The Mini MBA's Big Appeal

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David Buckner, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University's Teachers College, developed a course 12 years ago for all master's degree students in the organizational psychology and leadership program that sought to put them on a "level footing with first-year MBA students," Buckner says.

big spike in interest

His class covered five topics common to an MBA curriculum: economics, strategy, finance, accounting, and marketing and was taught over the course of a semester. A student in one of his classes, an IBM employee, suggested to Buckner that he condense the course into five-day and three-day sessions for her peers at IBM (IBM). He followed her advice, soon after launching his own consulting company, Bottom-Line Training & Consulting.

He now offers a three- to five-day class, "The Bottom-Line Mini-MBA," anywhere from 50 to 70 times a year at companies all around the world. He also recently teamed up with the International Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness and will be offering the course this fall in an open enrollment format around the country. He expects a good turnout, he says.

"I would say there has been a significant increase in interest this year," he says. "A lot of companies are looking to this type of thing, rather than sending an employee to an eight-week summer program, so we're seeing a shift in the marketplace."

Even schools that have offered the classes for several decades say they have noticed a change. One of the pioneers in the field is St. Thomas University's Opus College of Business, which launched its first mini-MBA program in 1989. The B-school typically offers the program anywhere from four to six times a year, but now has plans to offer it 10 to 12 times this year because of the spike in interest due to the economic downturn, says Durwin Long, the school's assistant dean of executive and professional development.

Since last September, 231 students have passed through the mini-MBA program; of these students, 149, or 65%, were dislocated workers, many who were able to get grants though Minnesota's unemployment office to cover tuition. The school expects to serve anywhere between 300 and 360 students this year, a sharp increase over the past few years, Long says.

"With rising unemployment, more dislocated workers are looking for educational opportunities to become retrained or more skilled to compete in the labor market," Long says. "This provides them with applied knowledge that they believe makes them more marketable in the labor market right away. And that is a very, very attractive benefit right now."

Damast is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.

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