Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal covered a trend that could save you money if you decide an MBA is the best next step for your career. All of the business schools offering substantial tuition discounts are strong, respected (though not elite / ‘Top 10) programs:
— Purdue’s Mitch Daniels School of Business is offering a 40% discount off tuition for its MBA (instead of spending $60,000 for a 48-credit-hour MBA, students can get it for $36,000)
— The University of California Irvine’s Merage School of Business is reducing tuition for its Flex and EMBA degrees by $30,000 to $48,000.
— Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School is offering a 50%-off ‘scholarship’ for students who graduate this spring from a Maryland college and enter one of its specialized master’s programs (e.g., healthcare management, finance, etc.).
— Washington University’s Olin Business School is offering a $10,000 scholarship for its new master’s in AI for Business degree for anyone professionally affected (e.g., laid off) due to AI.
Some of these welcome offers (Hopkins, Washington U) are clearly opportunistic, good-marketing initiatives. Others look like acknowledgment that the cost of business school has become too expensive. Would you lower your tuition if applicant volume was growing? No. If the MBA is gradually becoming commodified, it remains true that that rend has not yet hit MBAs from the very best and more selective programs (Stanford, Harvard, etc.). For those applicants for whom an MBA from the regionally strong programs mentioned in WSJ is valuable (e.g., applicants whose post-degree career focus is in the regions where these programs open doors), this is only good news.
–Paul Bodine