Among the most important objectives that business schools ultimately have is to ensure that their students prepared for the careers they will pursue post-graduation. One aspect of the data AACSB International collects from schools that participate in the Employment Module of our annual Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) measures how successful their graduates are in obtaining employment after earning their degrees.
Figure 1. Business Graduates Reporting Job Offer Acceptance
Note: Data come from 137 AACSB member schools that completed the AACSB data entry sections of the BSQ Employment Module in the last three years.
Of particular interest is the difference between the trends in employment rates and the numbers of graduates at each level. For example, among this set of participating schools, there was a decline in the overall number of graduates over the past three years for both general business master’s and doctoral programs, of approximately 8 percent and 14 percent, respectively. In both cases, the proportion of total graduates attaining employment within three months of graduation rose by a couple of percentage points.
In contrast, both undergraduate and specialized master’s programs saw a rise in their overall number of graduates by approximately 21 percent, while the employment rate held steady for undergraduate degree earners and declined by nearly 7 percent for specialized master’s graduates. This discrepancy may indicate that the job market is able to absorb an increased number of business degree graduates at the undergraduate level. To a lesser extent, this is also true at the specialized master’s level, given that the decline in employment rate for these graduates is far less than the increase in their numbers.
Look out for the second part of this series, in which we discuss trends in the industries in which MBA graduates find employment!
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