While the graduate degree has always held its lure in the world of academia, lately the Masters in Business Administration (MBA) has enjoyed special courtship.
Since last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management's applicant pool has grown by 28 percent, Harvard Business School's by nearly 16 percent and the Boston University School of Management's by 10 percent. Other first- and second-tier business schools across the country have seen similar enthusiasm, leaving professors, admissions officers and business school prospects wondering: Why now?
While some institutions are inclined to attribute students' skyrocketing levels of interest to effective campaigns and program improvements, they cannot ignore the fact that the recent attention given to MBA programs is due to more than just glossy brochures.
"There tends to be an inverse relationship between bad economies and increased applications," said Julie Strong, senior associate director of MBA Admissions at the Sloan School. How this relationship influences potential business students' professional plans involves a slightly more complicated graph.
Of course, one rationale is linked to the intimidation associated with the popular alternative to graduate school -- the job market.
"Those who are applying [to business schools] are looking at the situation and the financial market is looking much less attractive," Tufts Economic Professor George Norman said. The logic seems fairly simple, he said -- a bad market means fewer options and delayed job searches.
But while delaying the job hunt seems like procrastination, it can sometimes be the most express route to successful employment.
"Because of the diminishing opportunities, people will look for retooling," said Evelyn Tate, director of graduate recruitment and admissions at Northeastern's Graduate School of Business Administration. As competition in the "real world" increases, she explained, expectations increase as well -- and when the job search proves fruitless, business school can provide the guidance, advice and experience needed to reenter the employment market on a higher level.
Northeastern's program designs its curriculum according to this blueprint. "We provide our students with a lot of hands-on counseling along the way ... Every student completes what is called a 'corporate residency' within their first year," Tate said.
While those in the midst of working towards their MBA might not be making the lofty salaries they had hoped for, they are building their resumes with internships appropriate for their individual courses of study. The process of attaining these residencies, Tate added, is similar to the search for a professional occupation, so students learn to manipulate the dire job hunt, but without the cutthroat environment.
The attractive nurture of the MBA, though, has hardly won over the graduating seniors at Tufts. Approximately 17 percent of graduates from the class of 2007 applied to various graduate programs, and in spite of the business school craze, that number remained roughly the same for the class of 2008, according to Jean Papalia, director of Career Services at Tufts.
This could be attributed to the fact that most MBA applicants are not fresh out of college. Northeastern's Graduate School of Business Administration, for example, encourages hopefuls to have professional work experience. And this is not uncommon. At MIT's Sloan School, the average applicant has been working professionally for about four years, Strong said.
The bulk of new applications, it seems, are coming not from frightened seniors but from young professionals, who -- even with prior experiential knowledge -- are having trouble moving up the ladder, or worse, are losing their jobs.
It is expected, Strong argued, that a good number of the students accepted to even the best of MBA programs have recently been -- or soon will be -- laid off.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see more applications coming in because a lot of people are getting laid off and having problems finding jobs," she said. Until people stop losing their jobs, it seems, the trend may very well continue to grow.
Still, applying to business school, like any major career choice, is not a decision one makes on a whim, explained Pauline Jennett, assistant director of admissions at the Harvard Business School. The application process is rigorous and is not something undertaken without distinct motivation.
"You need three recommendations, you need to write four essays, you need to take the GMAT," Jennett said. "People take time to get the application in place."
This year, prospective students are granted the added stress of augmented selectivity resulting from increased applications. Though Harvard's applicant pool, for instance, has seen a spike of over sixteen percent, its steady class size of approximately 900 will not increase, explained Jennett, upping the competition in academia alongside the competition in the weak job market.
Still, those applying to business school see their education -- which can be quite expensive -- as an investment.
"In the long run, it will be worthwhile. There is a reasonable return," Norman, the economics professor, said.
Often, companies will sponsor their employees' graduate education before a big promotion. But for those with no economic security at the end of the tunnel, the financial hardship may not be worth emptying a bank account for an idle -- albeit high quality -- MBA.
Still, Tate said that while economic decline is never a source of contentment, more education as a byproduct is hardly an externality to mourn.
"It's not good that people are losing their jobs," said Tate, "but if they have the opportunity to increase their education, that's a good thing."
There also seems to be a consensus that those who pursue a degree in higher business education will come out ahead of the game, no matter what economic downturns the nation takes. "At Sloan, we have a huge emphasis on entrepreneurship," Strong said. "Even in bad economies, our students will be contributors."
