MBA graduates head back to business school

There has been a growing trend of MBA graduates opting to enroll into advanced management courses in the top business schools in recent years. The trend also extends to general management courses, where over 20% of the new enrolled batch are in possession of an MBA degree, compared to the 24% for advance management courses. In too business schools such as Wharton, this shifting trend has been pounced upon the educational body, by removing the tuition fees in advance management courses when it comes to ex alumni opting for the course. And the trend has been seen in established entrepreneurs as well, as many of the owners of the successful startups have opted to go for advanced management classes in order to broaden their perspective on advanced business topics and to continue on the pathway of success they have started on.

While Wharton has opted for the complete discount scheme for its alumni successfully, many other business schools have stuck to offering varied levels of discounts to alumni. Some of them, such as Haas, has even decided to discontinue with the discount system, based on the low numbers of alumni coming back for other short term courses. In Europe, top business schools such as IMD and Iese have taken the middle path by offering extended levels of discounts for its short term management courses, varying from 10-25%. The idea is to attract more number of alumni towards advanced courses by lowering the cost of such courses for them. Whatever the financial incentive provided by B-schools, the trend of opting for advanced management course seems to be in the rise irrespective of that, as more and more MBA graduates are putting them through such courses even at their own monetary backing. 

Another interesting feature adopted by the schools in Europe is to provide additional support to its passouts. This is done via Global Alumni convention, as seen in Iese, which are attended by nearly a thousand ex alumni, dealing with current topics in the Business industry which the Alumni would benefit from by learning in detail about. Iese also has an interesting concept, where once every year any alumni can approach the professors to get advice on their own businesses. All of these methods to bring back alumni for advanced courses is working, as nearly 10% of Ex alumni return to IMD for participating in advanced management courses. 

To attract alumni towards the advanced management courses in B-schools, one of the key factors is the versatility of the courses and the topics they take on. The versatility of the courses extends to providing both online as well as distance learning course options, in order to extend the opportunity to a wider base of ex alumni. For example, In Asian countries such as China, along with accessibility, the hunt for specialized management programmer is also evident, as more and more graduates are looking to pursue specialized sectors in management, such as healthcare and marketing. 

The advanced short term courses allows the alumni to extend their knowledge, but nite importantly understand business world manifestation if such topics, and how they actually are relevant in the day to day life. While the education aspect may not be the primary focus of such advanced short term courses, the main focus is on the wider network formation as well as the experience in the professional field it garners, allowing the participants to be better prepared for tackling job offers. MBA graduates who have undertaken such advanced management courses often get better job offers or attest to better job handling experience following their courses in advanced management.

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