The Wall Street Journal recently reported that elite MBA schools were offering alternative programs in response to a declining demand for the once coveted advanced degree.

Following the tech bubble in 2000, Fortune 500 companies have questioned the need for MBAs, and applicants have wondered if the degree still carried the panache it once had.

The more progressive schools responded by offering part-time and evening programs in order to fill seats. Of course Harvard's dean was quoted as saying that it pledged never to change the rigors of its program.

One thing I've learned as a contrarian investor; when a great institution says that it's not changing direction, it means that you will make a lot of money betting that it will.

Why would I care about Harvard's MBA program? True, my partners and I were major donors to the university, but we never designated our monies to any one program.

But I had a special nostalgic interest. Twenty years ago I applied for a Harvard MBA. I was wait-listed, and then rejected. I still have that letter filed away with other college memorabilia.

I picked up the phone and called Harvard's VP for Development. We discussed the WSJ story and the pressures on business schools today.

"Dave, I will get right to the point." I said. "I want you to start a new program in which you offer an MBA degree to previous applicants. My company will pay for the program. We'd like call it, the Second Chance Endowment.

"Hesh, sounds great." He responded gleefully. "Let me discuss it with the Dean and senior faculty of the school."

"One more point," I interjected. "I would like to be one of the participants."

Dave knew of my rejection form Harvard and how it had been a festering wound. He always used my name in his fund raising pitches. I was the Harvard reject who still gave bushels of dollars to the university.

I outlined for him a program designed for businessmen like me. We would do it all on the internet and via teleconferencing and never have to be in Cambridge except to pick up our diplomas.

I must tell you that I was not surprised when he said that he would discuss it with the faculty. I knew they were hurting but were too ashamed to say so. And they definitely would not be interested in altering their famous Socratic method.

I will spare you the details. It took two years of university haggling and faculty politics but they finally agreed. Their only condition: that the first efforts be kept very quiet, no PR, and the classes would be listed as special independent studies and closed to their regular students.

Quietly, I helped recruit twenty successful businessmen to participate. For a year we basically ignored our families and our businesses. I never worked so hard in my life. But I must also say I never had so much fun. I think the professors even enjoyed it, once they came to accept that some of the student knew more then they did.

In June I flew to Cambridge with my family to accept my degree. My name was called and I high fived my fellow special graduates. I shook hands with the dean and accepted my diploma.

My eleven year old daughter unrolled the diploma--it was packaged like it was an original Dead Sea scroll--and read it.

She asked, "Dad, what does the asterisk mean next to your name?"

I pulled out my reading glasses and read the small print, "Graduated with a correspondence degree."

Now I know how Roger Maris must have felt.

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