Indiana Kelley Becomes The Latest School To Go STEM

IU Kelley photo

WHY STEM? THE MARKET DICTATES, KELLEY SAYS

In its announcement, Indiana Kelley further justifies its move to STEM. It points out that the school’s graduate career services office has reported a growing number of companies requiring MBAs “to possess an understanding and thrive in the disciplines of science, technology, math and analytics.” The school cites a 2018 Pew Research Center report to the effect that employment in STEM occupations has grown by about 80% since 1990 and outpaces overall job growth in the U.S.

The Kelley School already has been preparing its MBAs for the brave new STEM-friendly job market, meaning the curriculum doesn’t need a major makeover. “Students are learning how to solve business problems using cloud computing, pervasive technologies, and machine intelligence though its Digital Intelligence Initiative and its Institute for Business Analytics,” the school says in its announcement. “An increasing level of instruction in other majors is quantitative in nature and involves modeling.”

Attaining STEM designation for five MBA majors is consistent with how the full-time MBA program has evolved, says Kyle Cattani, the program’s chair, professor of operations management, and an E-II faculty fellow.

“More than ever,” he says, “we’re producing graduates who can focus on driving data-driven business decisions, solutions and operational insights. We believe this reflects what we do well.”

‘A FLASHY MARKETING TACTIC’? YES — BUT MORE THAN THAT, TOO

Andrew Raupp, executive director of STEM.org Educational Research, a nonprofit based in Detroit, Michigan, recently told P&Q that yes, STEM is “a flashy marketing tactic” for B-schools. But he added that overall, it’s still a good thing — for the schools, for students, and for the U.S.

“Is it helping students? Yes,” said Raupp, who has worked on STEM issues for more than a decade. “Is it a flashy marketing tactic to get more people in because they have to draw from kids abroad because domestic numbers are down in their business programs? Absolutely. These are all interesting things that are happening, and we’re paying very close attention to it.

“We need students from abroad to come here and to participate not only in STEM but in colleges and universities. Many of them start small businesses and are very entrepreneurial. So when you’re looking at this global geopolitical shift where we talk about the ‘Eurasian century’ and that sort of thing, we’re sort of seeing power heading eastward — so we need to absolutely make sure that we’re making our colleges and universities attractive when providing these types of programs.”

QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES EMPLOYERS, SCHOOLS TO GO STEM

However, as a regular commenter on P&Q‘s coverage states, employers of STEM grads on OPT “are exempt from having to pay payroll taxes for their foreign OPT workers (due to their student status, which they technically still have under OPT in spite of having graduated). It is an incentive to employers for hiring a foreign student instead of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. If those decision-makers in higher education are claiming that applications of domestic students are down, why do they not advocate for a similar incentive for domestic students? Why concentrate on only offering this incentive to foreign students, which puts the domestic student at a disadvantage with employers?”

CitizenOfACorruptNation continues: “Since this tax exemption from payroll tax was pointed out in the lawsuit against the Dept. of Homeland Security, and has been one of the major points raised by critics, DHS is well aware of it. Yet they refuse to address it or even acknowledge it.

“In contrast to DHS previous statements, in which they openly admitted that they intend OPT as an end-run around the H-1B cap, they now describe OPT in warm and fuzzy terms of ‘mentoring’ (putting the ‘T’ back into OPT). That raises several questions:

“If the U.S. indeed ‘needs’ the foreign students to remedy a labor shortage, why do these students need training? The DHS/industry narrative is that the U.S. lacks sufficient workers with training, while the foreign workers are supposedly already trained. And, if workers with such training are indeed needed, why won’t these special mentoring programs be open to Americans? Why just offer them to foreign students? Since DHS admitted that its motivation in OPT is to circumvent the H-1B cap, does that mean that if the cap were high enough to accommodate everyone, these same foreign students wouldn’t need training after all?”

DON’T MISS STEM MBA PROGRAMS AT U.S. B-SCHOOLS

AND SEE P&Q’s COVERAGE OF TOP B-SCHOOLS’ EMBRACE OF STEM:

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

UC-BERKELEY HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE TUCK SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ROSS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

UNC KENAN-FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOOL

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY TEPPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS