[Edward]

I keep coming to a major mental crossroad on a monthly basis where I feel like I should go get my MBA. Looking for some sound advice from those who have been here and beyond.

I have worked at a bulge bracket firm for my entire career starting after I graduated from university in 2005. I survived through massive firings and actually have a very good record against my peers at my company in the asset management division.

I currently do not have a CFA nor do I plan on going for it because portfolio management is not an area I want to go into ever. Especially with hedge funds having less reasons to exist these days in the form they have existed in. Fund companies are under intense scrutiny and will further see fees reduced.

Business school tends to be this "thing" that is deemed appropriate for advancement into C-level management, but that comes at the cost of job security. When the next recession comes, mgmt will be flattened yet again and you will be fighting for your right to exist as overhead and not a revenue source.
In my field, an MBA does not guarantee you a quantifiable bump in pay. It may not even be absolutely necessary to get to very high levels of management. What I'm trying to get at is that a cost benefit analysis is not easy to do. However, my firm will pay a portion of the cost, and my father said he'd pay the rest. I have no downside. By the way, I'm 27, if you couldn't approximate by my graduation year.

I keep getting these massive attacks of a sense of urgency and necessity for getting this MBA because something in my head keeps making me feel worthless for lack of a better word, if I let the opportunity slide by as I get older. I don't want to wake up at 40 and realize that this is my one and only regret.

Currently, the issue is that I have not yet gotten through much of my gmat study material so I have no live score to submit...which makes fall '11 applications for first rounds very difficult to shoot for.
There's always the issue with not getting into a good enough school for my liking.
I do not want to give up my income, so part time is the only real option unless I get into a very great full time program in which I'd have to leave my firm. I would leave at the expense of current income and throwing away a lot of deferred compensation that is tied to a bullsh*t vesting schedule.
Another negative is that the world ran back to school to hide from this economy. An MBA is becoming less of a distinction, but is it also becoming the expected norm?

The pros are that part time progs are easier to get into and I could continue to advance my career while going to school, but that would restrict me to the schools in the LA area unless I try to transfer to a different office and work there while going part time to a school in the east coast.
I am also unmarried and not committed to any woman in life and very much lead a bachelor lifestyle.

My dad is the head of a very large global conglomerate and would be very much expected to be the one who is behind me pushing me into continuing my education, however it is quite the opposite. He cares little for pedigree and respects actual work history and proven results/accomplishments. He thinks I should just keep kicking ass where I am instead of trying to jump ship. It's kind of annoying to me that he's not pressuring me into this.

What would you guys do in my position?