To MBA or Not to MBA Can a formal education really help you make your entrepreneurial dreams come true? Experts weigh in.

The master's in business administration has officially become the most popular graduate degree in America. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 191,571 people graduated from U.S. schools in 2012 with advanced degrees in business, representing about one in four of all master's degrees conferred nationwide. Yet while trends point to ever-higher business-school enrollment, the debate over the value of an MBA--the return on a high-priced investment--roils on. Here's what two business experts had to say about the degree and its pros and cons.

"You have to know all this stuff if you're going to work in business."

For all the wisdom a student might accumulate in a full-time, two-year MBA program, the real value in a graduate business-school education is in learning how to think like a businessperson, says Germain B?er, director of the Owen Entrepreneurship Center at Vanderbilt University.