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NOVEMBER 6, 2000 B-SCHOOL NEWS Part-Time Students Are Getting Full-Time Attention Enrollment is at record highs. And since part-timers are so profitable, schools are going out of their way to attract and keep them Boylan and Venugopala are among the more than 120,000 professionals who descend on B-school campuses on weekday evenings or weekends to complete an MBA degree part-time. The part-timers now account for 60% of the MBA market, according the AACSB (as the International Association of Management Education is commonly known). And after decades of playing second fiddle to full-time MBA programs, which traditionally have received more attention and resources, part-time MBA programs are making a run of their own. Over the past three years, the number of graduates of such programs has shot up 14.5% -- to 22,210 in the 1999-2000 academic year, according to data collected by Business Week Online as part of its first-ever survey of 214 part-time MBA programs. And half of Business Week's top 30 full-time MBA programs now offer part-time degrees. That's because a large segment of the pre-MBA universe -- an older and increasingly diverse segment -- wants the advantages an MBA confers in terms of prestige and money without having to go back to school and sacrifice two years of income -- plus, possibly, their existing careers. While catering to this crowd can be difficult, it also has a silver lining: Most schools that offer part-time degrees collect the bulk of their revenue and profits from those programs, says David Kidwell, dean of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Business, which has 1,000 part-time MBA students, vs. 250 full-timers. HARDER RECRUITMENT. Now, the leaders in part-time MBA education are trying to take their programs to the next level. They're putting more emphasis on relevance and innovation in their course offerings, and they're adding such enhancements as Web-enabled courses and more electives. Others are working to improve the image and success of part-timers. At New York University's Stern School of Business, a new career-resources adviser works with part-timers to develop job opportunities. And the career-services office at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management now sends representatives to advise part-timers at their downtown Chicago campus during evening classes. Business Week Online's comprehensive survey of part-time programs is based on questionnaires sent to 214 directors of part-time MBA programs. We asked the schools about their students, services, and coursework. Among our findings: 14% of students hold advanced degrees upon entering the program, 36% are women, and 11% are underrepresented minorities. The 83,000 students covered by the survey have an average 5.5 years of work experience (vs. 4.2 years for full-time students), with an average age approaching 30 (vs. 27.7 for full-timers). Ninety-four programs report adding new concentrations over the past year -- such as arts management, e-commerce, and knowledge management -- and 34 report that they offer distance-learning MBA programs to students who can't make the trek to campus. Still, for all of the growth of such programs, many B-schools are struggling to keep the good times rolling. When unemployment is low and the economy sizzles, most business schools find it harder to recruit students away from good careers. Kim Corfman, academic director of the part-time program at New York University's Stern School, has noticed a drop in applications this year (the school accepted 60% of its applicants in 1999). "We've taken this program for granted for a number of years," Corfman adds. But now, "it has become clear that there was more we could do for it." To determine where part-time programs are lacking, the AACSB recently started the MBA for Working Professionals Affinity Group. On Nov. 2, deans from 35 of the largest part-time programs in the U.S. met in Chicago to discuss everything from using technology to developing a global strategy. Sidney Harris, dean of Georgia State University's business school and chair of the group's leadership committee says: "Those of us focusing on the part-time MBA market see an opportunity to drive our brand internationally." KEEPING 'EM HAPPY. Another goal for the schools is to simply hold on to what they have, as jobs become more demanding -- and mobile. Halfway through a part-time program, an employer can transfer a student across country and out of reach, for example. These dropouts take their toll. At Wayne State University in Detroit, for instance, 150 to 200 students drop out each year. That costs the school "hundreds of thousands of dollars," and hampers it from adding new courses, says the school's Dean, Harvey Kahalas. This realization has schools such as Stern lavishing resources on their part-timers. Stern's program now has its own administrative offices and a community-building orientation program for new students. "We wondered if they wanted a sense a sense of community, and they're loving it," says Corfman. The school is also incorporating distance learning. Minnesota's Carlson School plans to revamp its program, too. Over the next year, the school will consider alternative means of distributing courses. "We'll shift the whole focus of the evening program to meeting a higher level of service," says Dean Kidwell. "The day program may drive the reputation [of a business school], but it has small profitability," he adds. Such schools are also reacting to complaints from part-time students. Indeed, a recent survey of 5,000 part-time MBAs by the AACSB and New Jersey-based Educational Benchmarking found that the students rated their overall satisfaction with the career services offices at their schools 3.79 on a scale of 7.0. In response to this dissatisfaction, Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, ranked No. 2 by Business Week for its full-time program, has begun allowing its evening MBAs to be recruited along with full-time students -- but only if they pay their own way to interviews and if they have a note from their sponsoring employer. That's a step in the right direction, since B-schools reported to Business Week Online that nearly 25% of part-time students planned to use the school's career-services office to change jobs. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. In fact, recruiters are generally enthusiastic about part-time MBAs. Portia Smith, manager for the staff associates program for Sprint, says her company is starting to eyeball part-timers. "The biggest hurdle is getting past the schools, since the students' employers are often paying the tuition and fees for the students," she says. For now, she's noticing more part-time MBA students at her on-campus briefings. "They say that they're interested and ask how they can be interviewed." Smith particularly likes the fact that part-timers tend to have more work experience, she says. Best of all for recruiters, the conflict of interest that B-schools face when finding new jobs for part-timers whose education is financed by their current employer is that fewer and fewer of them are funded by their companies. "Companies see it as a cost savings, and employees are less loyal to companies now," says Arthur Centonze, dean of the Lubin School af Pace University. That news may prompt schools such as Michigan State to reconsider their policies on part-time MBA recruiting. Currently, Dean James Henry says, "after the [weekend MBA students] finish the program, if they're leaving their company, we'll support them. But in the weekend MBA program, it's made clear from the beginning that [placement] service won't be provided for them." FASTER TRACK. Schools have also gotten the message that part-time students don't relish going to night school forever and that they want a wider variety of course work. Thus, Michigan State recently revamped its part-time program to shorten the curriculum to 18 months -- vs. two years for the school's full-time program. Baruch College, which is part of New York's state university system, has also added an accelerated part-time MBA program that takes just 24 months, vs. the normal four years. By offering classes on weekends and evenings in five locations in Southern California, meanwhile, Pepperdine University has cut the length of its 1,500-student part-time MBA program -- the second-largest in the U.S., by Business Week Online's count -- to two years. Pepperdine Dean Otis Baskin says the shorter the program, the less likely students will be to drop out. The ultimate draw for students may be that it's much easier to land a spot as a part-time MBA-er than as a full-timer. Lyons says Kellogg selects 35% of applicants for admission to its part-time program, while the school's full-time program sorts through more than 5,000 applications to choose a lucky 18%. The University of Michigan reports that 63% of its part-time students are accepted -- vs. 21% for its full-time program. Once they're admitted, however, students say the workload is equal. Nirbhay Kumar, 24, is two courses into a part-time MBA at Stern. A fixed-income analyst for Reuters during the day, he believes that if anything, a part-timer's schedule is more demanding than that of a full-time student. But he sees some advantages in that: "We're working and dealing with management issues on a daily basis, so our professors have to be up to date." What's more, when he finishes his degree, Kumar expects recruiters to flock to him. "Guys doing part-time programs are probably better-suited to handle pressure situations," he adds. MORE BETTER WIDGETS. Part-timers do pay a price. At many schools, especially those with vibrant day programs, special guests such as CEOs, entrepreneurs, and dignitaries make their lecture rounds before part-time students come to class. "We're on the mailing lists that announce when good speakers arrive on campus," says Venugopala of Bentley, "but we can't go. [Those events] are the biggest things that part-time students miss out on." Lyons agrees: "Evening students don't get the networking or extracurricular [activities] that the full-timers do." That may not be the case everywhere, though. At the University of California-Los Angeles' Anderson School of Business, part-time MBAs say they rarely face that problem now that student clubs meet on weekends -- and the school offers evening programs with speakers. Ultimately, many employers see an MBA as an MBA, no matter how it's earned. It shouldn't take business schools long to do the calculation: If the product -- the student with a part-time MBA -- is both popular and highly profitable, then you want to turn out plenty of good ones.  Mica Schneider  | | [an error occurred while processing this directive] Learn about your online education options |
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