workin' for mba

I'm enrolled at Cal U to get my MBA... Or so I thought.

A few days ago, Chuck and I were shootin' the shit about his degree and what his plans were. It came up that he might consider getting his MBA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. That seemed a bit odd, seeing as how Cal offered the same thing and wouldn't require a move. He then set me straight. If you go to this website, you'll see the complete description of the MBS program at Cal (the program in which I'm currently enrolled). Now, I know it makes no mention of the term "MBA" anywhere in there, but to a dude who has an undergraduate degree in IT - it looked just the same. I'm pretty green when it comes to business education, and you'd think that after talking with my adviser and many administrative types, that SOMEBODY would have set me straight. Not Cal, though. They let me meander on, never correcting me. I must have looked pretty foolish talking to administration, faculty and my adviser. Now I've nearly completed my first semester here, and I wonder if I've done it all for nothing.

Chuck and I continued talking. I told him my primary reason for attending Cal U was because it made the most economical sense to me. Since I graduated there, I didn't have to take the GMAT or the GRE exams, thus eliminating exam fees. It wasn't far from home, so I'd be using little gas (and also decreasing my carbon footprint). Their tuition is affordable, and their activity fees are reasonable. While my plight still remains purely economical, my choices aren't as exciting as I'd like to envision them. Chuck told me that there are plenty of "distance learning" programs that would allow me to earn my MBA from home. This is all well and good, except these types of programs are typically several hundred dollars more per-credit-hour. For example, Cal has a per-credit-hour fee of $327.00 for graduate students. Not bad at all. In contrast, two schools I've briefly explored almost double Cal U's tuition. Regis University offers a distance learning MBA program at $750.00 per-credit-hour. Capella University tops off at $605.00 per-credit-hour. Neither make financial sense to me.

So now I'm left with several questions. The foremost being: What's the biggest difference between the two degrees? I'm actually surprised by the lack of GOOD articles on the web regarding this! I managed to find this article, and it really didn't do a good job explaining the differences between the two degrees. This is what I took from it: "the academically inclined often pursue the MBS while career-oriented individuals value the prestige of an MBA". Well great. What the hell does that mean? I need the meat and potatoes of this discussion and they gave me a side salad. What can I do with an MBA that I couldn't do with an MBS? And vice versa! Is there some kind of ceiling I'll hit if I stick with the MBS, that somehow doesn't exist to those who have obtained an MBA? And will an MBA be completely useless in ten years after anybody with access to the internet and a high school diploma can obtain one? Why can't I find the answers to these questions?

All I know is that I'm career-driven, so does that automatically mean I should be pursuing an MBA and not an MBS?