Doctorate of Business Administration

Career Opportunities

A study from the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that employees who held an advanced degree, such as the DBA, can earn an annual salary of $74,602 not including average sign-on bonuses –this is 50% more than an employee with only a bachelor’s degree. Nevertheless, several variables do exist such as experience, prior education, and program specialties such as finance, accounting, and computers. The DBA degree by itself may be worth over $100,000 and more.

Career opportunities for a DBA graduate depend largely on the area of expertise that was studied. In academia, the degree does hold considerable weight; an associate professor in a business school can earn as much as $110,000 a year with perks such as summers off, and some even have rent-free housing. In the corporate world, business executives are among the highest paid employees in the nation. As a DBA grad there are certainly no guarantees, but the degree can be a huge asset as a pathway to becoming a company chief executive officer. The Bureau of Labor Statistics places the median salary of a CEO at about $150,000 a year.

Admission Requirements

Doctor of Business Administration is a higher level degree and as such has pretty extensive admission requirements. Apart from having a Master’s degree in a related field from an accredited school, institutions will often also ask for professional experience, letters of recommendations, and a wide variety of other prerequisites.

What exactly is asked to be admitted largely depends on the institution you plan to enroll at. Almost every school requires the following items

• a completed master’s degree from an accredited institution. Accreditation may be local, national, or even international. The degree most often needs to be in a related field of study
• some institutions will also accepted a significant amount of professional experience in a senior management position. Very often this is tied to a certain age (40 years or older). Schools that accept this employ an admission board that will review the application.
• professional experience. Usually between 3-5 years of teaching or work experience in a senior management position
• almost every school will also require good grades (the grades you got during your master’s study and for your master’s degree)
• most schools will invite you to an interview. An admission board will try and figure out if you are suited for the study.
• very often you might also be asked to submit a short essay lining out your motivation, experience, expectations, etc

Furthermore some institutions also ask for things like

• a certain GPA (graduate grade point average), commonly above 3.5 on a scale of 4.0
• a minimum GMAT (Graduate Management Admittance Test) score, usually 600 or above
• one or several letter(s) of recommendation, coming directly from the referees (which might not only be former employers, but also peers)
• a particular set of completed master courses. A university level course in statistics, for instance, is quite often required.

If your native language is not English and you try to enroll at an American or English institution, you will also have to deliver proof of proficiency in English

• a certain TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) score, very often 500 or higher, on the paper base TOEFL
• a certain IELTS (International English Language Testing System) score, usually a score of 6 or higher

Tuition and Fees

Completing a doctorate of business administration is not only time consuming but can also put a heavy burden on your finances. Good education is never cheap , however, and you have to realize that you are investing in your future. While the money you are going to pay to attain a DBA might seem a lot at first glance, you need to keep in mind that this investment will quickly pay back.

Tuition, fees and other costs can greatly vary depending on the school you are enrolled at. Looking around and taking your time comparing prizes can save you a lot of money. Have a look at our list of offerings.

The costs involved in attaining a doctorate of business administration usually consist of the following elements

• fees (enrollment, taking exams, etc)
• tuition (generally you pay a fixed prize per credit, with courses giving you a certain amount of credit)
• additional costs (traveling, materials, books, research, health services)
• depending on whether you are going to be a full time student or not, you might also have to take forgone salary into account
• also, if you decide to study on site, you will also have to take costs for a room into account

So, how much money are you going to have to spend in total?

Tuition is going to cost you somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000. As you can tell there is a hug gap between those numbers, making it almost imperative to investigate the tuition of as many schools as possible.

University Health Service fees usually cost around $1000 (if you are a single) up to $6000 (if you are married with children) for 12 months. Note that not all universities make this mandatory. Usually, however, health services provided by school are less expensive than common plans.
Books and other materials necessary will cost you more than you likely expect. Paying between $5,000 and $10,000 for all necessary literature and material is not out of the ordinary.

Exam and enrollment fees vary greatly depending on the school as well. All in all you should expect somewhere between $1,000 and $3,000.

Duration

While the time for completion certainly depends in a large degree on your ability to complete tasks, papers, reading, etc in a timely manner, basically a doctorate of business administration can be achieved in two ways

• as a full time study
• or a part time study

Most people complete the full-time study within 4 years.

Part-time usually takes anywhere between 3 and 8 years.

However, you need to take into consideration that you might spend additional time researching and writing your doctoral thesis. It is not uncommon for MBA students to spend another 6 or even 12 months on their final paper.