More US Students Go Abroad for Their Mbas

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More U.S. students go abroad for Advertisement their MBAs By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY

LONDON — When Christine Chang was looking to get her MBA, she wanted to take as little time away from her family-run business in Florida and at as little cost as possible.

That brought her all the way to London.

"I could do it in a year instead of two in the United States," says Chang, 26, of Fort Lauderdale.

Plus, she says, "You get an international flavor of business." And the bonus: "You go to school, and you get a vacation."

Chang is among a growing number of Americans crossing the Atlantic to get postgraduate business degrees, as the global economy continues to erase borders and as the demand for the degrees and graduates who earn them explodes.

"You're seeing more and more students from the United States studying overseas," says Robert Ludwig of the Graduate Management Admission Council, a McLean, Va.-based organization that tracks business school admissions and enrollments.

The reasons for the growth, Ludwig says, are what brought Chang here:

•A master's in business administration usually takes half of the two-year time it traditionally takes at U.S. business schools. One-year programs compress courses into intense quarters or trimesters.

•The compressed study time usually means less cost, despite a higher cost of living aggravated by a weak dollar on international currency exchanges. However, one-year programs can reduce a student's ability to work while going to school.

•Students gain a broader perspective of foreign business culture, not just from professors but from fellow students who come from a more diverse international background.

And if you want a career in a particular country, then getting the degree there is a plus, says Arthur Francis, dean of the Bradford School of Management in northern England.

Global growth in MBAs

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The number of students around the globe who are applying to schools outside their native country is growing, according to figures from the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Three-quarters of the 147 business schools across the world responding to the council's survey last year reported that international admission applications were up. That compares with 33% of the 129 schools that said applications from foreign students were up in 2005.

That coincides with an 18% increase in hiring of MBAs this year by firms across the globe, including 149 of the Fortune 500 and 109 of the Fortune Global 500, according to the association's survey of corporate recruiters. That's on top of an 18% jump in 2005.

There are no exact numbers of how many American students are going abroad for their MBAs. But the number of U.S. students like Chang attending 80 business schools in Britain for postgraduate degrees almost tripled during the last decade, from 235 in 1994-95 to 648 in 2004-05, according to The Association of Business Schools, a London-based schools association.

That migration tracks a rise over the last decade in the number of accredited foreign schools offering the traditionally American degree of a master's in business administration. It also tracks a growing number of U.S. business schools setting up overseas programs to meet the demand.

European and Asian universities learned that a quick way to build prestige and enrollment was to start MBA programs, says Matthew Wood of the European Foundation for Management Development in Brussels.

"The (global) market for MBAs has just exploded," says Wood, whose group has 450 business schools in 75 countries, including 260 in Europe. "And a good MBA program can be a good flagship for a school."

Bonus: Classes taught in English

Adding to the attraction for U.S. students, he says, is business programs at big foreign schools are offered in the international language of business: English.

Well-known U.S. schools have tapped into students' demand for international experience.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, offers students programs through an alliance with Insead, a leading business school in France, and through exchange programs with schools in Beijing and Israel. The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business offers an executive MBA program in London. Even the stodgy English institutions of Oxford and Cambridge now offer programs.

"They didn't exist 10 years ago," says Francis, a former chairman of Britain's Association of Business Schools.

International perspectives

Americans like Chang aren't the biggest foreign contingent studying at British business schools. The ranks of students from China, India and even Greece way outnumber Americans studying here now.

"If you go to a (British) business school, you will discover that 75% to 90% of the other students are from international backgrounds," Francis says.

The international makeup of her classes was a big part of the learning experience for Chang, who attended Huron University of London all of last year.

"I could get the German perspective, the Asian perspective and the British perspective from my classmates," she says.

The different backgrounds really came out when the class worked on business models, says Chang, vice president of Florida Engineering and Testing, a firm her mother started about 30 years ago to provide pre-construction testing to builders.

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"The Germans expect a return on investment in seven years, the Asians 15 to 30 years," she says. "The Americans want it in two or three."

Chang, who largely runs the company now, says that had she not come to London for her MBA, she'd still probably be studying for it — having to take courses part time while continuing to work.

She returned here last month to pick up her degree, which she says cost about $30,000, not including the cost of living, which is high in London. The average cost of an MBA in Britain is 16,000 pounds, just less than $32,000 at current exchange rates, according to Association of MBAs (AMBA) in London. But, she says, that's less than the $70,000 to $120,000 she would have spent on tuition if she had gotten it over two or more years in the USA.

"And," she says, "you do get all the advantages of London."

Where Europeans pursue MBAs Based on the number of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) score reports received, in 2002 the top 10 business schools in which European students were interested included three schools in Europe and seven in the USA. However, in 2006, the top 10 list included five schools in Europe and five in the USA. The top 10 schools for 2002 and 2006:

2002 2006

EUR Insead1 MBA EUR Insead MBA1 EUR London Business School EUR London Business School

USA Harvard Business School USA Harvard Business School

USA Columbia University MBA USA Columbia University MBA

USA Stanford University MBA USA Stanford University MBA

USA University of Pennsylvania MBA USA University of Pennsylvania MBA

USA Northwestern University EUR IESE2 MBA

EUR IESE2 MBA USA New York University

USA New York University EUR IMD3 Int'l MBA

USA MIT Sloan School EUR Athens University4 MBA 1=Paris, Singapore; 2=Barcelona, Madrid; 3=Lausanne, Switzerland; 4=Greece; Source: Graduate Management Admission Council, McLean, Va.

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