Global MBA Demand Is Up. U.S. Programs Are Losing Ground

Admissions consultant Adam Markus spent the better part of a week asking three AI tools – ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude – the same question about U.S. MBA application trends since 2010. Then he had Claude correct the other two.

The exercise was as much a test of AI reliability as it was a market analysis. Both ChatGPT and Perplexity presented 2023-24 cycle data as current, and both missed Poets&Quants‘ February reporting on the 2025-26 cycle, which showed application drops of 20% to 30% at several top U.S. programs. Claude’s corrected synthesis, which Markus published this week, produced a more complete – and significantly bleaker – picture.

The headline finding is a divergence that the AI tools initially obscured: globally, GMAC reported graduate management education applications grew 7% in 2025, following a 12% gain in 2024. But U.S. programs, particularly full-time MBA programs dependent on international enrollment, are moving in the opposite direction.

WHAT THE CURRENT CYCLE SHOWS

P&Q‘s February 2026 reporting, cited in Markus’s analysis, documented steep declines at multiple programs that have not been named publicly: one top 10 MBA saw first- and second-round applications fall 30%; one top 20 school saw international applications drop 43%, with domestic down 11%; a highly ranked second-tier program was off more than 20%.

Those numbers stand out partly because of when they’re happening. In past downturns – the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic – economic uncertainty pushed professionals back toward graduate school. That counter-cyclical pattern appears to be breaking down. Markus attributes the shift partly to AI’s effect on candidate psychology: prospective applicants, he argues, are increasingly uncertain not just about the U.S. job market but about the long-term value of white-collar credentials altogether.

“Going to the U.S. for an MBA is now looking much more risky,” Markus writes, particularly for international candidates who once viewed a U.S. degree as a pathway to American employment.

The structural data support that perception. USCIS reported H-1B registrations fell from 470,342 for FY2025 to 343,981 for FY2026 – a 26.9% decline. IIE’s Fall 2025 Snapshot found newly enrolled international students at U.S. colleges and universities down 17%.

MBA APPLICATION VOLUME TRENDS, 2010–2025

Period	Trend	Key Drivers
2008–2011	Surge	Financial crisis drove professionals to grad school as job market contracted
2012–2019	Gradual decline	Strong job market, rising tuition, ROI concerns, growth of specialized masters
2020–2021	Sharp surge	COVID-19 pandemic, GMAT/GRE test-optional policies, economic uncertainty
2022–2023	Decline	Post-pandemic normalization; 2022 (−3%), 2023 (−5%) per GMAC
2024	Strong recovery	+12% year-over-year across all GME programs per GMAC
2025	Continued growth globally (+7%) but U.S. programs declining sharply	Full-time in-person programs driving growth; international apps shifting away from U.S., U.K., Canada toward Asia and continental Europe

Sources: GMAC Application Trends Surveys 2021–2025 via Adam Markus

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WHERE THE LOSSES ARE CONCENTRATED

The school-level data in Markus’s analysis, drawn from P&Q‘s class profile reporting, show the sharpest declines at programs that historically enrolled the highest shares of international students.

Between 2023 and 2025: Carnegie Mellon Tepper fell from 53% international to 37%; Indiana Kelley from 58% to 42%; Georgetown McDonough from 59% to 44%; UCLA Anderson from 47% to 35%; Emory Goizueta from 48% to 36%.

The picture at elite programs is more mixed. Stanford GSB actually ticked up slightly, from 36% to 38%. Northwestern Kellogg held relatively steady, falling just two points to 37%. Wharton dropped from 31% to 26% – a decline Markus flags as potentially intentional. “I would not be surprised if Wharton is intentionally lowering its international student percentage because its admissions decisions are especially subject to their focus on post-MBA employability,” he writes, adding that the school may be getting harder for international students to crack even as overall application volume falls.

The pattern at mid-tier programs matters, he argues, because these are the schools international candidates are abandoning first. His Indian clients in particular, he writes, “increasingly focus only on M7, HSW, or perhaps Top 10, but increasingly can’t justify applying to schools that were previously considered worth attending for a future career in the U.S.”

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT REPRESENTATION AT TOP U.S. MBA PROGRAMS, 2023-2025

School	2025 Int’l %	2024 Int’l %	2023 Int’l %	Change 2023→2025
Columbia	41%	46%	47%	-6%
Georgetown McDonough	44%	49%	59%	-15%
UCLA Anderson	35%	41%	47%	-12%
Carnegie Mellon Tepper	37%	39%	53%	-16%
Duke Fuqua	38%	41%	47%	-9%
Indiana Kelley	42%	46%	58%	-16%
Emory Goizueta	36%	45%	48%	-12%
Michigan Ross	40%	44%	43%	-3%
Northwestern Kellogg	37%	40%	39%	-2%
Stanford GSB	38%	39%	36%	2%
Wharton	26%	31%	31%	-5%
Dartmouth Tuck	25%	30%	33%	-8%
UNC Kenan-Flagler	35%	43%	34%	1%
Vanderbilt Owen	29%	30%	29%	0%

Source: Business schools, as reported by Poets & Quants, February 2026

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GEOGRAPHIC SHIFT

The students not coming to the U.S. are not staying home. GMAC’s 2025 findings show application growth concentrating in Asia and continental Europe, while the U.S., UK, and Canada all face pressure from visa uncertainty, cost, and post-study work restrictions. India saw a 26% rise in applications; East and Southeast Asia climbed 42%.

Markus, who says he has clients who attend ISB and see strong returns, describes the calculus as increasingly straightforward: why absorb the visa risk when domestic and European options are improving?

One piece of genuinely good news in the data: GMAC’s 2025 survey found women’s MBA application growth outpaced men’s for the first time, with female representation continuing a decade-long climb from roughly 35-37% in the early 2010s to around 40-42% today. Business master’s programs are closer to parity. Markus notes that as female college graduates continue to outpace male graduates in the U.S., further movement toward gender balance in MBA classrooms is a reasonable demographic expectation.

WOMEN’S APPLICANT REPRESENTATION TRENDS

Period	MBA Programs	Business Masters Programs	Notes
2010–2014	~35–37%	Higher (~45–50%)	Persistent gap
2015–2019	~38–39%	~48–50%	Gradual improvement
2020–2024	~40–42%	Near parity in some programs	Consortium/Forté initiatives
2025	Women’s applications outpaced men’s growth rate	Just below parity overall; declining in accounting and finance	GMAC 2025: >50% of full-time MBA programs reported growth in women’s apps

Source: GMAC Application Trends Survey 2025 via Adam Markus

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THE OPEN QUESTION

Markus is careful about what he doesn’t know. School-by-school application counts are not publicly released; the data relies on GMAC surveys and confidential reporting to P&Q. Round 3 data for the current cycle isn’t yet available. And the Markus commentary on Wharton’s strategy is explicitly flagged as inference rather than confirmed policy.

What he’s less equivocal about is the overall direction. 

“We are going through something that is not cyclical, but fundamental,” he writes, “and it is unclear what the ‘new normal’ will look like.”

Read more of Adam Markus’s analysis here. 

DON’T MISS MBA APPLICATIONS ARE WAY DOWN THIS CYCLE. IS AMERICA DRIVING AWAY THE WORLD’S TALENT?

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