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M.B.A. Applications Keep Falling in U.S., This Year Hitting

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M.B.A. Applications Keep Falling in U.S., This Year Hitting

Postby AfricanMustang » Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:26 am

Applications to American M.B.A. programs dropped for a fourth straight year, with even elite universities starting to show signs of struggling to lure young professionals out of the strong job market.

For the first time in nearly a decade, waning interest in the traditional master of business administration degree hit business schools that draw the most applications, including Harvard and Stanford universities, according to a survey of 360 schools by the Graduate Management Admission Council, a nonprofit that administers the GMAT admissions exam. Those top-tier programs were until recently thought to be immune to the shakeout plaguing less-prestigious programs.

Americans are saddled with more college debt than ever, and they have grown increasingly reluctant to leave behind jobs for a year or more to pursue one of the nation’s most expensive degrees, school administrators say—particularly as the economy has improved. In response, schools in recent years have launched cheaper, more flexible or more customized master’s degrees in hot areas such as data science and supply-chain management.

The decline in M.B.A. applicants hadn’t affected top business schools until now, even as smaller programs such as those at the University of Iowa and Wake Forest University closed their flagship two-year programs citing weak demand. A handful of large, top-tier M.B.A. programs such as Harvard Business School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School last year received a little more than half of all business-school applications, according to recent GMAC data.

“People are thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, if the top is struggling to find applicants, what are the rest of us going to do?’” said George Andrews, director of admissions at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, which saw a 27% drop in full-time M.B.A. applications to 587 this year.

Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC’s president and chief executive, said it is possible business-school applications are bottoming out as the U.S. economy approaches its peak and could rise again in the next recession. But more competition from high-caliber schools in Asia and Europe, combined with the Trump administration’s heightened scrutiny of work programs for international students, could continue to squeeze American business schools, he said.

World-wide, the number of M.B.A. applications was flat from 2017, partly because of an increase in students looking to pursue their degrees in Europe and Asia, according to the GMAC survey. Applications surged 8% to schools in Canada and 9% to schools in East and South Asia.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/m-b-a-appl ... 1538366461
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Re: M.B.A. Applications Keep Falling in U.S., This Year Hitt

Postby tristatecoog » Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:34 am

"programs such as those at the University of Iowa and Wake Forest University closed their flagship two-year programs citing weak demand"

Do you think SMU would close its two-year program as well? I know it's moved to a one year program but doesn't have more demand vs. two-year at this point.

I believe the applications for MS Finance and MS Data Analytics may be down due to "heightened scrutiny of work programs for international students."
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Re: M.B.A. Applications Keep Falling in U.S., This Year Hitt

Postby AfricanMustang » Mon Oct 01, 2018 11:03 am

tristatecoog wrote:"programs such as those at the University of Iowa and Wake Forest University closed their flagship two-year programs citing weak demand"

Do you think SMU would close its two-year program as well? I know it's moved to a one year program but doesn't have more demand vs. two-year at this point.

I believe the applications for MS Finance and MS Data Analytics may be down due to "heightened scrutiny of work programs for international students."


Here's an article from July 2018 talking about the decline in international MBAs..

Interestingly, from last year to this year the same number of schools topped 40% international enrollment: seven. The top schools for foreign students this year, after UC-Irvine Merage and Rochester Simon, are Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management (44.5%), Columbia Business School (43%), Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business (40.6%), Stanford Graduate School of Business (40%), and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management (40%).

What schools brought up the rear? Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business was the lowest at 13.1%, having lost more than 37% of its total from last year; also below 20% were BYU’s Marriott School of Business (19.2%, down 2 points) and Texas A&M (down 13.4 points). A pair of northern publics, the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management (20.5%) and Wisconsin School of Business (20.2%) were at the low end as well, though in Carlson’s case the total represented aa jump of 4.4 points from last year.

Schools with notable gains in international enrollment include Purdue Krannert (+4.4), Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business (+4.2 to 30.3%), and Arizona State University’s Carey School of Business, which grew its foreign student total 3.6 points to 32.2%.

https://poetsandquants.com/2018/07/11/t ... -students/
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Re: M.B.A. Applications Keep Falling in U.S., This Year Hitt

Postby JasonB » Fri Oct 05, 2018 8:29 am

You can get an international MBA from European schools at a fraction of the cost of an MBA in the states, and it does just as well on your resume.

Companies have cut their budgets for paying for high end education. Five or ten years ago, the company I work for would pay for select employees to go to the SMU EMBA program. Today, they cover 20%, which means you are out of pocket 60K.

Do you want to go to the SMU EMBA for 60K, or do you take the IE program remotely? Top 10 program worldwide, you will save 30K out of pocket, and you get to travel to Spain, Brazil, Singapore, and LA as part of the program.

If you run a company, and you are outsourcing work, how can you justify paying for a high end local MBA instead of outsourcing that education as well? The answer is, you eventually can't.

As virtualization and globalization continue to grow worldwide, that is going to really slam education over the next 20 years and generate significant price pressure, especially on high end universities. A lot of schools are going to find that funding sports organizations is a challenge in an international market.
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Re: M.B.A. Applications Keep Falling in U.S., This Year Hitt

Postby gostangs » Mon Oct 08, 2018 10:09 pm

Even today not many MBA's really need to be that plugged in internationally, The vast majority of MBA jobs are US based companies that don't have international business units. The network you gain from the local connections in any high ranked U.S. MBA program, whether it be SMU or UT or whatever, is worth far more than the difference you just pointed out. The international thing is mostly for show.
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