Hi, I am just starting to look at MBAs and am already overwhelmed.

I am in my 50's and work as a Business Development Consultant. I want to do this for general interest, not necessarily for increasing salary in the future, although it will no doubt open new opportunities to me.

Can anybody provide any high level guidance? Many thanks.

I was in a similar situation as you back in 2019/20 aged early 50s. Some of the main reasons to get an MBA are to be able to change job, career, location, increase salary, improve your network and usually your salary potential. It's usually a combination of two or three of these. 

If you are doing it just for interest then I question whether it's really worth the expense and time (unless you have money to burn).

I wanted to mainly fill in gaps in my knowledge. I already had quite a high income and have an excellent network, plus no desire to change career. So, I decided to create my own 'homemade' Executive MBA using online courses from various universities. You don't say what country you live in but there are plenty of online courses from the likes of EdX, Coursera and other platforms like Get Smarter, Esme, Future Learn etc.

It's a shame the Maryland Core MBA course on EdX was wound up. Originally it cost only £1,000 and was pretty much all the core parts of an MBA you would need. I started doing it in conjunction with a year long course with Boston University on Digital Business plus a couple of short courses on Leadership and Startups with Oxford University and Imperial College respectively. Total cost around £5k.

Think about your ultimate goals ('open new opportunities') and work backwards to see if an MBA is really what you need.

Alsdo see: https://findmbaonline.com/board/general-forum/value-alternatives-to-unaccredited-mbas-58288 

Wow Duncan, that is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much. I think the MBA is for me but you speak so much sense and I will indeed revisit things and work backwards. Thank you for taking the time out to write your message. Much appreciated. 

Sorry, I meant aslamo, although much appreciated Duncan for your reply also.