“all the things that you would need to learn in a full-time 2 year MBA program”
I can’t think of a single thing that would be on that list. Business School is not like Law School or Medical School where you must remember the “things” you learned. Employers use the MBA to differentiate candidates. It’s unlikely that you’ll use all that much from the curriculum on your first job. You even say so yourself, “firms hire MBAs on their abilities to learn and not what they’ve already learned”.
“I just don’t see how that is remotely possible.”
How could you if you’ve never done it? Every large project I’ve ever worked on had issues with interpersonal communication, project management, logistics, deployment, revenue generation, and profitability (you know, all the important stuff), in a manner that business school can’t even imagine covering.
“the problem is the quality not the quantity”
Exactly. That’s my whole point. The quality of a hands on business education blows away anything academic. I imagine most business people (with MBAs or not) would heartily concur. The only thing I remember from business school was, “A degree in business is a degree in nothing.”
“in-depth case analysis”
Case studies are notoriously poor for learning about business. What good is it to study business decisions after the fact, when you already know what they didn’t? If you don’t want to listen to me, perhaps he’s a little more convincing. (Whether you agree with me about anything or not, I strongly suggest this video. A lot to learn from someone with real battle scars.)
“with your professor and the other students”
who pale in comparison to people your encounter every day on the job. Why do you think the most important class in any business school is the internship?