Taking note of a shift in demand in favour of the shorter Masters and other professional business management courses, the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business proposes to phase out its 2-year full-time MBA program with the incoming class of 2019 being the last cohort.
The college said it was making changes to its graduate business education programs to focus on opportunities for growth in its part-time MBA and specialized master’s degree offerings. These changes, however, will have no impact on the college’s undergraduate program. The final cohort of full-time MBA students will graduate from Tippie in May 2019.
The decision to end this delivery format for the Iowa MBA will allow the college to continue to innovate and grow the Professional MBA, Executive MBA, and portfolio of specialized master’s programs increasingly preferred by the students and businesses we serve, it said in a statement.
A presentation was made on September 6, 2017, before the Academic and Student Affairs Committee of the Iowa Board of Regents. It stressed that the move will allow the college to introduce several specialized master’s programs over the next three years while also increasing investments in MBA programs for working professionals like the Professional MBA and the Executive MBA.
“Adapting to the market is key for growth in any organization, and we’re seeing clear shifts in what students and businesses need,”
The move to discontinue the program comes at a time when it is ranked number 4 in the world for Finance by Financial Times in 2017. Also, 92% of the students have been employed within 3 months of graduation (three-year average) and ranked 6 (tie) in fastest payback by Forbes in 2016.
“Adapting to the market is key for growth in any organization, and we’re seeing clear shifts in what students and businesses need,” says Sarah Gardial, dean at Tippie. “Both are expressing preferences for non-career-disrupting options for the MBA, while others are increasingly drawn to the focused education provided by master’s programs in specific subjects,” she adds.
The college claims that one such specialized program launched three years ago is already paying dividends. Tippie introduced a Master of Science in Business Analytics degree in Cedar Rapids in 2014 and quickly expanded it to Des Moines and the Quad Cities.
Enrolment in this program has grown 517 % in less than three years, and courses such as Data Science and Big Data Management prepare the state’s workforce for the data economy. Due to the popular demand and increasing interest in this program, Tippie intends to add a three-semester degree option.
Tippie will also introduce a master’s program in finance next fall to build on their worldwide reputation in the field. This new program emphasizes real-world experiences, including a student-managed equity portfolio and consulting projects for business clients. Also under development is a student-managed fixed income fund—the first of its kind in any master of finance program.
A shift in demand in its Iowa MBA programs saw enrolment in the part-time Professional MBA and Executive MBA programs make up more than 91 % of all MBA admissions. Tippie has recently introduced professional certificates, invested in new off-campus locations, and expanded its online course offerings within its Professional MBA. The college anticipates the entire Professional MBA curriculum to be available online in the future.
“The college has always been an innovator, anticipating the business education that students and employers need to thrive in a changing economy,” Sue Curry, interim executive vice president and provost.
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With this decision to phase out its full-time program, Tippie joins business schools such as Wake Forest University and Virginia Tech, both of whom have recently ended their full-time MBA programs. Nationwide, more than half of the schools offering full-time MBA have reported a decline in enrolment decline that goes up to 60% for schools in the Midwest.
Regent Nancy Boettger, who chairs the committee, said she has received comments and questions from alumni concerns about the program’s gradual elimination. “It seems like a great way to reallocate the resources to the areas that are being utilized the most,” she says.
The college’s decision, however, leaves five students with deferred admission without a program to go to next fall. College officials said they have notified them about the phasing out and were in discussions with them about considering other professional-level opportunities, such as the Professional MBA or Executive MBA.(Image Source:wikipedia.org)
