AACSB Data and Research Blog

The Effect (Or Not) of Institutional Control on Starting Salaries

By Colin Nelson

By far one of the most popular queries we here at AACSB receive is regarding information about how a degree from an AACSB-accredited school contributes to the career of those who receive it. As we prepare to release the data from the 2015-16 iteration of the AACSB BSQ Employment Module survey, I thought I might treat our readers to a preview of the data that can help to shed light on that question.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the survey, on it we collect information about the starting salaries for graduates at every level. To frame the context of what we collect, it is important to understand that all starting salaries reported are only for those graduates who were seeking employment (i.e., not already employed during their course of study, continuing their education afterward, etc.). Moreover, they are only those that pertain to employment seekers who received and accepted job offers either at the time of graduation, or within three months. In this way, we can be sure that the salaries reported were received on the basis of the degree earned.

Figure 1. Average of Lowest and Highest Reported Base Starting Salary, by Institutional Control and Degree Level

Source: 2015-16 AACSB BSQ Employment Module. Note: All data are from AACSB-accredited schools, and N=number of schools reporting salary data.

I was surprised to note that, with a few exceptions, there was relatively little difference between the average starting salaries reported by public versus private schools, at both the high and low ends of the spectrum. It was mainly at the doctoral level that institutional control appeared to make any significant difference, and it is entirely probable that this is at least partially an effect of the small sample size of schools reporting at that level.

The only other place where there was any significant difference was at the high end of the starting salaries for graduates of generalist business master’s programs. Given how little real effect institutional control appears to have as a differentiating factor for starting salaries at other levels, however, I suspect that there are other factors at work. Look for my next post, in which I will explore some of them.

Regional Focus: Europe

By Jessica Brown

Aggregates and Averages—A Look at Changes in the Per-School Averages for European Schools Based on data reported in 2009-10, 2011-12, and 2013-14.

When we look at the data reported on the annual AACSB surveys, we often examine it as a whole with aggregate sums across all of the participating schools based on specific characteristics or by looking at each individual school’s data separately. Taking a regional view is another way to drill down and examine the data that AACSB collects. Yet another interesting way to view this data is to take a look at the per-school averages based on those aggregate numbers to get a general idea of what the aggregate numbers could mean for individual schools. Of course, there will always be a range of responses, so an average cannot give the complete picture, but it does offer schools another benchmarking point to determine whether their school’s reported numbers are above or below the mean.

All of the averages used in this article are based on the aggregate data from the following table collected from participating member schools in Europe on the annual Business School Questionnaire.

For each of the education levels listed below, the graph shows the average number of applications, offers of admissions, entrants, enrolled students, and degrees conferred per school based on a controlled set of 44 European schools that participated in the annual Business School Questionnaire in all three years listed. Please note that not all schools that participated provided all data points for each year. The data table above displays the number of participating schools that provided each of these data points in each year listed.

The Undergraduate Level

At this level, while the average number of applications has risen in each year, the averages for offers of admission, entrants, enrollments, and degrees conferred have all stayed relatively stable with small variations up or down. This could be caused by a number of factors, including the potential that some schools are seeing increased demand based on the number of applications received, but are already at capacity and haven’t increased the conversion of those applications to enrollments or that, despite receiving additional applications, the number of qualified applicants has remained largely the same.

Figure 1: Undergraduate Averages Per School For European Comparison Group 

The Master's-Generalist (MBA Equivalent) Level

When looking at the aggregate data for this comparison group and time period, 31 schools reported a total of 67,378 applications at the master’s-generalist level in 2009–10, and 40 schools reported a total of 107,375 applicants in 2013–14. By looking at this on a per-school basis, you can see that the number of students applying at the master’s-generalist level has been on the rise, with a 27.0 percent increase in the average number of applications reported per school from 2009–10 to 2013–14 for this group of survey participants.

A very interesting point on this figure is the close match between the number of new entrants and degrees conferred – showing that the average number of incoming and outgoing students per school tends to be similar. As both offers of admission and enrollments show an upward movement in 2013-14, the entrants and degrees conferred numbers may also begin to show growth in future years as these students continue through their programs.

Figure 2: Masters-Generalist Averages Per School For European Comparison Group 

The Master's-Specialist Level

For master’s-specialist programs, the average number of applications has also increased, but, unlike the at master’s-generalist level, the average number of entrants is somewhat higher than the average number of degrees conferred. Especially when seen in conjunction with the continued increases in offers of admission and enrollments, this could indicate that schools are adding more capacity to their specialized master’s degree programs, which may lead to continued increased growth in these programs.

[This content is also available in eNEWSLINE, April 2015.] 

Reviewing Trends in U.S. Minority Business Doctoral Completions (part 2)

By Elliot Davis

As mentioned in part one, the increase in the percentage of African-Americans completing business doctoral degrees in the U.S. has been rapid. Many of these degrees are being earned at institutions that are not AACSB-accredited.

You can see in the following chart that in the mid 2000’s the gap between completions occurring at AACSB-accredited institutions and non AACSB-accredited institutions began to increase and has since grown considerably over the past decade. In fact, since 2004, there have been more completions in the U.S. each year by African-Americans at schools that lack AACSB accreditation than at AACSB-accredited schools. 

When looking at Hispanics, the same trend does seem to be occurring though to a much lesser degree. Here’s a look at that data.

Hispanics have remained closely distributed between both AACSB and non AACSB-accredited schools, but have seen more total completions at non AACSB-accredited schools consistently since 2006. While the gap has grown, the difference is still slight compared to what we have seen with African-Americans.

The sample sizes are much smaller when looking at Native-Americans, so it is harder to project this group’s trajectory than the others. Here are the completions for Native-Americans.

In recent years, there have been more Native-American business doctoral completions at non AACSB-accredited schools, but the difference has been only 2 to 3 degree completions, on average. Not much can be drawn from such a small sampling of individuals, but it is interesting to track the relationship between the two completions types.  

Diversity amongst business doctoral graduates is certainly an important focus for numerous parties, notably including The PhD Project. Pulling the start data back even further to 1985, there has been an unequivocal rise in graduates from the highlighted minority groups at AACSB-accredited schools.

A disproportionately large increase has also been observed among graduates from schools that lack AACSB accreditation in the U.S. What does this mean for diversity amongst business doctoral graduates, and their qualifications? Do you think these trends will continue to progress moving into the latter half of the decade and beyond?

Reviewing Trends in U.S. Minority Business Doctoral Completions (part 1)

By Elliot Davis

Are U.S. business PhD programs increasing the proportion of minority graduates? That was a question posed to me recently and explored in the charts below. No doubt the findings will be of interest to supporters of and participants in The PhD Project, an innovative program established by the KPMG foundation in 1994 with the mission to increase the proportion of PhD graduates who are considered African-American, Hispanic-American, and Native-American. AACSB, along with several other organizations, has been a steadfast supporter of The PhD Project and its goal to strengthen management education by increasing the diversity of qualified faculty for business schools.

Data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provided by the National Center for Education Statistics helps to shed light on trends with respect to the business doctoral completions for these groups over the past two decades – from 1994 (the start of The PhD Project) to 2012 (the most recent available data set).

The following graph illustrates completions, as a percentage of total completions, for the aforementioned minority groups from 1994 to 2012, at all schools in the United States (including non AACSB-accredited schools). 

Linear trendlines are provided to offer a better sense of the overall trends occurring. African-Americans have seen the greatest percentage increase, up to 13.45% (2012) from 2.48% (1994). Hispanics have seen positive growth (though slight) and Native-Americans have seen relatively little change.

When narrowing the completions to only those at AACSB-accredited schools (using the current list of AACSB-accredited schools), we see some stark differences. 

The slope of the trendline for African-Americans at U.S. AACSB-accredited schools is far less steep than at all U.S. schools. A potential reason for this difference can likely be accounted for (in part) by the increase in PhD accessibility through the rise of certain non AACSB-accredited schools, such as University of Phoenix, Walden University, Argosy University, and Capella University.

There are certainly many other factors that have gone into these changing trendlines, including socio-economic, cultural, and geographic differences. Tracking this data moving forward will be of particular interest to organizations such as The PhD Project and AACSB International. What do you think about this? Are these trends positive for management education and for workplace diversity?

In an upcoming blog post, I will focus in on the specific minority groupings and provide more targeted data regarding business doctoral completions attributed to each.  

Why the Growing Market Share of For-Profit Providers?

By Colin Nelson

Recently I pulled data from the U.S. Department of Education’s IPEDS Data Center for one of our member schools. The data had to do with the growing market share of for-profit business education providers at the master’s level. Though my colleague Dan LeClair has touched on this topic once before, the data I saw gave me a new point of view for this increase.

As Dan pointed out, the market share of business master’s degrees conferred by for-profit providers in the U.S. has grown considerably over the past decade. I found the trend in enrollments to be even more pronounced:

Figure 1. Graduate-Level Enrollment in Business Programs by Sector (U.S.)

Note: N = the total number of graduate-level business students enrolled in the given year. In 2000-01, 710 total institutions reported enrolling business graduate students, versus 1127 in 2008-09. Source: IPEDS Data Center.

Enrollment in graduate-level business increased overall and in each sector, but the share of enrollment across sectors changed dramatically. It is interesting to note that the growth in for-profit providers’ market share in degrees conferred that Dan noted in his post primarily takes away from that previously held by private not-for-profit institutions. In the case of enrollments, however, it is public institutions that suffer the bulk of the losses in market share.

There are a number of possible reasons for the growing market share of for-profit schools in these areas. For-profit schools often allocate far more resources for advertising and recruitment than public and private, not-for-profit institutions do (or can). Many for-profit institutions are seen, rightly or not, as having less stringent requirements with regard to admissions, faculty qualifications, curricula, etc., than other (particularly AACSB-accredited) schools. I should note here that, at this writing, there are no AACSB-accredited schools in the for-profit sector.

What struck me as particularly curious was when I considered these trends in the context of reported ratios of full-time versus part-time enrollees by sector:

Table 1. Percentage of Full-Time Graduate-Level Enrollment in Business by Sector, 2008-09 (U.S.)

Institution Type	N =	Mean FT % of Business Graduate Enrollment	Median FT % of Business Graduate Enrollment	Reported Range
Public	401	43.9%	40.3%	1.7% to 100%
Private, for-profit	147	74.8%	100%	2.8% to 100%
Private, not-for-profit	556	48.4%	43.6%	0.5% to 100%
Total	1,104	50.3%	45.0%	0.5% to 100%

Note: N includes all institutions reporting enrollment figures for both Full-time and Part-time graduate students in Business. Source: IPEDS Data Center.

These numbers indicate that for-profit schools have significantly higher proportions of business graduate students enrolled full-time, which IPEDS defines as nine or more graduate credit hours per semester. This was quite unexpected, particularly considering that for-profit schools typically market themselves to working adults, who presumably must also contend with time management for their jobs in addition to their studies, and thus might be expected to gravitate more towards part-time study.

From my perspective, then, this implies that it is easier for working adults (and likely others as well) to carry a full-time course load at for-profit institutions. If so, it would certainly explain, at least in part, the substantial increases in market share of enrollments at and degrees conferred by for-profit schools.

MBA Enrollments on the Rise

By Jessica Brown

How many students are studying for their MBA or MBA equivalent degree? Is it growing? Shrinking? These questions are important to administrators, business leaders, and both current and potential students. From the administrator side of the equation, schools are always working to provide a high quality education, so knowing how the student supply is changing helps them to focus on having enough faculty and resources of the right types to reach their goals. Business leaders need highly trained, ethical, hard-working employees and are looking for business schools to bring those bright students from the theory to the practice of business. Finally, students are balancing their passion for their education with the economic realities of finding a job in a slower economy. This is where AACSB can offer some assistance for all of the different stakeholders in business education.

Over the past 9 years, the number of schools who reported enrollment at the MBA/MA-Generalist level has increased 66.8% from 353 to 589. At the same time, the number enrolled increased 79.8% from 145,210 to 261,060. While the first is indicative only of increased survey participation, the amount of change in the enrollments is higher than would have been expected for the increased number of participant schools. Looking at it in a different way, the average enrollment in MBA/MA-Generalist programs was 411.4 students in 2001-02, but has increased to an average of 443.2 enrolled students on 2009-10. This looks like good news for business schools; increased enrollments are a positive for both the schools and for the business leaders who are hoping to hire their graduates.

Speaking of those graduates, the next question has to be whether these increases in enrollment are also translating into additional graduates. The short answer is, “Yes!” The longer response would be that while the number of schools who reported degrees conferred at this level increased 58.3% over the past 9 years, the number of degrees conferred increased 71.6%. Consequently, the average number of degrees conferred at this level has increased from 159.5 in 2001-02 to 173.0 in 2009-10.

Even with the slower economy, enrollments and degrees conferred at the MBA/Ma-Generalist level  continue to grow, illustrating the thriving business school culture. This should also encourage student confidence as they can see that this field is still growing and relevant in today’s world.

Notes:

AACSB is well known as an accrediting body with high standards for schools who would like to achieve accreditation. Our in depth process of peer review and detailed measures to help schools reach their mission goals are only part of the benefits from AACSB participation. Because of our focus on quality and detail, AACSB also collects data through annual surveys on topics specifically relevant to business education. One of our surveys, the annual Business School Questionnaire (BSQ), gathers data on many aspects of b-school life, such as enrollments, admissions, degrees conferred, and faculty counts.  While thinking about these questions of supply and demand, we have pulled some very general data to help spur the discussion. Data is based on 2001-02 to 2010-11 BSQ data collection for all AACSB member schools and is limited to data submitted by AACSB member schools only. BSQ participation is over 90% for AACSB accredited schools and approximately 60-70% across all member schools. MBA/MA-Generalist degrees are also known as MBA equivalent. As degree titles vary by school locations, this category includes all degree titles specifically labeled as MBA or included in our full list of MBA equivalent degree titles.

For-Profits Account for an Increasing Proportion of Business Degrees in the U.S.

By Dan LeClair

Drawing on U.S. Department of Education data, Table 1 below shows the number of business and management degrees awarded by type of institution: public, private not-for-profit, and private for-profit. The total numbers of undergraduate and master's level business degrees increased by 32% and 47%, respectively. And the increases were across the board. That is, growth in the number of degrees awarded has been supported by institutions of all types.

Table 1. Number of Degrees Awarded in Business and Management (U.S.)
Institution Type	Undergraduate		Master's
	2000	2009	2000	2009
Public	155,460	193,330	45,259	58,976
Private, not for profit	98,182	117,435	63,232	81,182
Private, for profit	13,044	41,614	8,122	31,182
Total	266,686	352,379	116,613	171,340
Source: U.S. Department of Education

However, if we look at the share of the total by institution type (see Table 2 below), we see that the distribution has changed dramatically. The share accounted for by public institutions and by private, not-for-profit institutions decreased, while the for-profit share increased at both undergraduate and master's levels. At the master's level, private for-profit institutions now account for nearly one of every five business graduates.

Table 2. Share of Degrees Awarded in Business and Management (U.S.)
Institution Type	Undergraduate		Master's
	2000	2009	2000	2009
Public	58.3%	54.9%	38.8%	34.4%
Private, not for profit	36.8%	33.3%	54.2%	47.4%
Private, for profit	4.9%	11.8%	7.0%	18.2%
Source: U.S. Department of Education

 

Although data are not tracked at this level in every country, there is evidence of similar trends in many countries.