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JULY 28, 2000 B-SCHOOL NEWS Reading and Writing and...Risk Arbitrage? More and more prospective teachers are taking dual degrees in education and business
But to do that, educators need to know business basics. So B-schools are teaming up with education schools to teach them just that: They're offering joint-degree programs that confer an MBA plus a Master's or Doctorate in education. The latest school to introduce such a program is Lehigh University. This fall, its College of Education will offer a joint degree with its graduate B-school for educators who want to learn how to plan better budgets and classroom lessons. Officials at the Bethlehem (Pa.) University say they expect to enroll 15 to 20 students in the two year program. Lehigh officials hope that the combination of education theory plus business training will make their degree more relevant to the challenges that administrators face on the job. "Educators enter the profession to teach kids," says C. Russell Mayo, who will head Lehigh's MBA-Educational Leadership Program, after 30 years of working in public education. "They don't [expect to] manage money, but wind up having to." Students will take about half of their classes in the education school, with coursework in organizational leadership, school law, and instruction design and training. The rest of the time, they'll sit alongside traditional B-schoolers in core MBA classes, such as information management, finance, and product management. Rounding out the curriculum is a team-taught course on managing people and internship opportunities in local schools or non-profit organizations. It's a combination that has seemed to work at other education schools, where the option of earning an MBA is increasingly popular among students. For more than 30 years, Columbia University has enrolled one or two students in a program that grants a dual degree from its business school and its Teachers College. That number hasn't spiked, largely because of Columbia's policy students fulfill virtually all the degree requirements for both schools -- a costly process that can take upward of six years. Still, the number of Columbia B-school students who take electives from the Teachers College has been rising. At the University of Maryland, whose B-school has launched a number of interdisciplinary programs, officials say that preliminary discussions are underway for a partnership with the school of education. Experts say the business training could pay off for administrators, given the increasingly competitive educational environment. "More of business is data-driven, and that's the way schools are going," says Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. Standards testing for students and performance-based salaries for teachers are already spreading: "That's part of the bottom-line mentality that schools are starting to have," Houston says. Large, urban school districts are prime examples. The New York City, Los Angeles, and San Diego school systems recently recruited private-sector executives to serve as management. "Ten years ago, a [school] board would say to me, half-joking 'Is someone like Lee Iacocca available?'" quips Korn/Ferry International education headhunter Ira Krinsky. "Today, they're willing to take [the idea of] such a candidate seriously." Non-educators are also finding the combined MBA and education degree useful. At the University of Illinois, for example, MBAs interested in human resources can enroll in a program where they'll take several of the education school's courses in adult education and corporate training. And at Stanford University, dual-degree graduates have struck a vein of gold in Silicon Valley's knowledge industry. In fact, to keep up with the industry's growing demand for employees with both educational and entrepreneurial knowhow, Stanford recently revamped its longstanding joint-degree program. The newest requirement is a seminar where students must design a business plan for a for-profit education startup. That has changed the nature of the program, says director Michael Kirst. Nowadays, instead of attracting educators who are seeking to improve their management skills, most of Stanford's joint-degree students are MBAs who want to cash in on the private-sector slice of what W.R. Hambrecht & Co. pegs as a $772 billion U.S. education market. Dual-degree MBAs also seem to be in demand away from the Valley, as education companies look to recruit candidates with both skill sets. Corporate recruiters say they've noticed a number of education-industry "clubs" popping up at top B-schools, where students have traditionally opted for higher-paying careers in consulting and investment banking. Given the current expectations for the knowledge industry's continued growth, they say the future for MBAs with education backgrounds looks bright. Still, the MBA isn't a requirement for school administrators -- and a double-degree program can be a costly expense, especially when just a few courses may suffice. That means that if Lehigh and other B-schools want a piece of this market, they'll have to persuade all those underpaid administrators to shell out big bucks for more homework.  By Eric Dash in New York  | | Learn about your online education options |
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