Commentary: The Rise Of The One-Year MBA

Sanjay Sarma, dean of the Asia School of Business

In today’s fast-paced world, where the shelf-life of skills is fast-plummeting, the one-year MBA program is emerging as an attractive option for students seeking a business-oriented personal transformation.

The agile economy deserves an agile education system. According to the Prospective Students Survey by the Graduate Management Admissions Council, a growing number of respondents now prefer the shorter, more intensive year-long option—a testament to the shifting landscape of business education.

Asia School of Business (ASB), whose MBA in collaboration with MIT Sloan is recognized by Poets & Quants among the hottest MBA programs in Asia, announced its 1-year MBA last year. It is, in my view, a matter of time before students demand an even greater degree of agility.

IN THE U.S. THE ONE-YEAR MBA ‘REMAINS SOMEWHAT NICHE’

In the United States, most business schools are attached to larger universities. There may be a presumption that the osmotic enrichment can occur immersion in the larger ecosystem justifies the 2-year MBA. The 1-year MBA has remains somewhat niche.

But the calculus of MBA’s is changing. Does longer immersion really provide the extra value that is claimed at every university? Many schools in Europe and Asia, particularly stand-alone institutions, have shifted, or are shifting to 1-year degrees. The London Business School announced its 1-year intentions this year with the dean’s memorable “peak MBA” line.

While large research-oriented institutions such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania may be able to provide an enriching experience commensurate with the time commitment, many institutions are finding themselves out of sync with the realities of work, the flywheel of innovation, perhaps most importantly, the need for continuous reinvention.

MIT’S ONE-YEAR SLOAN FELLOWS PROGRAM

Even MIT, with its enviable ecosystem, pioneered the 1-year Sloan Fellows program, recognizing that senior execs have higher opportunity costs. Degrees in general are under pressure as micro-credentials find more acceptance. As the Vice President for Open Learning at MIT, I was involved in the creation of the MicroMasters Certificate. The onus is now on academics to address pressing questions about degrees, such as: (a) how quickly does the delivered learning depreciate in value? (b) how authentic is the learning—i.e., is the learning bookish, or is it truly internalized and actionable? (c) how “meta” is the learning—i.e., does the experience at school prepare you for a lifetime of reinvention; (a) does the value of the degree exceed the tuition and opportunity costs maximize learning?

Since its founding, the Asia School of Business has addressed the first three issues — effectiveness, durability, and translatability — through its unique combination of MIT-style rigor, an unwavering commitment to action learning, exposure to world-class, research-oriented faculty both from ASB and visiting from MIT, and a transformative immersion for our students at MIT Sloan, where osmotic development can occur.

However, the world entered a new era during covid: everything was digitized. Fast on the heels of this forced digitization came generative AI, a technology that is well setup to thrive on newly digitized processes. The consequences are potentially massive: for businesses, for economies, for societies, and even for nations. Continuous education has, ironically, become increasingly urgent at a time when the opportunity cost of a break to educate oneself is also increasingly expensive.

WHY ASB REDESIGNED ITS TWO-YEAR MBA INTO ONE

It is in response to pressures of cost efficiency and time-efficiency that we at ASB have redesigned our program from one that took 2 years to one that only takes a year and, at the same time, reduced the tuition to less than $35,000.  This has addressed the last 2 of the 5 points discussed above.

In doing this redesign, we have been careful to maintain a focus on effectiveness, durability, and translatability. All the key features – from our rigor, to pedagogy, from action learning to immersions on campus and at MIT remain central aspects of the programs. In fact, we have doubled down on the immersive aspects of the program but creating a new personal development program for our students titled “Growth Mindset,” and created a new Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center that provides our students, alums and exciting local innovators a single co-working and mingling space.

Our goal is to launch students, effectively and affordably, with the superpower of being able to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Sanjay E. Sarma, dean of the Asia School of Business

Sanjay Sarma is the CEO, President, and Dean of the Asia School of Business in Malaysia. He also holds titles as the Fred Fort Flowers (1941) and Daniel Fort Flowers (1941) Professor of Mechanical Engineering, as well as Vice President for Open Learning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.