Economist To Rank MiM Programs

The Economist plans to complete a ranking of master’s in management programs, following the lead of The Financial Times. The magazine’s debut ranking of these programs will appear toward the end of this year in either November or December, according to William Ridgers, The Economist’s business school editor.

“We’re ranking these programs because of the growth of them,” Ridgers explains. “For the European schools, there are many more MiM students than there are MBAs and many schools in the states are looking at this market. It’s highly popular, so that is what we are going to do next.”

Ridgers made the announcement before a gathering of business school communications and marketing officials at the MaKi Conference in London this past week. The Economist had been hoping to get the new ranking off the ground before its annual MBA list comes out in October, but the project has been delayed until after the MBA ranking.

PLANS TO USE A METHODOLOGY SIMILAR TO ITS MBA RANKING

Ridgers expects the methodology for the new MiM ranking to be similar to its approach in ranking MBA programs. The Economist is sending surveys to business schools for such data as the salaries of graduates and the number of alumni. It also is sending surveys to current MiM students and a school’s most recent graduating class.

Currently, the Financial Times does a Euro-centric ranking of master’s in management programs. Last year, the FT placed numerical ranks on 80 programs, with the University of St. Gallen repeating its first-place finish for a fifth consecutive year. The FT has been ranking these programs for 11 years on the basis of school and alumni surveys. Last year, a record 90 schools participated in the FT ranking, up from 81 a year earlier.

Still, the FT didn’t include any U.S. school programs, even though there are dozens of schools that currently offer the degree, including Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, among many others.

Ridgers says he expects the Economist‘s inaugural ranking to largely cover schools in Europe, where the MiM degree is more common, but that The Economist ranking also will include some U.S. schools. U.S. News, Bloomberg Businessweek and Forbes, all of which compile listings of MBA programs, do not currently rank MiM programs.

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