After Outcry, U. of Wisconsin Drops Plan to Suspend Admissions to 2-Year M.B.A. Program

Last week’s announcement that the University of Wisconsin at Madison planned to suspend admissions to its business school’s two-year M.B.A. program prompted such a fierce backlash from students and alumni that the new business dean reversed course on Wednesday. The school, she said, would work to strengthen the program, not scrap it.

The flip-flop at one of the nation’s premier public universities is just the latest sign of turmoil among full-time M.B.A. programs, which have struggled through three straight years of declining applications.

A handful of institutions, including the University of Iowa, Wake Forest University, and Virginia Tech, have opted to phase out their full-time M.B.A.s.

Some of the shift in student interest has been toward shorter, cheaper alternatives, including one-year specialized master’s degrees in fields like finance, accounting, or data analytics — the latest in-demand degree.

Enrollment in specialized master’s degrees nearly doubled from 2006 to 2016, to more than 35,000, according to a survey of members of Aacsb International — The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. During the same time, enrollment in full-time M.B.A. programs dropped 20 percent, to around 14,000.

There’s a sense that specialized master’s programs, which are geared toward people right out of college or with one or two years of work experience, are “cannibalizing the M.B.A.” because students who earn them are less likely to pursue another graduate degree, said John A. Byrne, founder of Poets & Quants, a news website that covers and critiques business education.

Those degrees are particularly popular among liberal-arts graduates who want to get a job in business at a time when companies are doing less training and expect new hires to arrive “battle ready,” said Mr. Byrne.

Intense, one-year M.B.A.s that are popular in Europe are springing up on this side of the Atlantic, and colleges are also offering online programs that allow students to keep working while earning their degrees.

Those programs appeal to students who question whether the traditional M.B.A., with its escalating sticker price, will deliver an adequate return on investment.

With tuition and fees typically running more than $60,000 per year and the prospect of forgoing two years’ worth of income, many students who are still carrying debt from their undergraduate years are opting for specialized programs they can finish faster.

The largest, most popular, and elite M.B.A. programs have managed to buck the trend, with many seeing enrollment increases over the past few years.

Questions for Foreign Applicants

Another major factor causing the slide in M.B.A. applications is the decline in interest from international students, who account for more than half of applicants to traditional M.B.A. programs in the United States.

Three-quarters of the programs reported shrinking international applications this year, according to an annual survey released last month by the Graduate Management Admission Council.

While overall applications to full-time M.B.A. programs remain strong in many parts of the world, two-thirds of the programs in the United States reported fewer applicants this year.

The Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has caused some prospective international students to question whether they would be welcome here, according to comments included in the council’s report. Meanwhile, President Trump’s proposed travel bans have raised concerns about their ability to get work visas and to return to their countries. Such worries are reflected across higher education.

M.B.A. programs in Canada and Europe have benefited from that unease, with many posting large increases in their international-applicant pools.

One-year M.B.A.s, which rely less heavily on international candidates, didn’t see the same significant drop in applications.

Against that backdrop, business educators at the University of Wisconsin have been taking a closer look at their graduate offerings.

The university acknowledged on Wednesday that it had jumped the gun with an announcement made at a crucial time for would-be applicants.

Course Reversed

When news broke that the school was suspending admissions to its full-time M.B.A. program while it considered the program’s future, students and alumni grew alarmed. In an email last week to students, a business-school official invited them to meet with the school’s new dean, Anne P. Massey, to talk about it.

Ms. Massey, who took over as dean in August after many years as a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, was not available for comment on Thursday.

The announcement prompted Wisconsin’s M.B.A. alumni to circulate a petition that drew more than 700 signatures. It urged the dean to “maintain and improve the full-time program rather than dissolve it for lower-intensity M.S. degrees.”

Suspending the program, they objected, could damage the reputation of the degree and the network alumni have invested in. A public M.B.A. “is an essential ladder for future business leaders who may not have the financial means to attend the Harvards of the world,” they wrote. Many threatened to withhold donations to the school.

On Wednesday the dean reversed course in a statement posted online.

“We have heard from our community of students, alumni, and friends; therefore, we are going to stop further discussion of the one-year suspension of the full-time M.B.A.,” it read. “We moved too quickly without the broad consultation and discussion that our stakeholders can and should expect.”

Instead of suspending it, the school will discuss how to strengthen the full-time M.B.A., she wrote.

Meanwhile, questions continue to swirl nationally about whether more M.B.A. programs are likely to close, as Wisconsin seemed on the brink of doing.

Advocates for such programs say they offer the breadth, leadership training, and networking opportunities that short-term or online programs lack.

And they point out that demand for M.B.A.s, like many other professional degrees, is countercyclical to business trends, and that it could be slumping in part because the economy is perking up.

Applications to two-year M.B.A. programs peaked at the height of the recession, in 2008, and tend to drop when jobs are plentiful.

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.