Student Loan Blog : MBA

Foreign Graduate Students Say ‘No Thanks’ to U.S. MBA Programs

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:44:00 GMT

Concerned about future job prospects, international graduate students are turning down offers from prominent American business schools and instead choosing to pursue graduate programs outside the United States, BusinessWeek reports (“World to U.S. B-Schools: Thanks, But No Thanks,” March 19, 2009).

Nishant Banore, an MBA school applicant from India, received an offer of admission along with a $30,000 fellowship from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California Los Angeles and considered himself one step closer to achieving his dream of an American education.

However, when Banore looked at the deteriorating U.S. economic climate, the new restrictions on hiring foreign workers, and the lack of U.S. job prospects, he decided that an American MBA was simply too risky.

“I don't think I can leave my family’s future on luck and hope,” Banore, who lives in Mumbai, told BusinessWeek. He turned down the admissions offer from Anderson to attend one of the top business schools in his home country, the Indian School of Business.

U.S. Policy Makes Hiring Foreign Students Difficult

Banore’s decision comes at a time when U.S. public policy regarding international students is becoming increasingly unfriendly. When the government bailed out failing financial institutions last year and injected these corporations with taxpayer money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, it imposed strict limitations regarding the hiring of foreign workers who needed work visas.

Now a growing number of foreign students are planning to return home after graduation, according to a study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation released earlier this month, with many students believing that their job prospects may be better at home.

Survey results indicate that students are afraid they won’t be able to land a job in the United States after graduation, and a majority of these students — including 85 percent of Indian students and 72 percent of Europeans — think they may have difficulty getting U.S. work visas.

Lack of Graduate School Funding Limits Students’ Options

In addition to having fewer employment options, many foreign graduate students are facing another challenge: getting the money they need for school. Previously, foreign students could take advantage of loan programs that allowed them to secure as much as $150,000 in student loans without needing a co-signer, BusinessWeek reports. Now, since the banks offering these programs have exited the student loan market and many of the nation’s top business schools have yet to find replacements, foreign students have few options to fund their education.

According to the International Institute of Education, of the 623,805 foreign students enrolled in the United States in 2007, 276,842 were graduate students, more than 16 percent of whom were studying in graduate finance or MBA programs.

This academic year American business schools may see fewer foreign students enroll, said Dave Wilson, president of the Graduate Management Admissions Council, an international association of business schools, particularly from China and India which have historically provided American business schools with a large number of applications.

“You look at the cost, the difficulty of getting financing — and then suddenly our wonderful Congress decides they don’t want you to come,” Wilson said. “I worry people are not going to come at all.”

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GMAT Cheating Scandal Causes Students to Sweat Their Future

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:37:00 GMT

Over 6,000 MBA students have been implicated in a huge cheating scandal involving the website Scoretop which illegally provided “live” prep questions to students taking their Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT — the test that many MBA programs require for admission to graduate school, according to an article in Business Week (“GMAT Cheating Controversy Grows,” June 27, 2008).

Contrary to authorized test preparation companies like Kaplan or Manhattan GMAT which legally purchase retired test questions from GMAT to help prepare their member students, Scoretop extended 30-day VIP service to students who paid the $30-fee to access questions that were actively being used on GMAT exams.

On June 23, the Graduate Management Admission Council, the owner of the GMAT, won a lawsuit against Scoretop for copyright infringement, since Scoretop published the “live” GMAT questions online without permission. The judgment allowed the court to seize Scoretop’s hard drive, which contained payment and other data, and to identify more than 6,000 individuals who had paid for the website’s service.

GMAC originally said it would cancel the scores of all students who cheated on the exam, make sure they could never take the GMAT again, and notify the respective business schools of students who had cheated on the exam.

Robert Burgoyne, GMAC’s legal counsel recently said, however, that GMAC probably wouldn’t cancel the scores of all 6,000 Scoretop VIP members who took the test, just those who knew using the questions was illegal. “We'll look for something that actually links people to conduct they should have known was improper,” Burgoyne said.

MBA students across the country are justifiably nervous. Those who have applied to business schools and used the Scoretop website may have their scores cancelled and may not be able to apply to an MBA program in the future. And currently enrolled students may be thrown out of their MBA program.

“I am extremely stressed out,” one GMAT test-taker who used Scoretop questions commented in response to BusinessWeek.com's original story about the cheating scandal. “I am so upset and worried right now."

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Commencement Speakers to Remain Upbeat Despite Slowed Economy

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:36:00 GMT

This year’s MBA graduates will be seeing a sluggish economy and perhaps even bleak job prospects. Yet many high-profile business leaders returning to their alma maters as commencement speakers are expected to remain upbeat in their remarks to students, writes Kelly Bronk of BusinessWeek (“Graduation Talks Accentuate the Positive,” April 24, 2008).

Top business schools that have landed Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, or Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric for their commencement ceremonies, tend to want their speakers to keep things positive, yet realistic when addressing students this year.

Graduation “is all about the kids,” James Ellis, dean of the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, told Bronk. Holli Budd, associate dean for MBA administration and external affairs at the University of Rochester Simon Graduate School of Business commented, “It’s a time to celebrate their success and their future.”

In an effort to do just that, J. Peter Simon, son of Rochester business school's late benefactor William E. Simon, will tend toward optimistic remarks as opposed to focusing on the doom and gloom of a potential U.S. recession.

Robert Rodriguez, CEO of First Pacific Advisors and alumnus of USC’s Marshall School, may convey similar sentiments to students. Dean Ellis expects Rodriguez to empathize with students regarding the difficult economy, but also tackle what students can do to conquer the challenges ahead.

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MBAs Want to “Make a Difference,” but Say Pay Is More Important

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:46:00 GMT

Today’s MBA students aren’t just out for money — 25 percent of them claim they’re looking for a job that will allow them to impact or contribute to society, writes Kelly Bronk of BusinessWeek about a recent survey by The Aspen Institute (“The Do-Good Disconnect,” April 21, 2008).

"It doesn't mean that material success and financial success are not important to them, but there is another goal in there now that needs to be balanced with those," Daniel Diermeier, a Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management professor, told BusinessWeek.

The “Where Will They Lead?” survey asked 1,943 MBA students at 15 of the highest-rated business schools across the United States, Canada and England about their attitudes toward business and society. This year, students who said they wanted to make a difference in the world increased 10 percent, compared to the results of a similar survey conducted in 2002.

However, in spite of the growing number of self-proclaimed do-gooders, 49 percent of these students still ranked pay was an important factor when looking for a desirable job and 63 percent said that finding a position that challenged them was a key issue.

When questioned about business ethics issues, 83 percent of MBA students surveyed said they anticipated being asked to do something on the job that conflicted with their values, writes Katherine Mangan of The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Business Students Say Their Idealism Is Blunted by Corporate Recruiters,” April 21, 2008).

Yet, less than half said they would object to what was being asked of them. Instead, most indicated they would either look for another solution or leave the company.

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Bear Stearns Takeover Leaves Business-School Students Scrambling

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:13:00 GMT

BearStearns CEO, Jimmy Cayne, seems to have been the only former Stearns employee to make it out of the JPMorgan Chase buyout relatively unscathed — at least in non-CEO terms — walking away with $61.3 million in sold shares. Even though, in his own high-priced executive world, Cayne took his buyout at a massive loss: Just a year ago, his entire Stearns portfolio was valued at almost $1 billion.

Former Bear Stearns employees, along with Cayne, saw the value of their shares plummet 85 percent in the buyout to a mere $10 a share. Bears Stearns shares were trading at about $67 two weeks before the buyout and as high as $170 a year ago.

Now add to the list of people adversely affected by the Stearns debacle, business-school students whose full-time job and summer internship offers from Bear Stearns have recently been rescinded, according to a BusinessWeek article by Alison Damast (“Bear Stearns Rescinds Job Offers,” April 3, 2008).

A spokesman from JPMorgan Chase won’t disclose how many job offers to soon-to-be college graduates and MBAs have been affected by the dissolution of the firm, at least 12 students at New York University’s Stern School of Business have already received their unhappy phone calls from the company.

According to The New York Times, the final count of rescinded job and internship offers will tally in the dozens (“J.P. Morgan Said to Withdraw Bear Job Offers,” April 3, 2008).

Students Left Out in the Cold

When JPMorgan announced its takeover of failing Bear Stearns on March 16, the status of the student jobs and internships was still uncertain. It wasn’t until April 2 that students who were offered positions in the investment banking, sales, and trading and research units of the former company were notified about the fate of their job and internship positions.

Over the next few weeks, as the school year draws to a close, these students will be frantically trying to nail down offers for replacement positions.

“I’m not sure what we are all supposed to be doing now with the few weeks before start-dates, but I would imagine that, like me, the other 25 or so students who were to start as associates are all in a mad scramble to figure out what the future holds,” one student told BusinessWeek.

In the meantime, students who had their full-time job offers rescinded will be allowed to keep their signing and relocation bonuses and will also be able to use JPMorgan’s career-service resources.

And for those students who will no longer be interning with the company this summer, JPMorgan has offered a full 10 weeks’ pay if they find a new summer position with a nonprofit organization instead.

To Fear or Not to Fear the Economy

Although Bear Stearns is the only investment firm so far this recruiting season to withdraw already-extended job offers, fears about the current state of the economy and its effect, in particular, on the financial-services sector have left business-school students and administrators wondering about the security of jobs and job offers with other firms.

To some, the rescinded Bear Stearns offers recall the results of a similar economic downturn in 2001, Damast writes, when several companies that had hired students were forced to scale back.

Tom Kozicki, board president of the MBA Career Services Council, says he believes the Bear Stearns situation doesn’t necessarily foreshadow what lies ahead for the financial industry, but is definitely something business students need to keep in the back of their mind as they prepare for this particularly shaky job market.

“It sounds like the shoe has dropped. I think it’s unfortunate, but I don’t think it comes as a surprise to most people,” Kozicki told BusinessWeek. “The economy is shaky, [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke has indicated that he thinks we are going into a recession and I think that students need to be prepared for some uncertainty in the market.”

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By the Numbers: Top 10 Undergraduate Business Schools

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:53:00 GMT

Are you a future MBA who sees yourself building the next Trump–like empire or heading up the new 21^st-century tech giant that will finally unseat Microsoft?

If you’re planning on joining the 20 percent of college students who major in business and you’re on the hunt to find the best business school for undergrads that could give you your head start on mega-mogul success, here’s some help.

We’ve got the vitals on the 10 best from BusinessWeek’s list of the country’s Top 50 Undergrad Business Programs for 2008.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia

The world’s first collegiate business school, established in 1881, and BusinessWeek’s number-one program for the third year in a row.

Previous Rank: 1
Tuition: $35,916
Full-Time Enrollment: 2,519
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 16%
School Mascot: the Quakers

McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia

Previous Rank: 2
Tuition: $8,690
Full-Time Enrollment: 652
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 34%
School Mascot: the Virginia Cavaliers

Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame
South Bend, Indiana

The Mendoza College offers undergraduate degrees in accountancy, finance, marketing, and management (with your choice of management track in consulting, entrepreneurship, or information technology).

Previous Rank: 7
Tuition: $35,187
Full-Time Enrollment: 1,626
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 29%
School Mascot: the Fighting Irish

Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Previous Rank: 10
Tuition: $19,291
Full-Time Enrollment: 708
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 37%
School Mascot: the Big Red Bears

Goizueta Business School at Emory University
Atlanta

Previous Rank: 4
Tuition: $34,336
Full-Time Enrollment: 622
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 44%
School Mascot: Dooley, the Spirit of Emory

Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Combining a liberal arts and business education, the three-year Bachelor of Business Administration program allows you to apply during your freshman year of college and begin the BBA program as a sophomore. If you’re a high school senior, you may be still be able to apply for the Ross BBA program through the Preferred Admissions process.

Previous Rank: 5
Tuition: $12,585
Full-Time Enrollment: 1,069
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 49%
School Mascot: the Wolverines

Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah

Earn your Bachelor of Science in accountancy, management, or information systems.

Previous Rank: 8
Tuition: $3,840
Full-Time Enrollment: 1,616
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 74%
School Mascot: Cosmo the Cougar

New York University Stern School of Business
New York

Previous Rank: 9
Tuition: $36,524
Full-Time Enrollment: 2,335
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 24%
School Mascot: the Bobcats

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Previous Rank: 6
Tuition: $34,986
Full-Time Enrollment: 246
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 12.5%
School Mascot: the Beaver

McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

Choose a major in accounting, finance, international business, marketing, management information systems, management, supply chain management, or engineering route to business for your BBA.

According to the McCombs website, more current CEOs in the S&P 500 have graduated from McCombs than from any other public business school.

Previous Rank: 13
Tuition: $8,908
Full-Time Enrollment: 3,969
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 52% (in 2006)
School Mascot: Bevo the Longhorn

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