Is A Master’s In Management Degree In Your Future?
Maria |
July 8, 2023

In this episode of Business Casual, our hosts discuss the growing popularity of the Master’s in Management (MIM) degree. The MIM degree is becoming the predominant graduate degree in business in Europe and is attracting humanities graduates who struggle to find employment. 

While MIM programs are well-established in Europe, they are still relatively new in the United States, raising some questions that you might find answers to in this episode. The conversation explores the differences between MIM and MBA degrees, the benefits of MIM programs for students with non-business backgrounds, and the potential complementarity of MIM and MBA degrees.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.770] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Vernon with poets and quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co hosts Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich Vila. We’re going to talk about a degree that is gaining in popularity in the US. And is the predominant graduate degree in business in Europe. It’s the master’s in management. What separates a MIM from an MBA? We’ll tell you in a few moments, but generally, if you graduated from an undergraduate institution with one of those wonderful degrees like I did in Political Science or English, I double majored, or maybe you majored in philosophy or geography or any one of the humanities subjects, and you are finding it difficult to locate a job. The MIM is where it basically shows you how to get not only a job, but land one in a company that no longer has the kind of rotational training programs that companies once did. Back into the 1980s, many companies reduced many layers of management and training programs for newly graduated people with geography, English, political Science, and other degrees kind of went away. Companies began disinvesting in those kind of training programs, hoping to get graduates who they could hire and who could contribute in the job from day one.

[00:01:42.660] – John

And this is what has made really, the Master’s in Management so popular. It is a pre experienced degree can be anywhere from one year to even three in some cases, and it really prepares you for a role in business. Companies in Europe. Love MIMs. In fact, many of the MIM programs at the business schools are more selective than their full time residential MBA programs in the US. Probably the highest ranked MBA program with a MIM is Kellogg at Northwestern. The degree is proliferating in the US. And is considered to be a big growth area for US. Business schools. Caroline, what’s the difference really, between a MIM and an MBA?

[00:02:29.390] – Caroline

There are a lot of different flavors of MIMs, so it does depend on which school and which program that you’re looking at. So, for example, the INSEAD Masters in Management, it’s a pre experience program versus the full time MBA, for which students typically have, on average, five to six years of work experience. And so the Masters in Management is actually a little bit longer, so it’s 14 to 16 months, whereas the full time MBA is ten to twelve months. And that reflects the fact that with the full time MBA program, the faculty can really rely on the fact that students coming into the classroom have really rich and deep professional experience that they can draw on and they can relate what they’re learning to their previous experience and give it that context very quickly. Whereas students who are coming in straight from undergraduate, I’m sure that they’ve done internships. A lot of them would have done internships and would already have start to build their resume. But of course, they won’t have the same length of professional experience that the MBAs would have. And so it’s necessary to just take things a little bit more slowly and start from an earlier point in some of those classes.

[00:03:49.170] – Caroline

And so it makes sense to take things to expand the program over a longer period. And I think it’s a wonderful option. It gives students a great, as you said, a great entry point into the marketplace. It gives them a wonderful credential. It’s not just an academic experience. The schools will also work with students on figuring out their career plans and connecting them with employers. And so it’s a great springboard into the marketplace, into the workforce, and into recruitment opportunities. So, a great way to transition from an undergraduate degree, as you said earlier, John, particularly in Europe, a few years back, the European Union restructured the undergraduate degrees to harmonize undergraduate programs because there was a lot of variability in Europe, with some undergraduate programs being very long. In Germany, even sort of five, six years was not at all uncommon and some very short. So in the UK, typically three years. So there was an effort to harmonize the undergraduate degree across Europe, and that led to a lot more students coming out of their undergraduate degrees at an earlier age. And this fed an appetite for pre experienced Master’s degrees. And so this is also responding to that need, particularly in Europe, where students feel that after three years, they don’t feel quite yet done with their education.

[00:05:23.380] – Caroline

And they see these programs as a great way to transition from perhaps a very academic learning environment, as you said. Perhaps they’ve been studying English or history or something quite abstract, which doesn’t necessarily lend itself immediately to a professional career. And therefore, taking a Master’s in management would be a wonderful way to transition and build a great foundation of skills so that they can then make that successful transition into the workforce.

[00:05:55.970] – John

And you learn to speak the language of business. I mean, if you’re an English undergrad and you go into the marketplace, you have no idea what return on equity is, how stock markets work, how the global economy is interdependent. You just have no basic knowledge of how business operates. And business does have a language, and learning that language is important if you’re going to get a job at a company. Maria, what’s your take on MIM?

[00:06:28.210] – Maria

So my take on it is, I think, for Europe, for all the reasons that Caroline explained, I think it makes a lot of sense in some ways. I’ve always sort of viewed the MIM degree as an opportunity for people who, perhaps, as you mentioned earlier, John, get to the end of their undergraduate careers and realize, oh, my gosh, maybe I do want to pursue a career in business, but I didn’t study it. Or I didn’t have the opportunity to study it before, but I don’t want to go back and redo my bachelor’s degree, but I don’t have experience. I’m too young for an MBA. So it’s always seemed to me to be sort of like a stop gap. It’s not quite an MBA, but it’s not quite a full bachelor’s. And so I think it’s a great opportunity for people to make that transition. I know in the States, for example, in the past, because as you mentioned, the MIM in the States is not as popular, but for example, if you were an English major or political science major and you got a job, say, at McKinsey, that’s what the Tuck, the Dartmouth Tuck Business Bridge program used to be.

[00:07:20.520] – Maria

The corporations would send these recent graduates to it was significantly shorter than a full Master’s, but it was sort of like, I think a ten or twelve week type of program on the Tuck campus. And it would be full time and it would be kind of like a crash course and all of the business fundamentals that they would need, for example, to get in front of a client and talk about things like return on equity. And so I think the MIM in the US. It’s interesting that it’s starting to emerge because I’d be curious to learn more from Caroline. Is it more of a standardized experience in Europe? Because it has been around for longer? Because I think one of the trickier things with the US. Landscape is that there doesn’t seem to be a complete standardization. Like, some schools will have the Master’s in Asset Management and some schools will have the Masters in Management Science or Masters in Management data analytics. There doesn’t seem to be sort of a cohesive curriculum, whereas with an MBA, while the electives may vary pretty dramatically from school to school, the core MBA and what is an MBA program is very well known in the US.

[00:08:21.790] – Maria

But I think with the Master’s degrees there’s, like the Master’s in Finance, that’s MIT Sloan, that’s 18 months. But then they have a Master’s in Management Science, I think it’s called. That’s nine months. It’s sort of all over the place. So do you happen to know do either one of you happen to know if in Europe it’s already a little bit more of an established curriculum and everyone sort of universally knows what the MIM is?

[00:08:47.290] – John

Or is it yeah, I think that’s true in Europe, definitely, because it’s so popular and there are so many of them in the US. If you talk to directors of MIM programs I had a recent interview with the head of the MIM program at Georgetown University’s McDonough School, and she admits that there’s an education job here. Both the market, as defined by aspiring students as well as employers need to be educated about the degree and what its value is because it’s still very early on in the US. Market. And I think you’re right, there could be a lot of confusion with a lot of the other specialty master’s degrees that are out there. And this is quite a different and distinct product because it really just gives you the fundamentals of what a business education is. I mean, the basic accounting, finance, marketing strategy, and then some capstone project typically, that allows you to integrate those basic skills in a project of one kind or another. And different schools have different flavors of this. But I see most of this as pretty commoditized. Now At Paris has just done an entire revamp of its Masters in Management program to emphasize ESG issues.

[00:10:10.370] – John

And that’s kind of interesting too, because particularly in Europe, and I will say Europe is ahead of the United States in terms of sustainability and ESG. And a lot of the European schools and their MIMs have this emphasis, but not to the extent that HEC has gone to develop it. In part after conversations with incoming students, alumni and employers who see sustainability and all the other issues related to governance and the role of business and society as key drivers of new business graduates and what motivates them and what they need to be thinking about, what kind of skills they need to bring to the workplace. So I do think that while the knowledge is generally commoditized, there are some changes afoot, particularly in Europe, that are the result of demand from incoming students and from employers. Even in Europe, the programs are growing because it’s only recently that INSEAD and IESE and Barcelona launched MIM programs even though they’re so well established in Europe. So even in Europe, the classes are expanding in enrollment and new and very great schools. I mean, IESE and Barcelona and INSEAD are among the top five world business schools and they’re just only getting into the MIM game.

[00:11:43.620] – John

So there’s no doubt that this degree seems to be in demand and has great value. I mean, Caroline, why do you think INSEAD waited so long, in fact, to enter that market?

[00:11:56.340] – Caroline

Well, I think they were waiting to see how things panned out in the market. I think there was also some hesitancy to launch a program for pre experienced students because the school, the MBA is the average age is 28 29. So it’s quite different to be addressing an audience that is straight out of undergrad. It’s a very different group. So I think that there was some hesitancy about bringing in that group and concerned that it would be a very different type of student. But actually the experience has been extremely positive. It’s been very successful. The MIM students at Ins yet are a wonderful group of actually surprisingly mature young students. And I think the school is thrilled with how it’s gone. But it was definitely a different program. And also initially, when MIMs began to emerge, the price point was quite low compared to full time MBA programs. And so I think the school was also figuring out how to potentially launch a program that really fit with INSEAD, where it’s really a premium product and they weren’t going to offer a heavily discounted program just for the sake of launching that particular program and competing in that market.

[00:13:36.310] – John

Yeah, that all makes sense. I should let everyone know. And this is kind of interesting that Caroline is about to embark on a journey that every parent ends up doing. She is bringing one of her children, a daughter, on a college trip. And I wonder if Caroline might theorize about what major you would like your daughter to undertake when she does get into one of the schools that you will visit over the next couple of weeks. Do you want it to be humanities major and then maybe get a MIM? Or would you prefer that she just enrolled in a business school and get that business degree and move forward with that?

[00:14:17.810] – Caroline

Well, I am definitely not going to tell her what she should study. She’s extremely headstrong and I will be put in my place very quickly if I try to express my reference. She’s actually very interested in psychology, which I think could be a very interesting course of study and also could be relevant to a lot of different future career paths. But I really don’t care. I just want her to study something that she loves doing and whatever that is is absolutely fine with me. I have no particular direction I’m trying to push her in at all, but.

[00:15:00.530] – John

I do with two parents who have MBAs from world’s leading schools, Stanford and INSEAD. I’m sure that an MBA is in her future, no matter what her major is at undergrad.

[00:15:11.020] – Caroline

Well, I don’t know. So she actually doesn’t particularly show an inclination that direction. But my third child is already trying to figure out how she can start a business, so I do have some hope for her. But I would actually be thrilled if one of my kids did want to do a program like the MIM one day, because thinking back to my own experience, I studied French and German undergrad and French and German at the university where I studied was I was studying medieval German, right? And it was a very academic program. And so then I went to work in consulting in London. As you said, John, it’s a whole different language that you have to learn. And the firm that I worked for, they had to invest a huge amount in training those recruits, right, because they recruited young talent from top universities. But a lot of people like me, who had been studying something that was completely unrelated to the world of business and didn’t necessarily have a lot of experience, relevant experience, it’s tough on the employer because they have to invest a lot of money in that training and it’s a huge learning curve for that young professional.

[00:16:26.310] – Caroline

So I think something like a Min would have been a great experience for me. So I would personally be thrilled if one of my kids went in that direction in the future. And it doesn’t preclude you doing an MBA later on, either. I did talk to the admissions director, Lindsay, about that. Is that something do you see that it’s kind of a completely different program, and someone who does a MIM would therefore not be a good candidate for an MBA, because haven’t they covered a lot of the same curriculum? Actually, what they’re seeing is that the programs can be complementary because the MBA, you have a lot of different electives. You’re addressing things from a different level at that stage. And so they actually are seeing people who’ve done the MIM who are interested in then coming back and doing an MBA later on. So I don’t think having a MIM precludes you then from doing an MBA at a great school later on.

[00:17:26.750] – John

Yeah, really good point. Maria, any last words on the MIM?

[00:17:32.110] – Maria

No, I’m excited for it to start to take off more in the US. Because there’s such a variety of masters in finance, masters in asset management, like in the US. And I do wish that there would be some standardization because I think that would be more helpful for the schools, for students, for educating the marketplace, as you mentioned. John right. It’s one thing if I’m a recruiter and I know what I’m getting with a MIM. A graduate versus a Master’s in quantitative finance versus a Master’s in Finance versus a Master’s in asset management. Like, there are just so many different ones in the US. And yeah, I do think that based on the MIM curriculum, it’s very similar to it’s the same thing where I took accounting and finance and a bunch of classes like that in college. And when you’re in undergraduate, I suspect the MIM might be very similar where it is more about the mechanics of here’s how you build a balance sheet, here’s how you build a PNL, here’s how you depreciate an asset versus when you get to business school. You are looking at it from a much higher level.

[00:18:28.900] – Maria

And so at first I thought, wow, I already took accounting in college. Why is business school forcing me to take it again? That’s annoying. But it was a completely different ballgame. It was less about the definitions and the mechanics of it and more about here’s how a management team can use accounting and the principles of accounting to manage their overall business. So I don’t think that there may be some overlap in the course titles. However, I believe the way in which the coursework is examined is very different between the two programs. So I’m excited for all of these opportunities for people to learn more.

[00:18:59.540] – John

True. And I should point out that the Financial Times has been ranking MIM programs for a number of years. That ranking tends to be pretty European centric. Very few us. Schools have participated in it. So it’s not a full list globally, but it’s a really good indication of sort of the MIM landscape, particularly in Europe. And you can come to Poets and Quants and you will see. What we tried to do is to look at the top US. Schools and determine who is already offering a MIM and how do they differ from each other, what do they cost, how long do they last, what schools are in the game, and how do they teach this subject to pre experienced students. So I think you can benefit from that. Check out our story, online now at Poets and Quants on the best MIM programs in the US. Meantime, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You’ve been hearing our Business Casual podcast with Maria and Caroline.

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Is A Master’s In Management Degree In Your Future?
Maria |
July 8, 2023

Full Episode Transcript:

John Byrne: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast. We want to talk about international students. Schools are now reporting that a good number of their international recruits who were admitted to programs this fall haven’t been able to show up or have changed their mind.

At the University of Illinois, the school, the Gies College of Businesses, lost about 200 international students in its Master of Finance and Master of Business Analytics programs causing a $7 million hit. To their budget at UC Davis Graduate School of Management, 40 students didn’t show up who were admitted, and that’s resulting in two and a half to $3 million hit on their budget this year.

Both of these things have occurred before the announcement of a hundred thousand dollars tax on H one B Visa. Which will make it more difficult for many employers [00:01:00] to hire international students and keep them in the US for an extended period of time. And we’re getting the new class reports of the, of the new cohorts of students who’ve arrived on campus in the fall of this year.

And Carnegie Mellon is. Down 30% for their international cohort over the past two years. UCLA Anderson School is down 25% over the past two years, and schools are preparing for the worst because of the H one B Visa decision which could affect future employment. Caroline and Maria, my cohosts are in the market helping people get into the best schools in the world.

And Caroline, what do you think?

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yeah, definitely seeing concern among international candidates and people holding off on applying for the US schools. So it’s really a shame. I think the international schools, particularly the schools like Inea and London Business School and the other top.[00:02:00]

International European programs will benefit, they’ll get talent that might otherwise have come to the us, which is great for those schools. And I’m very fond of those schools, but it is sad as from the US perspective for sure. On the other hand, you could also take the perspective that.

If you do have options for your career post MBA that don’t require that you absolutely have to stay in the US as an international candidate, then now could be a very good time to apply, right? Because definitely application volume will be down and schools will be perhaps. More open to candidates that might otherwise have been waitlisted or rejected in the past.

For some candidates, this is actually a fantastic opportunity to get into a top school, but from, for, at least from the school’s perspective, it is a shame because, I’ve experienced firsthand the value of a very internationally diverse classroom and the value that brings with a [00:03:00] diversity of perspectives that enriches the learning experience so much for everybody.

Enriches the debate and bring so much to the academic experience as well as the the network and the social experience. So it’s everybody’s loss, right?

John Byrne: Very true.

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: And I think it’s a very myopic perspective that the US government takes that. There needs to be a more of a refocus at US educational institutions on the domestic market because those international applicants bring a lot to the domestic students in enriching their learning and enriching their network.

Of course bring a huge value to the US economy when they stay. So there are very impressive statistics on the value of immigrants to the US economy. So Indian immigrants, for example, are only about one and a half percent of the US population, but they have founded to date about 8% of all the tech startups in the us.[00:04:00]

And for sure some of that top talent from India will now not come to the us. They will go to perhaps they will stay at the great schools that we’ve talked about in India, or they will go to other international schools. So for sure it will be a loss to the us learning experience and to the US economy.

John Byrne: Maria, you run applicant lab which is a platform that helps applicants get into highly selective schools. And many of the people who use your product are international students. What are you seeing?

Maria Wich-Vila: Everything Caroline is saying concern is think a delicate way to put it.

And I think it’s because as the more affordable provider in the market, I tend to get the applicants who maybe they don’t have the family business to fall back on. Maybe they don’t have, large sources of income elsewhere in their lives. And so I think the concern is very real and very merited, right?

I can’t. In good faith, tell someone, if they [00:05:00] really start, sit down and do the math and start to do, run the numbers, if they just assume that things are going to stay as is. And this is the big caveat that I’m, I want to get to in a second, but if we assume that things stay as is and if someone really is from a lower income tier from Nepal or India or some of the other countries that I work with, yeah, maybe sit down and do that math and think about, okay, if I do have to come back to Nepal afterwards, how will I pay back that loan? There, there is though some good news. Even if we assume that things stay status quo, which I hope, and I’m pretty, I’m I think it’s, I’m cautiously optimistic that they won’t.

But there are other markets as well. So I’ve had a lot of candidates, or former clients, I should say, graduate from business school, not be able to get jobs in certain in countries and then. Being able to move to Dubai. Dubai for some reason, has started attracting a ton of candidates, primarily from South Asia but from other parts of the world who might be having trouble getting some of those work permits.

You could do worse than live in, Dubai’s not perfect, but [00:06:00] you could also do worse than live in Dubai, right? The salaries are pretty high. The standard of living, if you have a white collar job there is, it’s not the worst outcome. So it’s not I can’t stay in the us. That’s it.

There’s no other it’s not a binary of, it’s either the US or it’s nothing. And then I think the second point is I, we’ve just seen. So many things, let’s take something from a different facet of policy. The tariffs, right? The tariffs were announced and the markets went crazy, and in the months that have followed, oh, actually, here’s the tariff, but this one company, their products aren’t gonna be subject to the tariff.

And then there’s this other company that maybe they’re not gonna have to pay the same tariff. And I can’t help but wonder if some of these. Some of these very large companies that are getting tariff exemptions, their ability to lobby for. The H one B, maybe lowering of the H one B fee. If they’ve been able to successfully lobby tariffs, they might be success, able to successfully lobby against these, true, these [00:07:00] visa fees.

And a lot of these big companies, these big tech companies are in fact some of the largest employers of post MBA talent in the us. So I am cautiously optimistic that. This could be, hopefully right now it’s the big, the flash and storm and the, the making, the big splash, right?

Everything’s about showmanship and making the big splash. And maybe in the aftermath of the storm, that initial PR media storm, maybe the reality will start to calm down a little bit. Yeah, the other good news is that if you’re applying now, that means you would enroll in 2026. You would, if it, if you’re talking about the US two year program, you would graduate in 2028.

At that point, who knows what might happen. I like to think that what we have seen so far in terms of the Visa policies, hopefully. Roughly the floor about as bad as it can get. I think if they start implementing a similar thing to OPT, that could be the same thing. But if we just assume that okay, right now what’s been announced is that these foreign students all have to do, you can’t stay here, you have to [00:08:00] go someplace else.

It, we assume that’s like the initial negotiating position. It’s just gonna chip, it’s just gonna get, it’s got nowhere else to go. It’s even worse. So we’ve, we now have two and a half years roughly until. People applying now would have to really implement, or be really affected by this in a.

In a pragmatic and tangible way. And so that’s why I’m hoping that the little chipping away and the chipping away things will start to get a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better like we’ve seen with other facets of policy. Didn’t like a bunch of the CDC employees that were all fired under Doge didn’t more than half of them I think were recently rehired.

Yes. Back again true. Whatever you think of the policy, it seems like some of the policies are. Being slowly walked back. And so I think if you. If you’ve got an adventurous spirit, I, and by the way, if you apply now, sorry. I know I keep going, but I like, if you apply now, let’s say you get accepted, you don’t have to show up until August of 2026.

So that will give you [00:09:00] time, like definitely. Apply now and see what happens between now and August of 2026 to make the decision to not apply now, because you’re rightfully scared. I’m not blaming anyone, but to not apply now, maybe by maybe six months from now he’ll be like, ha, just kidding. I’m doubling the number of H one Bs.

Yeah, we have no idea what’s gonna happen. So things are So give yourself that optionality.

John Byrne: Yeah. And things are so uncertain that could very well happen because, one day at tariffs are on one country the next day they’re not one day they’re pausing the ab the interviews for student visas, the.

Say they’re not there’s litigation all over the place, challenging many of the presidential actions that have been taken that have put them in limbo despite all the headlines. So it’s, it, there’s more uncertainty than there is certainty about any of these things. And as you point out, you, if you [00:10:00] did apply this year, the odds are gonna be in your favor if you’re an international student, frankly, because there is no question.

That international applicant volume will be down at all the top schools in the us, which means that to maintain some semblance of a global class. Admission directors are going to have to dig a little bit deeper into their international applicant pools to select candidates. In a way, if you play the long term and in the BA, in, in many graduate degrees or long term bet, I think you’re gonna be.

Oddly better off. And it may even be that the schools will really even go out of their way to help international students in ways that they haven’t in the past because of these actions in Washington. And what do I mean by that? Just a more welcoming reception than the already welcoming reception you would get hiring immigration lawyers and people that can help you.

If in fact there is a [00:11:00] challenge of one kind or another. I think the takeaway is not to be discouraged and throw up your hands to say, ah, I always dreamed of coming to the United States and getting an MBA or a graduate degree in business. Use this as an opportunity to actually increase your odds of getting into a better school with the understanding that when you get out there, probably most likely be an administration change and a change in these policies if they even get completely adopted as Maria points out.

Wouldn’t you think that’s the best strategy, Caroline?

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yes, I agree. I think that it’s good to take a longer term perspective because it is such a long timeline, right? If you’re applying to a top two year program as you say, you’re gonna be coming out of the program at the end of the Trump presidency and things may look very different.

And Maria rightly points out that. Everything is very volatile, right? So one thing gets announced and the next week it [00:12:00] gets rolled back, right? They’ve done so many things where they’ve realized, oh, actually that was a really bad idea after all. So

They’ve changed things. So things may not it might, may not turn out to be as bad as we fear.

And then I would also encourage candidates. To apply to the US schools, but why not hedge your bets and apply to an international program as well? Agreed in a time of uncertainty. As Maria said, create options for yourself. And so I would encourage candidates to apply to the top US programs, but also apply to top international programs as well and see what offers you get.

And then you can make a decision. As Maria said, it will be closer to the time when you would be starting the program and there may be more clarity about the situation in the US and what your options are in international markets as well. So I think that given the current circumstances, a good strategy is to hedge your bets and apply more widely than you might [00:13:00] have otherwise done.

John Byrne: Plan Bs are good. Let me just say business schools in the US have for years advised international students that those should have a plan B in the event that they can’t get with a US company. The other thing to, to keep in mind incidentally, in terms of MBA employment is that most of the companies.

That basically employ the lion’s share of MBAs are all global concerns. So you can be hired here and if there’s any challenge in getting you employed here in the us you can simply start in an office outside the United States with a hope of coming back when things clear up. So that is also another important thing to keep in mind.

And I’ll just say this. Despite whatever messaging you’re reading in your local newspapers or on your streaming platforms or television stations about how immigrants may not be welcome in the us that’s not true at all. Universities are diverse places. Welcoming. [00:14:00] Embracing loving the diversity of their students and particularly those from different cultures and backgrounds that enrich the educational experience.

There is no Dean that I’ve ever encountered who said they want fewer international students. It’s the exact opposite. They’re putting out message after message, telling people that they’re still welcome and wanted. Needed in the classroom. Now, Maria, in the past we’ve seen applicants who try to say, okay, can I time my application and my enrollment in a program to what I think might be the next recession?

And we know that in recessions applications go way. In part because some people lose the opportunity to gain advancement in a recession. Some people get unemployed. Some people just realize, hey, a recession is a good time to take a time out and get a new educational credential, which may allow me to do things I otherwise can’t do.[00:15:00]

But it’s almost impossible to time a recession and I’m imagining it’s impossible to time what’s going on here now.

Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah. I mean if we could all time, when everyone’s been talking about a stock market crash that to, not to bring another disparate topic in, but like everyone’s been talking about, it’s a bubble.

It’s a bubble. I’ve been hearing ’cause a bubble for a year and a half. True. Yeah, you can’t time or ask, for example, ask the people who enrolled in business school, like who got into business school in 2020. Like there’s always gonna be these external shocks. We can try to predict a recession, but who knows if it’s going to happen?

Who knows if there’s going to be some sort of virus or the opposite of a virus. Maybe there’ll be a virus that helps us all live healthily forever. Who knows? There’s so much uncertainty out there that who knows what to do. So I think. I think yeah, have that optionality. I think go ahead and apply.

Now if there is a recession though, which everyone seems to think is coming at some point, at that point, it’s going to be harder to get accepted. And as Caroline has pointed out, so rightfully, if other international, high quality international students are [00:16:00] spooked by the current H one B talk, now is your chance.

International candidate. Jump in there, shoot your shot like you might be able to get into a school, assuming of course that you’re qualified, but. You might have a lot less competition now than you normally will, so this could be a golden opportunity for you. And one final as one thing that I wanted to point out was that I was thinking, okay, Maria, let’s say that, you just said that maybe there’s gonna be walk back of some of these and there’s gonna be, maybe he’s gonna change.

But even if there isn’t a change, right? Let’s think about this. The companies themselves are gonna have, and you started to alluded to this John, when you mentioned that a lot of them are global concerns. They’re gonna have now a two year window in which to say. Okay. We know that we’re not gonna keep these people in the states, so let’s open a huge office in Vancouver.

Let’s open a brand, an enormous new office in Toronto. Whatever that is. Because I was thinking back to over the summer when it looked like maybe a bunch of international students wouldn’t be able to get any student visa at all. And I know that some of the business schools we’re looking [00:17:00] at, do we rent out some space in Toronto and do Zoom classes?

We do a hybrid. What we did during COVID. I’ve heard that. I think Rice, I was actually having dinner last night with a dear friend who was, say he’s from Texas and he was saying that Rice has some sort of a campus in Paris and that they are leaning really heavily on their global campuses around the world to still be able to service these students who had gotten accepted.

So things like that, like if. Even if our sort of my very cautious and perhaps irrational optimism turns out to not be true, let’s say the things get, the OPT is banished and all, everyone is banished and it’s the worst case scenario. Again, there’s gonna be two and a half years for these companies. To quickly find, okay, fine, we’re gonna open up an office in Mexico City and we’re gonna pay people really well and we’re gonna what?

Whatever that is. ’cause they’re, the companies are still gonna want the talent, right? Just because the political administration doesn’t want the global talent in the country. That doesn’t mean that the country’s employers don’t want that talent. They [00:18:00] want that talent, they want that intellect, they want that energy and that drive to make their companies better and to make more money.

So they have a very strong incentive to not only be lobbying for these. Visa changes to go away, but if they don’t go away, they have a very strong incentive to come up with some way to provide, to provide those incomes and to provide those perks and some sort of a compromise type of situation.

So again I think if you’re applying now, if you’re going in with eyes wide open, shoot your shot. That’s my, I would absolutely tell people to to try that.

John Byrne: Yeah, I totally agree. And, generally this is my rule of thumb and Maria and Caroline, you may or may not agree with this, at the top MBA programs, they’re so selective that the people who apply to them generally are very self-selecting group.

So I always say that roughly 80% of the school’s applicant pool. Is qualified to actually get accepted, get in, do [00:19:00] well, and land a good job. And yet we know that at Stanford, the acceptance rate is 6%, that Harvard is 12 Wharton and Columbia is, a little under 20 or so. So there are a lot of really good candidates who aren’t getting in.

Which leads me to this, if you’re an international student who thinks okay, so these US schools just might dip a little more into the domestic pool to make up for the offset of international candidates. As it turns out, there is a little notice. Clause in the big beautiful tax bill that was passed here under Trump that places severe limits on federal loans for graduate students.

Now, the current grad plus loan program allows students to borrow up to the cost of their graduate programs. That comes to an end in July of next year. After that, grad students borrowing will literally be capped at [00:20:00] 20,500 bucks a year with a lifetime graduate school loan limit of a hundred thousand. That’s a big deal because, at the top MBA programs it’s not on typical.

For a student to borrow over a hundred thousand dollars easily. And so these caps are also going to affect domestic enrollment. So again, that, that contributes to your ability as an international candidate to get in both. The likely decline in competition not only from internationals but also from domestic students here, interestingly enough, that Bill, which passed has different limits for a professional graduate degree, but the bill basically says that only med school and law school qualify as professional degrees and not business school.

That’s another wacky thing that’s happened that will affect. Domestic enrollment as well. So I, I side with Maria and [00:21:00] Caroline to me the advice is, look long term. Don’t be affected overly affected by the change in policies in the US or the climate here. Understand that if you apply now and you matriculate next year and you graduate in two years after that you’re gonna be facing probably a very different environment.

Also understand the odds are in your in your favor, in getting into a highly selective, really good program in this coming year. And know that, while people too often calculate the value of an MBA based on short term variables, like what’s my starting salary gonna be? What is my sign-on bonus?

The truth is the MBA has enduring value over your lifetime. So it rewards you over your entire career and not just for the first or second years. And you can’t go wrong by graduating into a network of helpful and supportive people from a great school and [00:22:00] receiving a great education. So I think bottom line, we’re telling you apply.

Don’t get convinced by your colleagues or anyone else that this is a bad time to come to the us. Opportunity. Some of the best opportunity come comes when people perceive there to be significant challenges. And I think this is really true with business school. We hope we convinced you to come and try and hedge your batts too, as Caroline noted.

I think that’s really super important to have a plan B when you apply and toss a bunch of apps to the European schools which have excellent superb world class MBA programs and real international cohorts. 90% of the students not from the countries where the schools reside. Toss a bunch of them in your mix for your target schools to give you these different options at the end of the day.

This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Thanks for listening.

Maria

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