Top US Business Schools Draw More International Students
New York
10 November 2007
Cavaliere report - Download (mp3) 493k 
Listen to Cavaliere report
A Masters Degree in Business Administration, or MBA, was once considered a key to having a successful business career. In recent years, enrollment in full-time MBA programs has dropped, and some business leaders have said the degree is overrated. Victoria Cavaliere reports from VOA’s New York Bureau that one of the country’s top business school deans says an MBA still opens many doors and is drawing more international students than ever.
In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported that applications to full-time MBA programs in the United States had plummeted as professors and graduates questioned the degree’s cost and value in the workplace.
Meantime, the newspaper said that tuition was climbing and a typical two-year MBA degree can now cost as much as $100,000 .
One of the nation’s most prestigious MBA programs is the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire. Tuck’s Dean, Paul Danos, says full-time MBA programs are well worth the cost.
Danos says more than ever, foreign students are willing to take out loans for an MBA. He says 37 percent of Tuck’s MBA students are now foreign -primarily from India and China.
“I think the MBA is still a wonderful ticket to success. And the students are much more sophisticated now, they’re broader when they come to us. They are older, and they are more socially aware and they are much more international,” he said.
Danos says an MBA from elite schools like Harvard, Stanford or Dartmouth still enable graduates to get the highest paying jobs after school and puts them on track to becoming CEOs. The professor says the explosion of part-time and private MBA programs that are especially popular in India and the United States do not offer students the same quality of education.
“It’s a matter of resources, and it’s a matter of not that much accreditation. You don’t have to meet a lot of standards to set up as a school, it seems to me. It’s pretty laissez faire. And it’s very mixed in terms of quality. But it’s certainly not achieving the level of the best universities,” he said.
Danos says top MBA programs adapt to changing times, though core curriculum, like finance, marketing, and accounting remain the same. He says business schools are teaching courses on business ethics and the impact of business practices to a new generation of MBA students.
from MoreWhat.com:
It is not uncommon for companies to require prospective employees to sign a non-competition clause barring them from working in the industry for two years or so after leaving the employ of the current company. Yet outsourcing and crying for more visas and other immigration methods from the business community are met with opposition from the public. The complaints from the public are based on the argument that these practices take jobs away from the American workforce. The complaint from business is unavailability of properly trained and educated employees to fill positions which is met with the counter argument that it is merely a ploy to hire foreign labor at below market prices.
PISA results continuously show American students scoring below international averages. The complaints about American education are nearly infinite. The NCLB debate is opposed by the teachers’ unions. The cost of higher education is another common complaint. And yet foreign students seem to only need entry to the country and the price of education is not voiced as a concern. Who is paying for their education and are we not providing the tools for our international competitors to outperform us. And if the education is so bad, why do so many from other countries want it? Lots of questions are piling up with few answers.
The view from here sees the overwhelming majority of parents and children are not focused on the need and value of education. Likewise, the educators are in large part only bureaucrats spending an inordinate amount of time battling regulations, school boards, revenue and expenses. Teachers are a product of the same education system that is under fire for being second rate and perhaps they are unnecessarily engaged in more non-teaching tasks than they should be.
Business and education are protecting their respective domains in a less than honest manner. Many parents may feel it is the system’s job to educate their children and the kids are not holding up their end. So let’s supplant the American labor force with a new from elsewhere and call it the American way. Does anyone really give a damn anymore?