds of tricks. after all, for them, qingyu was a very efficient and accurate resource.

after this failure, qingyu kept her distance from all the people with insurance backgrounds in the class. but this did not allow her to escape from being "harassed".

as everyone became more familiar with each other, no one pretended anymore. every now and then, someone would ask qingyu for some core resources such as the net worth of listed companies. although qingyu thought that "this was too rude", he would basically give it to the other party in order to show his sincerity.

but when she had business involving other people's service areas and asked for help, she was rejected directly. after several times, she realized that she was the only one who gave and received, while others just wanted to get something for free.

at this point, qingyu wanted to just ignore it. however, the wind did not stop, and they kept asking for job referrals and introductions to other people. there was nothing they could think of, and nothing they could not say.

from this perspective, after completing an mba that cost 300,000 yuan, your career has not improved but has deteriorated, the circle you long for is almost "useless", and you even have to pay for insurance.

qingyu teased more than once,i didn’t expect that the only place i could fit in was the “insurance circle”。

(all characters in this article are pseudonyms. special thanks to bloggers "a mei mei", "brother yongchuang tianya", "zhai zhai picking up coins", "tech sister rocket", and "qi qi playing in guangzhou" for their support of this article.)