A Master of Business Administration (MBA) offers a lifetime of opportunity for professionals of all ages. If you’re over 40, however, you might assume that your ideal window to earn that prestigious title has passed. Hence the common question: “What is the best age to do an MBA?”
The answer is different for everyone. Each stage of life brings benefits and challenges to postgraduate education. However, you can take comfort in knowing that there is no age limit for higher education. In fact, a 40-year-old MBA can offer many unique advantages over those enjoyed by younger students.
What will you gain from an MBA after 30 years?
Before I tell you what you’ll get from an MBA, let’s clear the clouds from your mind, shall we?
You want to move up the ladder faster. Or maybe you want to change careers.
For one or all of these reasons, you’ve decided to get an MBA from a top business school. But what is the average age to obtain an MBA? Are you too old? Or too young? Do you have too little or too much work experience?
While most business schools these days avoid sharing the average age of their classes, the truth is that most have the average age in mind. What is this magic number? Based on figures published in previous years, which are still valid today, the average age of MBA students in the best business schools is 28-29 years old.
AVERAGE MBA ENTRY AGE: WHY FULL-TIME MBA PROGRAMS CAN BE 20
At many European business schools, the average age tends to be a bit higher. For example, INSEAD has an average age of 29 with six years of work experience. But 22% of INSEAD’s 1,020 lower-class MBA students have more than seven years of work experience, while only 5% have three years or less of work experience on their CVs. Meanwhile, the 497 students in London Business School’s MBA class of 2021 have an average of five years of work experience, but range from two to 14 years.
The youngest average age for an MBA in the American Top 50? This distinction affects admissions to MBAs at two public universities: the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, where the median age is 26, with only 41 and 39 months of work experience, respectively