The MBA existential crisis

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U.S. graduate business schools — once magnets for American and international students seeking a certain route to a high income — are in an existential crisis. They are losing droves of students who are balking at sky-high tuition and, in the case of international applicants, turned off by President Trump’s politics.

Why it matters: The once-venerated MBA is going the way of the diminished law degree, pushed aside by tech education. Graduates of the top 25 or so MBA schools still command the elite Wall Street and corporate jobs they always did, but the hundreds of others are scrambling, and some schools are shutting down their programs. Survivors are often offering new touchy-feely degrees like “master of social innovation.”

The background: Most top-ranked U.S. business schools are doing just fine. Sixteen of the top 25 reported a jump in MBA program applications for the 2016-2017 academic year, and four schools — Yale, Columbia, Carnegie Melon, and the University of Chicago — saw double-digit leaps, per Poets & Quants, a website that covers graduate business education.

The problem: In the more than 350 programs that didn’t make the top ranks, rising tuition costs and smaller returns in the form of employment and income have forced a rethink of the traditional MBA degree.

Campus recruiting at lower-ranked schools is down: In a survey by MBA Career Services, the 30 schools ranked 21 to 50 reported a 42% decrease in recruiting by companies in 2016. In 2015, this same group reported an 83% recruiting increase.

The value of an MBA is uncertain: MBA grads are facing shifting expectations from employers with more options than ever. “Especially for someone who might be 25 or 30, they’re leaving with an MBA, and there’s a question from employers, ‘Well, you’ve got an MBA, but what else can you do for me?'” said Michael Prebil of the think tank New America.

Programs are shutting down: Wake Forest, the University of Iowa, Virginia Tech and other schools have all recently discontinued their full-time MBA programs.
A big problem is declining international interest: The enrollment at some mid-tier MBA programs is more than half international students. But 51% of B schools report a decline in international enrollment in fall 2016, a 13% jump from 2015, according to the MBA Career Services survey…