Jim Bland was on active duty with the Army as an artillery officer and captain beginning in 1997, then spent the last six years with the Reserve while he worked in business as a consultant and manager, armed with a West Point engineering degree.

But he had larger plans for his life — a career in finance, specifically in private equity work.

“The military fosters great strategic thinking,” says Bland. “But the one skill that was noticeably absent on my résumé was financial skills. The MBA was almost a necessity. I wouldn’t have been taken seriously.”

Even though doing finances “isn’t rocket science,” he adds, “it’s not something employers are willing to take a chance on. For me, the MBA was critical.”

Bland is one of many ex-servicemembers who say taking the leap to become a full-time, on-campus Master of Business Administration student is the key to career advancement. A student at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Bland has already secured a part-time job as an investment professional — an associate at Hispania Capital Partners, a private equity firm that targets small to mid-market companies who are employing the Hispanic demographic for their own growth.

“They definitely understand the value that a veteran brings to the program,” says Bland. “Our school specifically is very interested in veterans. They do very well in the job hunt. They get the best jobs. They’re leaders in the classroom” before they are leaders in the business world.

Bland helps Chicago reach out to potential veteran students, as co-chair of the university’s veterans group. He’s also on the board of advisors to West Point’s Board of Trustees, as well as sitting on Chicago’s MBA admissions committee, working with prospective students who have service experience.

Across the country, ex-servicemen and women are making the leap back into the classroom and finding that the payoff is worthwhile, despite the risks of taking two years off work. “Your opportunities to work part-time and keep up with school are pretty limited,” notes another full-time MBA student, Steve Headrick, now attending The Johnson School at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Cornell apparently recognizes the worth of veterans to the program — it has awarded Headrick and five other veterans (a full 20 percent of the 25 veterans in his MBA class) full-tuition scholarships with a stipend. Cornell also had other veteran students take him around for his initial campus visit.

Previously, Headrick spent 10 years in the Navy as an instructor pilot, mainly at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City and most recently Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, leaving as a lieutenant commander last year.

“An MBA looked like the clearest choice” for him, says Headrick. “I wanted that education. I wanted that network. I know I could have gotten a decent job without it,” he adds.

Headrick graduates in May 2007, but the students who graduate this year all have jobs lined up, he marvels: “Consulting, banking, you name it.”

His military experience has been helpful in the classroom, he believes: “We do a lot of work in teams – with people from different backgrounds. The military really prepares you for that.”

Patrick Laney, full-time MBA student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, also found the time commitment and income constraint “very difficult. I’m married and have three children.” But, he adds, “financially it pays off. The money you make post-MBA more than pays it off in most situations.

“It’s not for everyone,” he admits. “It’s a hard transition to make” – especially after 11 years in the Navy flying the F-18 Hornet, including tours over Iraq and Afghanistan, finishing his stint in 2004 as a lieutenant commander. “I was halfway to a pension. But if somebody feels that they want to capture more out of their career, it’s a great way to do it.” Graduating this spring as one of about 40 veterans in the school of 300 students, he already has a job with Morgan Stanley in wealth management, after having been a summer intern there.

Networking is a major way of securing a great post-MBA position. “You buy into a network that is already established,” says Bland. That includes alumni, who act as mentors and guides, and connections to jobs.”

Andrew Gilroy, a Navy veteran and full-time MBA student set to graduate this month from the University of Michigan, knows that his job prospects will be “a thousand times better” after the MBA.

“It really builds a strong foundation that you can tap into in your future career.” Plus: “When you attend a top school you have a lot of recruiters come onto campus,” he notes. He already has a job lined up, an internal consulting position in strategic planning and finance with BOC Group, an industrial gasses company in northern New Jersey.

With an MBA, concludes Bland, “you learn to speak the language of business. You become a player.” And he is happy to help other veterans become MBA students – and consider top-tier business schools in the process. “They should shoot high,” he says, “because they are in demand.”