Philadelphia Inquirer, For $214,800, You Can Get a Wharton Executive MBA From the Comfort of Your Couch (Mostly):

Executives who want a business degree now have a new option at the Wharton School which this month launched a “global” executive program offering 75% virtual and 25% in-person classes.

This is the first time the acclaimed business school has offered an executive MBA program that is mostly online class instruction. The program will start in May 2023 and cost $214,800, the same price as Wharton’s in-person MBA degree.

Online MBA programs abound, but Wharton is the first of the top-ranked U.S. MBA programs to launch a hybrid version of the degree. In addition to Wharton, top ranked MBAs include Columbia Business School, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Harvard Business School, New York University’s Stern School, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Poets & Quants, Wharton’s Big Gamble: Why Would Anyone Pay A Quarter Of A Million For An Online MBA?:

At a time when higher education institutions are frequently criticized for the cost of their degrees, the Wharton School is making a bold move by launching an online MBA program with an astounding price tag of $214,800.

Is it a tone-deaf gamble for Wharton which is pricing this Executive MBA program, 75% of which will be delivered via the Internet, at exactly the same price as its fully in-person Executive MBAs in Philadelphia and San Francisco? Or is it a smart strategic move, leveraging the formidable power of the school’s brand and the desire among more applicants for greater flexibility?

Either way, the decision by Dean Erika James for Wharton to become the first M7 business school to offer an online MBA is a new watershed in online learning. The program will be the most expensive online degree in the world, and Dean James is launching it as more people question the value and the return on investment of the MBA degree overall. When all is said and done, most of the students recruited into this program will end up paying a quarter of a million dollars or more for their online degrees, once you take into account interest on student loans and travel expenses for the 25% of the program that is in-person. …

The pricing is counter-intuitive, if not insensitive to larger macro trends. … The highest ranked online MBA at Indiana University’s Kelley School is a third of the cost of Wharton’s. … Thousands of students, many of them resembling the age and years of work experience of Wharton’s traditional EMBA candidates, are now enrolled in online MBA programs at the University of Illinois and Boston University where the cost of the entire degree is less than $25,000.

Fortune, Wharton Is First Ivy League Business School to Launch a Hybrid Executive MBA Program