Wharton | San Francisco has garnered the attention of members of the international media, including most recently the Financial Times (“Executives Are Willing to Pay the Price for Knowledge”).
The author, Ian Wylie, devotes a good deal of “ink” to discussing Wharton’s position in the executive MBA marketplace. The MBA for Executives program at Wharton | San Francisco is the world’s most expensive. But, according to the comments from actual students cited in the article, it is well worth it.
Joanne Huang Medvitz comments on how challenging the financial and time commitments are and says about the program: “They have to prove even more that it’s worth the time and those negotiations with your family.” She has almost finished her degree, so she has clearly found that the Wharton MBA was worth this.
Another student, Peter Eberle, stresses how an executive MBA program would only be worth it to him if it was the top of the top tier. As an entrepreneur with an emergent startup, he has also experienced the other benefits of the Wharton network and brand:
“The networking opportunities have exceeded my expectations; from alumni and VCs to other entrepreneurs with whom we’d never have got that first meeting without the Wharton name,” he tells FT.
One more indicator of the value of the MBA for Executives program at Wharton | San Francisco is that executives are “queuing up to pay $175,678 to enroll at the School,” as Wylie writes. That price tag represents a 1 percent increase over the rate the previous class paid.
“The ability to increase the price of a graduate management degree is a testament to the value proposition of the degree,” Dave Wilson, chief executive of the Graduate Management Admission Council, says in the article.
Indeed, students enjoy all the benefits of the new Hills Brothers campus, including the latest education-enabling technology. They receive the same coursework and instruction from the same faculty, as well as more than 700 hours of contact time, the exact amount as their East Coast compatriots.
“They are getting more for their money–other programs offer 400 hours and their fees are not much less than ours,” Bernadette Birt, executive director of the program, says.
And as Eberle says in the article, students engage in the rigorous coursework and walk away after two years with knowledge they can apply toward real-world consequence and a network of alumni and peers that will take their call whenever assistance is needed.
