In the 1980s and 1990s, Wall Street was the 'American Dream' for anyone aspiring to success and wealth in America, and an MBA was the 'ultimate path' to high-level executive jobs and attractive salaries. Today, after three decades, the situation has changed. After the financial crisis of 2007–2008, ambitious young people dreaming of 'executive jobs' and 'handsome salaries' are looking outside the world of Wall Street and the financial sector for success in professional life. The technology industry, which is currently in the early stages of growth and development, has now become the new 'American Dream'.

Experts tracking industry data say that finance and consulting are now the top choices for students graduating from top colleges in the technology industry. David Menk, founder and chief executive officer of the American data company 'Kamino Data', sheds light on this situation and says, "When I joined Princeton in 2003, doing an MBA or JD/MBA was still considered a big deal." And getting this degree was the first wish of every student.

Just four years later, when I was about to leave Princeton after completing my MBA, I suddenly realized that we were all more interested in entrepreneurship than celebrating the completion of our business studies. Before us, there were people who had built successful businesses in the technology sector. We were seeing that there were very few barriers to entry in this sector and even if you failed there, it was not considered a handicap."

Instead of 'Wall Street', 'Silicon Valley' is now considered the 'American Dream'. In America's famous 'Silicon Valley', where Mark Zuckerberg's motto 'Move fast and break things' is considered the guiding principle for success, MBA is considered a less useful commodity. "When I interviewed young professionals with MBA degrees from Safi Awal's business school or professionals with work experience in large beverage companies, I realized that their personalities were similar to ours in their desire for innovation and rapid growth.

They believe that hard work, access to the right skills and the ability to quickly adapt to a new culture are more important to succeed in a 'tech startup' than a regular Masters degree. This trend can also be seen in the decrease in the number of students coming to get admission to business schools in America. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the number of students applying to MBA programs in the US has declined for the fourth year in a row, while many business schools have ended their traditional, full-time 'on-campus' MBA. The program has been terminated by many business schools. The University of Illinois Jay's College of Business is one of them. Instead, these schools are putting more focus and effort into the entrepreneurship MBA, which is seeing an increase in interest from American students.

Instead of traditional MBA programs, American business schools are offering relatively short-term and low-cost master's programs in 'high-demand' fields such as data science and supply chain management. Realizing these changing trends, companies like Microsoft and IBM have introduced in-house degree programs in fields like artificial intelligence and data analytics so that their employees don't leave them to join another company.

This is not surprising because an MBA degree in the United States costs between $100,000 and $200,000, and this puts many 20-year-olds out of the college race for an MBA. Undergraduates are already burdened with debt upon reaching college. Youngsters interested in entrepreneurship prefer to spend the time and money to lay the foundations of their professional careers.

Yunha Kim is the founder and chief operating officer of the startup 'Simple Habit'. Within days of enrolling at the prestigious Stanford Graduate School of Business, she realized that even an MBA degree from a world-renowned school would not get her what she wanted in life. . 20-year-old Yunha Kim launched her own meditation app after saying goodbye to Stanford after the first semester. “I joined Stanford GSB to build my professional network,” she says. There, I started 'Simple Habit' as an experimental project, hired an engineer from my savings and launched the app.

Final Call

Although 7th to 12th graders belonging to Generation Z are interested in 'owning their own business' rather than working in the corporate sector, statistics show that 9 out of 10 startups fail and most startups do not get the investment they need, which meant that they had to raise capital from their own resources.

In contrast, proponents of a traditional business degree believe that the greatest benefit of an MBA is that it provides students with professional networking, where a group of talented future leaders is formed who can help them on their professional journey.