Should You Get an MBA or MPH to Work in Digital Health?
Unpacking the pros and cons of MBA vs MPH for careers in digital health: which degree is right for you?
Graduating from Harvard Business School in 2011 (I’m third from the left)
I often get asked if I would recommend a Master of Business Administration (MBA), a Master of Public Health (MPH), or both, or neither, for launching a career in digital health. For context, I have both degrees. I earned my MBA early in my career, just two years out of college. I went back for my MPH 10 years later, after founding and running Rock Health and joining Columbia Business School as an Adjunct Professor. I’m so proud to have both degrees, but they were not easy or affordable.
In this post, I’ll go over what I usually tell people when they ask, “Should I get an MBA or MPH?”
What's the difference between an MBA and MPH?
An MBA is a graduate-level business degree that focuses on business management, strategy, finance, marketing, and operations. It typically covers topics such as finance, accounting, marketing, human resources, entrepreneurship, and operations. Graduates go on to work in banks, consulting firms, startups, non-profits, and corporations in a variety of positions leveraging their degrees.
An MPH is a graduate-level degree that focuses on public health. It covers a wide range of topics, including epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy, environmental health, and health promotion. MPH graduates are typically employed in public health agencies, non-profit organizations, governments, and healthcare settings.
The main difference between an MBA and an MPH is the curriculum. An MBA is primarily focused on business administration and management, while an MPH is focused on public health. There are some similarities between the two degrees, such as the emphasis on leadership, critical thinking, and the importance of analytical skills.
My experience getting an MBA and MPH
I’m going to caveat this section by saying that I went to these two graduate schools at two very different times in my life, looking for two different things. Your experience and the benefits you receive from a graduate degree will also depend on where you are in life and what you’re looking for.
The MBA
I was 25 when I started the 2-year full-time MBA program at Harvard Business School. I had two years of work experience in San Francisco, along with excellent undergraduate grades, a solid GMAT score, and a clear vision of what I wanted to do. Which was to combine my interests in business, healthcare, and technology. I sought out business school because I felt stymied and a little lost. While I went to a top-50 undergraduate program (Case Western Reserve University), I had no network in Silicon Valley and most people hadn’t even heard of Case.
Getting in and going to Harvard, especially as a first-generation college graduate, was huge for me and my family, and I took the opportunity very seriously. But adjusting was difficult, and I often felt like I didn’t belong. I eventually got the hang of things, made friends, and used every resource to chart my path forward.
To me, the biggest takeaways from the MBA were:
Learning how to speak and think in business settings. By analyzing real-world cases and engaging in lively classroom debates (they call this the Socratic method), I honed my ability to think quickly on my feet and communicate more effectively.
Building a network. The first backers of Rock Health (Nike, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente) were made possible by mentors and alumni I met through HBS. I’ve also invested in several of my classmate’s businesses and vice versa. The network continues to support and inspire me long after graduation.
Credibility. Having an HBS MBA boosted my credibility. It opened doors for me (e.g., an internship at Apple, an independent study with Nike, and co-authoring a HBS case study) that would have been impossible before.
The MPH
I was 35 when I started a 3-year part-time MPH program at Johns Hopkins. I had over a decade of leadership experience, including starting and running Rock Health and becoming an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School. I had been angel investing for many years in the digital health space. And while I was pretty good at understanding business models, I wanted to be able to better evaluate their potential for impact. Enter the MPH. My goal was simply to learn. To learn as much as I could about the distribution and determinants of health and disease in populations, how to design and evaluate public health interventions, and how our healthcare system is organized, including issues related to access, quality, and cost-effectiveness.
I brought so much more with me to the MPH program, as did my classmates who were older and more experienced than my classmates at HBS (who were all about two years out of college). I loved every class and really geeked out on the curriculum.
To me, the biggest takeaways from the MPH were:
Building empathy for healthcare stakeholders. There was a huge social justice component to the curriculum, and the MPH coursework helped me understand how our system disadvantages certain populations and how to address systemic issues that impact access to care and health outcomes for marginalized communities.
Learning how to “do my own research.” One of the key skills I developed was the ability to better assess the quality of research studies and how to decipher the outcomes. Through coursework in study design, sampling methods, data analysis, and interpretation of results, I’m now better at identifying potential sources of bias in research studies and evaluating the strength of evidence.
To me, the MBA was about gaining skills and the MPH was about gaining subject matter expertise. Both were exactly what I needed at that time in my career. And so you should ask yourself, what is it you’re after?
Okay, Halle, just tell me which one should I pick.
I’m going to give you the annoying non-answer I learned from business school: it depends!
What do you want to gain? Do you want to gain knowledge, skills, network, or a combination of the three? What is your current weakness? If it’s business skills and acumen you’re yearning for, then MBA is your ticket. If it’s an understanding of epidemiology and infectious diseases, then go for the MPH. If it’s a career network, then I would say the format (online vs in-person) and location matter more than if it’s an MBA or MPH.
What job do you want in digital health? What sort of roles excite you in digital health? Here are some popular jobs and what degree may be a good fit:
Product Manager → MBA
Business Development → MBA
Marketing → MBA
VC → MBA
Founder → MBA/Both
Data Analyst → Either/Both
User Experience Designer → MPH
Digital Health Program Manager → MPH
Biostatistician → MPH
Epidemiologist → MPH
Non-profit Leader → Either/Both
Health Policy Analyst → MPH
Health Educator → MPH
One exercise you can do is think about the role(s) you’d like to have, then go to LinkedIn and see what credentials people with that job title have.
How much time, money, and flexibility do you have? Being able to drop everything and go to school full-time is a luxury. If you need to keep working while earning your degree, there seem to be more top-tier MPH programs (like Johns Hopkins, UNC, and Berkeley) that offer virtual, part-time programs. MPH programs tend to be less expensive and offer more scholarships. JHU, for instance, offers tons of grants, including the Welsh Scholarship, to all online/part-time MPH students.
What’s the current economic climate? I started my MBA in 2009 during The Great Recession. It was a great place to park myself and focus on gaining skills and knowledge while the job market wasn’t so hot.
Of course, you can always do neither. Grad school is expensive and time-consuming. Think about your opportunity costs, and if you can reach your goals on your current trajectory.
How does the MBA vs MPH salary compare?
If you care about a high-earning career (and there’s nothing wrong with that!), you may be wondering which degree will set you up for a lifetime of higher earnings.
MBAs, on average, make more money out of school. The median starting salary for MBA graduates in 2021 was $115,000. That number is higher for graduates of top programs; at Harvard Business School and Wharton, the median base salary was $175,000, with a median signing bonus of $30,000 for 2022 graduates.
While I can’t find industry data overall for MPH graduates, Columbia’s School of Public Health shared data on the median salary for graduates six months out to be $72,250. The range was $34,000 to $600,000.
Keep in mind that your specific career path will be a bigger determinant of lifetime earnings than your degree.
Which is harder to get into, an MBA or MPH program?
Acceptance rates vary depending on the school. Looking at the top five schools for each degree, business schools accept fewer applicants than schools of public health. If you look at an MBA program like Vanderbilt (ranked #27), the acceptance rate is about the same as the #1 ranked school of public health, Johns Hopkins.
While I think it’s fair to say business schools overall have a lower acceptance rate, MPH programs tend to require a stronger background in science or medicine and may have more specific prerequisites than MBA programs. This could mean fewer, more qualified people apply to MPH programs. While Harvard Business School gets upwards of 10,000 applications each year, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health gets about half of that.
Is the dual MBA/MPH worth it?
I think dual MBA/MPH programs are great. Especially if you are interested in pursuing a career in digital health that combines business and public health, a dual degree may provide you with the skills and knowledge you need to be successful. For example, if you are interested in a leadership position at a tech-enabled healthcare services startup (like Cityblock Health or Tia), a dual degree can help you understand the business aspects of healthcare while also considering public health implications.
Summing it up
Both MBA and MPH degrees have their advantages and disadvantages when it comes to a career in digital health. While an MBA degree can provide a solid foundation in business and management, an MPH degree focuses on public health, including epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy, and health promotion. Ultimately, the decision of whether to pursue an MBA, an MPH, or both will depend on your interests, career aspirations, and personal circumstances.
If I had to summarize my experience getting an MBA and MPH, I would say my MBA taught me how to make money, and my MPH taught me how to make an impact. At the end of the day, there are other ways to gain expertise, skills, and a network. But for many of us, a graduate program is a fast track to accomplishing career goals.