Is the MBA bubble in India bursting? What is the real ROI of an MBA degree?

The question of whether India's MBA bubble is bursting doesn't have a clean yes or no answer — and in our experience, it rarely does. The picture that emerges from extensive student and alumni conversations is one of deep division, shaped heavily by which institution you attend, what background you come from, and crucially, what you do with the two years you're there.

The concern is real and worth taking seriously. Fees at top-tier institutions have climbed steeply, placement outcomes have become less predictable across the board, and the broader hiring market is visibly shifting toward skill-based and outcome-based credentials over degree-based ones. These are structural pressures, not just anxiety cycles.

But the ROI story for tier-1 institutions remains compelling when you look at actual numbers. We've seen consistent patterns from IIM graduates: a 2021 IIM graduate reported moving from 5 LPA pre-MBA to 30 LPA post-MBA — a 6x jump. That kind of trajectory isn't universal, but it's not exceptional either at the top programs. What experienced professionals and alumni consistently emphasize, though, is that the degree itself isn't doing that work. The network, the peer cohort, the case study environment, and the two years of deliberate leverage are what drive those outcomes. The credential opens the door; what you build while inside determines the ceiling.

There's also an important structural argument that tends to get underweighted in these conversations. For non-technical graduates — BBA holders, humanities and commerce backgrounds — the MBA isn't just a salary multiplier. It's often the entry credential that unlocks corporate roles entirely, because many functions and departments explicitly require it. For those profiles, the ROI calculation isn't just about salary delta; it's about access. An IIIT graduate pursuing IIM Calcutta acknowledged this directly: even with competitive tech salaries on the table, an MBA from a tier-1 institution helps non-tech backgrounds reach comparable compensation levels through different routes.

On curriculum, the picture is more complicated. We've heard valid criticism that several IIM programs still lean on theoretical frameworks from the 1990s that don't map cleanly onto today's business environment. At the same time, there are genuine exceptions — an SPJIMR student pointed to their dean's silicon valley-inspired curriculum innovations as a meaningful departure from the standard model. The broader consensus, though, is that classroom learning is less central to MBA value than networking, case study application, and what you might call a founder's mindset — the ability to identify problems, move quickly, and build across functions.

One framing that we've found cuts through the noise: "MBA is a worthless degree but a brilliant platform to get better-paying opportunities." It's a deliberately provocative way of saying the same thing — prioritize what the platform gives you access to, not the certificate itself.

The dissenting voices deserve space too, because they're pointing at something real. AI and large language models are already compressing some of the knowledge arbitrage that MBAs traditionally offered. Tech professionals with 4 to 5 years of strong experience are in many cases earning more than freshly minted IIM graduates. And from professionals with 20 years of experience, including IIM Lucknow alumni, we've heard that a meaningful number of peers are now either between roles or heavily dependent on alumni networks to sustain their trajectories — which is its own commentary on how durable the MBA premium actually is over a long career.

Where does this leave the "bubble" question? The honest answer is that the bubble framing is largely overstated for tier-1 institutions — IIMs, ISB — but reasonably accurate for tier-2 and below, where fees are rising faster than placement outcomes can justify. Fresher MBAs face a structurally harder environment than candidates who enter with prior work experience, and there's a growing case — raised by IIM alumni themselves — for creating more formally differentiated programs for work-experienced versus fresher cohorts rather than treating them as one homogeneous intake.

The MBA isn't dying. But it is being stress-tested. And from what we've tracked, the students who get the most out of it are the ones who go in with a specific reason, use the network with intent, and don't mistake the degree for the destination.