Dive Brief:
- Graduate business schools nationwide are retooling the traditional MBA to attract students, offering cheaper options that don’t take as long to complete and can be offered to recent grads.
- University Business reports the traditional MBA continues to lose ground, inspiring universities to create new business degrees and recruit students for online programs or otherwise specialized master’s degrees that have seen a surge in interest, both domestically and abroad.
- International students now account for more than half of all business school applicants, causing some schools to respond to the decreasing demand for full-time MBAs in the U.S. by increasing the number of foreigners in their student bodies; others, however, have shrunk class sizes to retain a better balance.
Dive Insight:
Rankings seem to factor largely into the way business schools respond to the challenges they face in recruitment. Full-time MBA programs are what bring in the most money for business schools and provide the most cache when it comes to rankings, both of which contribute to the fact that far more business schools have construction projects underway on their buildings now than did 20 years ago. There is also the problem of international students, who have a harder time finding jobs in the U.S. after graduation because of visa issues. When they make up too large a portion of the class, student satisfaction could become a problem, which hurts schools in the rankings, too.
Rather than move enthusiastically toward alternatives, like the master’s in management program — long popular abroad — business schools still are trying hard to attract full-time MBA students. Perhaps when the rankings get a makeover, business schools will, too.