Education should not be restricted in anyway, neither by caste, creed, gender or religion and neither by the age of a person. Knowledge is to be shared and hence it should be accessible to all. Thinking about an age limit for students aiming to do an MBA course, let’s think why should there be a limit in the first place? What sense does it make? Is there any logic to stop a person from gaining admission into a top business school because of nothing but an inconsequential factor called ‘age’? Age does not affect any credentials required to pursue any program. It does not require physical fitness to study and neither does it require pretty young looks to fetch good ranks and enrollments in high ranked business schools.
The current trend witnesses an increase in the number of younger students admitted with some major B-schools letting go off the criteria of work experience while choosing candidates. Harvard Business School has started recruiting young scholars for their MBA course. They aim for students having completed 3 year of basic graduation. The average age of students in MBA programs has fallen to 26. Earlier, the norms were slightly different with candidates desiring to earn a solid and credible work experience of at least 2-3 years and only then apply for good colleges with the GMAT or the CAT scores. Thus, did things go wrong when older students were given admission? The answer is no! Older students have their own maturity levels; their grasping power is more as they have a few years of work experience. That lends them practicality at work making better students for reputed B-schools.
There are many other important guiding factors regulating the debate of whether should there be an age limit for doing an MBA. For example consultancy positions are out of question for very young MBA graduates thus making older MBA students are fairer choice in the deal. Another very essential factor why age limits should be strict no-no is because institutions must consider human and monetary factors. As known, MBA courses are expensive and hence one cannot deny students who hold the possibility of pursuing MBA later in life after personally having earned the resources to afford one. Some students could have also gotten late for an MBA program due to unforeseen personal reasons.
MBAupdates sees no reason or logic as to why should there be an age limit for students who desire to pursue their MBA. The research done by MBAupdates show only positive impact of the students acquiring such degrees at older ages and has found nothing adverse to advocate age restrictions.
