EXCLUSIVE: Vanderbilt’s Elite MBA Is About To Get A Lot More Accessible

Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management will launch an Evening MBA in fall 2027

The Vanderbilt MBA has long been one of the most selective degrees in graduate business education – and, for anyone who couldn’t pause a career to pursue it, or who hadn’t yet reached executive level, largely out of reach. Starting next fall, that changes.

Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management will launch an Evening MBA in Fall 2027, giving working professionals in the Greater Nashville area a new path to the rigorous training and career advancement opportunities as the school’s daytime MBA, Dean Thomas J. Steenburgh tells Poets&Quants.

The program will be open to fully employed bachelor’s degree holders with at least two years of work experience. Students will be able to take up to two courses at a time, with each class meeting one evening a week from 6 to 9:15 p.m., Monday through Wednesday. Most students will finish in around three years, combining the in-person evening core with elective daytime and online courses.

Applications for the Fall 2027 cohort open Friday, October 2.

MEETING A GROWING MARKET

Vanderbilt’s Owen Dean Tom Steenburgh: “Most schools have found that the cannibalization has been less significant than they initially worried about”

Evening MBA students will also have access to Owen’s Career Management Center and Leadership Development Program, and will network with full-time MBA and executive MBA students through cross-program events, Steenburgh says. They’ll also be considered for merit-based scholarships at admission, based on academic and professional achievement, application strength, and potential contribution to the Owen community.

“With so many ambitious business professionals in the Nashville area, it was essential for Vanderbilt to create this Evening MBA program to give them another format to earn a graduate business degree,” the dean tells P&Q. “We’re really excited about the opportunities this program will open up for the community.”

Owen has offered an executive MBA for years, Steenburgh says, but nothing built for working professionals who aren’t yet at the executive level. He points to Nashville’s growth since he arrived in 2023 – from his Midtown apartment window his first year, he recalls seeing eight construction cranes – and Vanderbilt’s deepening ties to the local business community, including Chancellor Daniel Diermeier’s role on the city’s Chamber of Commerce. And Steenburgh cites incoming employers like Oracle Health and a recent gathering of local healthcare leaders as evidence the market can support the new program.

Steenburgh says planning for the new program included consultation with other B-school deans, including former Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez. What he discovered was that by and large, fears about an evening program cannibalizing existing offerings tend to be overstated. The Owen executive MBA will continue unchanged, he adds.

SAME DEGREE, DETAILS STILL TO COME

“Most schools have found that the cannibalization has been less significant than they initially worried about,” he says, portraying the new program as a scheduling option built around students’ lives – whether they have kids, a spouse working locally, or an easier commute from the office than from home – rather than a rival to Owen’s other formats.

Evening MBA students will learn from the same faculty and follow the same core curriculum as their daytime counterparts, Steenburgh says. “It’s going to be just like the daytime program,” he says, though he expects small adjustments over time. Longer term, he adds, Owen may let evening students fill open seats in daytime specialty electives, though that isn’t part of the initial pitch.

Owen has not set an enrollment target, though Steenburgh expects the first cohorts to resemble a standard section of 50 to 60 students – a number the school may not hit in year one. Tuition will be announced in November, and Steenburgh says it will be priced in line with the daytime residential MBA, for which annual tuition in 2026 is $76,700. 

GROWING THE ALUMNI BASE

Steenburgh expects the program to expand Owen’s alumni network within Nashville, particularly in healthcare and music and entertainment – two industries he notes are central to the school’s and city’s identities – along with entrepreneurship. About the latter, he says Evening MBA students will be well-positioned to launch startups given that most Owen alumni found companies four to eight years after graduation. And he points to the school’s Center for Entrepreneurship, which is set to receive fresh investment, as a resource the new program can tap.

The priority, he says, is talent. 

“It’s all about, can you get the smartest people to your institution,” Steenburgh says, noting that Owen counts 10 or 11 unicorn founders among its alumni. “I’m absolutely thrilled with the quality of our students and our alumni. They really go on to do big things.”

DON’T MISS MEET VANDERBILT OWEN’S MBA CLASS OF 2027 and VANDERBILT’S NEW BUSINESS SCHOOL DEAN ON BUILDING A FLORIDA CAMPUS

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