- MBA - Accounting
- MBA - Global Management
- MBA - Health Care Management
- MBA - Human Resource Management
- MBA - Marketing
- MBA - Public Administration
- MBA - Technology Management
- Master of Information Systems
- Master of Management
- Master of Management/HR Mgmt
- Master of Management/Public Administration
- Master of Public Administration
- Master of Science in Accountancy
- Master of Business Administration
- MS in Nursing/MBA/Health Care Management
- MS in Nursing/Master of Health Administration
- Master of Health Administration
- Master of Health Administration/Informatics
- Master of Health in Administration/Education
- Master of Health in Administration/Gerontology
Too Expensive, MBA Schools Not Meeting Enrollment Goals
According to a recent article in Businessweek, enrollment at schools large and small, exclusive and populist, are way down in recent years. Percentage of applicants accepted at MBA programs has skyrocketed. Vanderbilt University's alone has gone from accepting 35 percent of applicants three years ago, to nearly two thirds of them today. Ouch.
MBA Degree Price Inflation
The primary reason (and there are many), is funnily enough, business related. Tuition levels for MBA programs have exploded. At top tier schools like Harvard and Columbia, students are expected to spend (including tuition and cost of living) about $70,000 dollars a year for a two year program. When the average base salary for a MBA graduate is about $80,000, the degree stops making sense for a lot of students.
MBA Salary Doesn't Equal Tuition
Tuition inflation isn't just limited to the exclusive schools. All down the line, tuition has increased 3 to 5 percent every year for the past decade. Suffice it to say that the average MBA salary after graduation hasn't inflated accordingly.
Big Banks Leaving the MBA?
Another major factor in this MBA downturn is that financial corporations, like investment bank Goldman Sachs, are no longer recruiting exclusively from the MBA graduate pool. In years past, banks like Goldman would compel their junior analysts to leave the bank for an MBA program before they continued on their track to partner. Companies are now keeping their more gifted young employees and sending them out for individual courses at night or online as the need arises.
MBA Degree in Transition
MBA programs aren't going to disappear. The current recruitment crisis is just a lag between the school curriculums and pricing to the reality of the business world and education market. But since it's happening right now, there is a good argument that now might be the perfect time to get an MBA degree, especially if you didn't think you necessarily qualified for entrance.
For the first, and perhaps only time, MBA programs are an applicant's market. Getting one is worth checking out.
