Top Ten Reasons to Get Your MBA Online

By Sarah Stevenson

1. Revitalize your career without rearranging your life. Online MBA programs provide flexibility in scheduling, enabling you to pick class times that work for you even if you're juggling a family, a job and a social life. With an online MBA program, you can work from home at any time of day or night. By the time you graduate, you'll have the management skills to take on a more rewarding role in your current career, follow a new career path, or start your own business.

2. Keep working while you earn your degree. Studying in an online MBA program gives you the flexibility of continuing to work in your current field, or of getting entry-level experience in business while you pursue your degree. Be sure to check with your employer—they may pay to send you to school. Your company will benefit from the advanced and up-to-date skills that you gain. Meanwhile, you benefit from paid training and potential salary increases.

3. Increase earning potential and job security. According to GMAC's Global Management Education Graduate Survey for 2009, completing an MBA degree is associated with significant salary increases.Another benefit of graduating from an online MBA program is the added job security: An MBA graduate possesses the types of skills and expertise employers want to recruit—and retain.

4. Fast-track your business savvy. In as little as 18 to 24 months, an online MBA program can teach you what you need to know to be successful in the marketplace. It can take years of on-the-job learning to glean the business knowledge, technical abilities, management skills and problem-solving strategies gained through online instruction.

5. Maximize your time.  An online MBA degree offers nearly all of the benefits of a traditional MBA degree, but with the added advantage of not requiring a long commute to campus. You'll have that additional time available to study and learn—and you'll be able to schedule it around your needs instead of the other way around.

6. Reduce your expenses.  Studying in an online MBA program means you won't have to pay a lot of those incidental expenses that can turn even the most dedicated pupil into a starving student—out-of state tuition, high gas prices, parking fees and eating on the run, to name a few.

7. Save the environment.  Because you won't have to drive to and from a brick-and-mortar campus every day, as an online student you'll be doing your part to reduce environmental emissions. Since many educational resources are available online as well, you won't be using as much paper, and you'll save a tree or two by turning in assignments over the Internet.

8. Grow your networking resources. With modern technological tools like email, instant messaging, and real-time chat, students in an online MBA program can take advantage of the same valuable networking opportunities that traditional students enjoy. Such professional relationships with fellow students, professors and alumni provide essential mentoring and contacts that can serve you well throughout your career.

9. Make yourself marketable in any field. Earning your MBA degree online offers ample career possibilities in a multitude of fields, since potential employers highly value graduates with business expertise. In particular, the innovative teaching methods and cutting-edge technology used in online programs impart 21st-century communication skills that are in demand in every workplace.

10. Become an asset in a changing economy. As the world moves towards a greater emphasis on green jobs, new technologies and improvement of environmental and socioeconomic standards, graduates with online MBA degrees are poised to help shape the future of the global marketplace with socially conscious and technologically efficient practices in every area of business, from non-profit management to e-commerce to international finance.