MBA? Not a chance. To get one from a good program, you're looking at nearly $100k annually in tuition/board/supplies/etc. Even worse, it's either 2 years away from your work or you spend 2-3 years doing the work-all-day, school-all-night thing. And you're only young once - you can't get that time back once you use it that way. How much income, progress, and enjoyment are you sacrificing with that degree?
If you think there's anything an MBA will teach you that you can't learn from a combination of books, networking, and real-world experience, you're crazy. A good degree is a great credibility indicator, but it's certainly not the only one, or even the best. It can give you access to a great network (if you choose to take advantage of it) but then again, so can a lot of fun things that cost far less...
-Charity work (though some charities are certainly more "posh" than others, so choose wisely if networking is your goal)
-Engaging in expensive hobbies. Example: Try Googling the names of people who bring cars to the Pebble Beach Concours. The event itself is not crazy expensive, and the kind of people who own vintage Aston Martins are generally pretty rich and well-connected. With a shared interest, you have plenty of material to kick off the conversation.
-Flying first class (though I personally hate talking on planes), hanging out in nice hotels in business districts in big cities
-Networking events. If the event is on Meetup.com, you can even look up attendees in advance and figure out who you should make a point of talking to.
-Volunteer with a political party
-Attend high-end functions. $300 front-row tickets to a winery concert can put you in between some of the top businesspeople in your metro area...celebrities, too, on occasion. A $500/plate charity dinner can put you at a table with the same kind of people AND help a worthy cause.
-Find a nonprofit that grants access to special events for large donors. For example, $1000 gets you into a donor circle at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where you get access to exclusive events and receptions with the director (it's right by Carmel-by-the-Sea and Pebble Beach so a lot of influential people get involved there). $10k will get you a leadership/board role at a lot of big city museums. It's also tax deductible and it comes with the added bonus of warm and fuzzy feelings for helping out a good institution and educating/inspiring future generations.
Making time for a couple unusual hobbies or experiences doesn't hurt, either. It makes you memorable and interesting in a world where most people are...not.
You actually have a huge advantage in networking that way if you know anything at all about the internet. Even if you're not very good at what you do...most people (especially older, more established businesspeople) know far less. If you can be the expert while still giving the other person plenty of opportunities to brag on their own accomplishments, you'll walk away with a valuable connection.
An MBA is the uncreative solution to a problem that can be solved more efficiently. As such, it's a crowded path with a lower ROI than a lot of other avenues. It's the classic case of "sometimes it's harder to be average than exceptional". There are definitely individual factors that will make it more worthwhile for some people (ego, love of school, corporate career, etc.), but there's not much that could persuade me to divert that much focus and money away from what I'm doing now.
