When he was still just thinking about getting his M.B.A., Poston says, friends tried to dissuade him. They said that at his age and in his situation, it was a bad idea--too great a sacrifice in time and money. It would be cheaper, they argued, just to buy the books. And Poston concedes that he, too, had always dismissed most of what he assumed business schools taught as more academic than real.
But one friend who had returned to school full-time for an M.B.A. made an argument that changed Poston's mind. "He learned that business is really a science, that there are ways of learning overall concepts, like strategic planning and market analysis, and that you could step back and apply them," Poston says. "I had never grasped that before."
Shortly after he got his degree, last May, Poston and his partners sold International HTC to their Japanese partner. Poston is looking to do a start-up again. The difference this time, he says, is he now has a set of skills that will help him succeed in any business.
JUGGLING ACT
Finding Time to Earn an M.B.A. While Running a Company
The usual route to an M.B.A. for entrepreneurs is to attend a local school part-time, taking classes nights and weekends. The advantages are twofold: you remain close to the business, and you can schedule courses to mesh with its demands.
Engineer John Roughneen, for example, is an M.B.A. student at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass. His company, Streamware Corp., produces software for vending-machine operators, and last spring, when Streamware launched an upgrade, he decided to take no classes and give his full attention to the business. "It's a matter of allocating resources," he says.
Other students with young companies control their growth to allow a quicker completion of studies. Alex Wiederhorn runs Iver Financial, an equipment-leasing brokerage in Washington, D.C. At George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., he's taking three courses, almost a full-time load. "School has an equal priority to my business because I need it to develop the company," he says. "I'm not growing the business as fast as I could, and I don't want to."
There's an upside to going full-time, too, of course: you're finished in two years. Eric Boelts, who runs Boelts Brothers Associates, a graphic-design firm in Tucson, opted for the full-time regimen at the University of Arizona, also in Tucson. "It meant being away from the business part of each day," he says, "but sustaining that kind of energy level for two years seemed more reasonable. Four years seemed so long."
Finally, many schools will accommodate your juggling act. When Hank Adams, a full-time student at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, started a sports-news publication called Extreme Fans on America Online, the dean permitted him to take a leave of absence. "He asked if this opportunity would still be available after I graduated, and I said probably not," Adams says. "So he said I could take classes as they fit my schedule."
THE BOOM IN ENTREPRENEURIAL STUDIES
Business schools are undergoing profound transformations. "M.B.A. programs are becoming more hands-on, more practical," says Chuck Hickman, director of projects and services for the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, an accrediting group in St. Louis. He says more schools are emphasizing teamwork, team teaching, and applied learning. "There's still room for theory," Hickman adds, "but in reality a lot of business problems are cross-disciplinary, complex, and kind of messy. The clinical learning experience gives students a chance to see how various functions interact."
The University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business--entrepreneur Dan Poston's school--has abandoned traditional courses for just-in-time learning. "It was plain that our focus should be on entrepreneurs," says dean Tim McGuire, who spearheaded the overhaul. "The entire first year is now built around developing a business plan, and we teach modules of various lengths to supply information chronologically. First you learn to scan the environment and the industry, then you move on through planning, finance, operations, marketing, and the rest. Instead of taking a full quarter of accounting, say, maybe you can get what you need--when you need it--in a four-hour module or a concentrated week. What is so sacrosanct about a course lasting a whole semester?"
Nobody tracks the number of company owners enrolled in business school, but demand for M.B.A. training has boomed in tandem with the entrepreneurial explosion. Two decades ago, 389 schools conferred M.B.A.'s, graduating 35,000 students in 1974. More than 700 schools offer the degree today, and this year's recipients are estimated at 90,000.
School administrators, aware that many potential students still have jobs or businesses, are making it easier for them. For instance, only a third of M.B.A. candidates now finish their work in two years. Part-timers usually finish in three or four years, but most schools allow students to stretch their studies over five years or more.
