Specialized Master’s Programs At 100 Top Business Schools

NYU Stern School of Business - Ethan Baron photo

NYU Stern School of Business – Ethan Baron photo

Ka-ching! That’s the sound of one of the fastest-growing sectorsĀ in business education, the specialized master’s degree. For schools, non-MBA master’s programs can be a license to print money. For students, the degreesĀ can beĀ a license to save money – then print it.Ā Among the adaptations forced upon business schools by 21st Century realities, the rise of specialty master’s programs is likely eclipsed in scale only by that of online education.

SoĀ it’s no surpriseĀ that these programs have been sprouting up in great numbers all across America, with some 400 offered at Poets&Quants‘Ā top 100 business schools in the U.S. (table below: complete listings by school of programs, lengths, and tuition).Ā Globally, more than 20%Ā of prospective business students are focused exclusively on specialized masterā€™s programs, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.

While the massiveĀ growth in this educational sector is recent, specialized master’s programs at B-schools are not new. The Stanford Graduate School of Business has been running an elite master’s in leadership since 1958. A fair number of accounting programsĀ date back decades, including one at theĀ University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business University launched in 1948, and one at North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, startedĀ in 1985. Notre Dame Mendoza College of BusinessĀ has offeredĀ aĀ Master of Nonprofit Administration degree since 1958.

EXPLOSIVEĀ GROWTH IN RECENT YEARS

Still, the vast majority of the specialty master’s in America’s top B-schools have been added much more recently, with large numbers appearing in the past three years, pushed into being byĀ student demand, demand from employers for workers needing little training, and the fast-spreading realizationĀ among schoolĀ administratorsĀ that they can meet these symbiotic demands by launching master’s programs atopĀ existing MBA program infrastructure, taking advantage of existing administration, facilities, faculty, and course materials to reduce startup and operational costs. Schools can captureĀ a largerĀ market of students, and, ideally, send well-prepared, accelerated graduates into a hungry job market. Mid- and lower-tier B-schoolsĀ in particular needĀ a boost in the face of stalled demand for two-year MBA degrees, and slackening enrollment in many part-time MBA programsĀ – the specialty programsĀ are most heavily concentrated in these tiers. Of the 400 specialized master’s programs in the top 100 schools, only about 50 are in the top 25.

Specialty master’s programsĀ present a number ofĀ attractive prospects for would-be students. Most of the degrees are aimed at recent college graduates with little or no work experience, though there remain a fair number oriented toward more experienced students. A specialized master’s can provide a leap ahead, conferring an advantage over those wieldingĀ onlyĀ undergraduate degrees, as well as connecting students and graduatesĀ with a school’s network, and receiving – again ideally – effective career services from school staff plugged intoĀ the job market. The degrees tend to takeĀ a year or less full time, although many are offered in part-time versions, or online, and can be completed longer-term, and several programs runĀ two years. While graduates’ starting pay typically falls significantly below that of MBAs from the same schools, many programs yield a decent bumpĀ in salary along with career trajectory.

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