AACSB Data and Research Blog

Employment Trends of Business School Graduates (Part I): Post-Graduation Employment Rates

By Colin Nelson

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!

Factors Affecting School Size Categories (Part II)—Or, What Makes A School Large, Small, or Somewhere in Between?

By Colin Nelson

As promised in my last post, we have continued exploring potential alternate parameters for categorizing schools according to size. This post explores the impact on the number of schools classified as small, medium and large—if the parameters are changed from the standard parameters based on counts of full-time faculty to the various alternate parameters mentioned in Part I. We look at that impact at subsets of AACSB member schools offering different combinations of degree levels.

Figure 1. Net Change in Size Categories, Standard vs. Alternate Parameters by Degree Program Levels Offered

 

Some of the considered alternative size parameters cause the numbers of small, medium and large schools to differ more significantly from our standard classification scheme than others do. For example, when using the alternate parameters of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Faculty Counts or Total Enrollment Counts, in each case the vast majority of schools stay in the same size category as when defined by the current standard Full-Time (FT) Faculty parameters. Schools that do change category almost inevitably move down the size scale, particularly schools that offer both undergraduate- and graduate-level programs. Only among schools that solely offer undergraduate programs does the change in size category potentially go in either direction.

By contrast, when we apply alternate parameters based on student/faculty ratios, the numbers of schools that change size category from the standard parameters are far greater, comprising anywhere between 20 to 40 percent of the schools in each group. The net changes for both types of student/faculty ratios follow the same general pattern, but that pattern is much less uniform than that of the alternate parameters of FTE Faculty and for Total Enrollment.

Schools with doctoral programs, for example, appear much more likely to move down in size category when using either Student/FT Faculty or Student/FTE Faculty Ratios. In particular, application of the Student/FT Faculty Ratio results in over 34 percent of schools that offer doctoral programs moving down in size category, whereas nearly 19 percent of all schools without doctoral programs move up in size category.

When selecting peer schools for benchmarking in DataDirect based on school size, it is important to keep factors such as these in mind. What other characteristics do you think might influence the size category under these alternate parameters?

Continued Growth in Accessibility of AACSB-Accredited Online Degrees

By Colin Nelson

I’ve received a number of requests recently for an update to a post I wrote back in January 2013, regarding the trend toward greater numbers of AACSB-accredited schools offering fully online degree programs at various levels. It looks like this trend has only continued in the intervening years:

Figure 1. Number of AACSB-Accredited Schools Reporting Fully Online Programs, by Level

Notes: This chart includes data from a controlled set of 521 accredited schools that responded to the AACSB Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) in all five years. Each school may have more than one fully online program at each level.

Five hundred and twenty-one AACSB-accredited schools, representing 36 countries and territories worldwide, participated in each of the last five annual BSQ surveys. Figure 1 above shows that the proportion of this set of schools that reported offering one or more of their degree programs, at any level, in a fully online delivery format has grown from 25 to 37 percent over the past five years.

While fully online programs at the Masters-Generalist (MBA) level saw the highest rise in absolute number of schools offering them, the percentage gains in the numbers of specialized master’s and especially bachelor’s degree programs offered fully online were significantly more robust (more than 67 and 80 percent increases, respectively, versus 44 percent for the general business master’s programs). In my earlier post, programs at the Masters-Generalist (MBA) level were the primary driver for the increase in schools with fully online programs at any level, so this new data may indicate a shift in focus, at least within this controlled set.

Online doctoral programs remain the notable exception to this trend. None of the schools in the controlled set reported offering a fully online doctoral program. In fact, as of this writing, only one AACSB-accredited school has ever reported a fully online doctoral program on the BSQ, namely the Management School of the University of Liverpool (not a member of the controlled set), which offers a fully online DBA program.

It is also worth noting that the growth in the number of AACSB-accredited schools offering such programs remains almost entirely driven by schools based in the U.S.:

Table 1. Schools Offering Fully Online Programs by Country/Territory

Notes: This table includes data from a controlled set of 521 accredited schools that responded to the AACSB Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) in all five years, and N equals the total number of schools from each country/territory in the set. There were three Chinese schools outside of Hong Kong in the controlled set, but none of them reported fully online programs. Each school may have more than one fully online program at each level.

Although American schools make up about 79 percent of the schools in the total controlled set, they consistently make up 94–95 percent of the schools reporting fully online programs at any level. So why are accredited schools in other countries not showing similar levels of growth in this increasingly popular delivery mode?

For one thing, although the BSQ does not collect data on blended/hybrid programs, we know anecdotally that programs providing some online or asynchronous content are growing in number. It may be that more schools outside the U.S. are opting for blended/hybrid programs versus fully online delivery. Another reason may be that, from the student perspective, the physical location of the school offering fully online programs does not matter as much as the quality of the programs themselves. Nevertheless, as fully online delivery continues to grow in popularity, it will be interesting to see if more schools from all over the world begin to pioneer new programs in cyberspace.

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.

Trends at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the U.S.

By Colin Nelson

Because February is African-American History Month in the U.S., it seems an appropriate time to examine trends in the business schools of those institutions that have been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). HBCUs are institutions founded prior to 1964, with the express mission of serving African-American students. In terms of business education, HBCUs are collectively responsible for producing 21 percent of all business and management degrees earned by African-American students in the U.S.

Figure 1. Five-Year Enrollment Trends at HBCUs

Note: Proportions come from a controlled set of 9 HBCUs that reported data to the Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) in all five years.

As you can see, total enrollment at the HBCUs in our set has fallen steadily over the past five years, by nearly 20 percent overall. Interestingly, though, enrollment at the graduate level has actually grown by nearly 37 percent at these schools over the last five years, this despite the fact that the number and types of programs have remained fairly stable during this period. Apparently, the decline in enrollment overall is entirely due to declining undergraduate enrollment.

Enrollment is not the only thing declining at HBCU business schools, however.

Figure 2. Five-Year Faculty Trends at HBCUs

Note: Proportions come from a controlled set of 9 HBCUs that reported data to the Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) in all five years.

Although not as drastic as the reductions in enrollment, the total number of full-time (FT) faculty for the controlled set of HBCUs declined by 4.6 percent over the last five years, and the total number of full-time equivalent (FTE) faculty declined by nearly 9 percent. In addition, for this same set of schools, the average annual operating budget also declined by 1.5 percent.

I should note here that the data presented in this post should not be construed as definitive for all 105 currently operating HBCUs in the U.S. Indeed, only 32 of them are members of AACSB International as of this writing (although another 10 schools are former members, and 15-20 percent of all HBCUs are ineligible for membership due to the lack of business programs at the bachelor level or higher). Nevertheless, we are certainly not the only ones to point out the various issues plaguing HBCUs in recent years. As an employee of an organization that cares about diversity as well as quality in higher education, I hope that a path can soon be found to renewed prosperity for these important institutions.

Faculty Qualifications Part II: Supporting Faculty

By Colin Nelson

As promised in my last post, today I discuss the categorization of supporting faculty along several dimensions. Please note that the schools included constitute the same set that I looked at in my last post, but 27 of those schools reported no supporting faculty at all, and have thus been removed from the number of schools in the tables below.

 

Table 1. Supporting Faculty by Accreditation Status of Reporting School

Source: 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ)

In contrast to the participating faculty, those who are deemed supporting faculty are more likely to be classified as Instructional Practitioners (IP) than any other qualification category defined in Standard 15. Even more so than with Scholarly Academic (SA) participating faculty, the proportion of IP-qualified supporting faculty is significantly higher in the AACSB-accredited schools; however, in this case the difference is likely due to a similarly higher proportion of supporting faculty in the non-accredited schools that have not yet been classified. This makes sense, given that those schools that have not yet attained accreditation would be less likely to have made such classification a priority.

 

Table 2. Supporting Faculty by Continental Region

Source: 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ)

Since 60 percent of the reported supporting faculty in this set are from schools in Northern America, it is clear that the overall worldwide figures are somewhat skewed in favor of Northern American proportions, but it is still interesting to look at the relative proportions across geographic regions. Unlike with SA-qualified participating faculty, only Africa and Northern America show clear majorities of supporting faculty classified as any of the four qualification categories. While it is true that supporting faculty from schools in the other regions are classified as IP more often than not (when classified at all), it is nevertheless clear that these schools are much more likely to employ SAs or Practice Academics (PAs) as supporting faculty, as well.

 

Table 3. Supporting Faculty by Program Levels Offered

Source: 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ)

As with AACSB Accreditation, the program levels offered by reporting schools appear to make major and interesting differences in their proportional complement of supporting faculty qualifications. Again, supporting faculty are classified as IP more often than not, regardless of program levels offered, but only those schools that offer undergraduate programs and not doctoral programs show clear majorities of such faculty. Schools that offer doctoral programs, or that do not offer undergraduate programs, are significantly more likely to have SA and, to a lesser extent, PA supporting faculty, which makes sense given that they would need more scholarly support in order to focus on higher-level degree programs. Interestingly, schools that offer only undergraduate programs are apparently by far the most likely type of school to have PA supporting faculty.

Faculty Qualifications Part I: Participating Faculty

By Colin Nelson

Now that the 2013 AACSB Accreditation Standards have been in place for a couple of years, a large majority of AACSB member schools are now comfortable classifying their faculty into the new qualification categories defined in Standard 15 (i.e., Scholarly Academic or SA, Scholarly Practitioners or SP, Instructional Practitioners or IP, and Practice Academics or PA). In fact, of the 770 total schools that participated in the 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ), approximately 73 percent were able to report their faculty strength in those terms, broken out by participating versus supporting faculty. In this post, I discuss the categorization of participating faculty along several dimensions.

 

Table 1. Participating Faculty by Accreditation Status of Reporting School

Source: 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ)

Unsurprisingly, given the proportional requirements of Standard 15 and the relative size of the set of accredited versus non-accredited respondents to the BSQ, the SA category forms the majority of participating faculty, though the proportion is certainly higher in the AACSB-accredited schools. What I find interesting here is that the same difference in proportion of such faculty at the non-accredited respondent schools, just over 6 percent, appears to be made up by their faculty whose qualifications include a mixture of academia and professional practice (i.e., either SP or PA).

 

Table 2. Participating Faculty by Continental Region

Source: 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ)

Again, given the requirements of Standard 15, SA faculty are likely to form the majority of participating faculty regardless of where in the world the reporting school is located. However, it is interesting to see that there is still a high degree of variability across geographic regions in terms of how large a majority of SA faculty exists. In particular, schools in Latin America and the Caribbean, and to a slightly lesser extent in Europe, appear to be the most inclined to employ participating faculty of more diverse qualification categories. I should also note that the high proportion of SA faculty in Africa is likely due to the small number of respondents, and that all of those schools are either accredited or in the initial accreditation process.

 

Table 3. Participating Faculty by Program Levels Offered

Source: 2014–15 Business School Questionnaire (BSQ)

As with the other dimensions discussed above, variance in the types of degrees offered by reporting schools does not preclude the SA category’s prominence. What I find interesting here is that the schools that offer only graduate programs seem to be the most willing to hire participating faculty with more diverse qualification types. In particular, such schools show the largest proportion of SP or PA faculty, which may indicate both the necessity and freedom to include a greater emphasis on the practical knowledge at schools focused entirely on graduate-level studies.

Be on the lookout for the next post in this series, in which I will take a similar look at reported qualification types in supporting faculty!

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.] 

Differential Tuition Rates at Business Schools

By Colin Nelson

One of the more frequently asked questions received by AACSB International’s research staff, which we were unable to answer prior to the release of our new BSQ Finances Module, was regarding the degree to which business schools charge tuition at rates different from the standard tuition rate of their parent university. While we have heard anecdotally that the number of schools charging differential tuition rates has been increasing, until we have multiple years of data gathered by the BSQ Finances Module, it is impossible to discuss trends from a data perspective. For now, however, we are at least in a good position to talk about existing differential tuition rates at AACSB member business schools.

Of all the schools that responded to the 2013-14 BSQ Finances Module, 334 had a parent university from whom to differ, and 80 of these (or about 24 percent) indicated that they charge tuition at a rate different from the standard institutional rate of their parent. Four other schools also indicated that although their tuition rate did differ from that of other academic units, their parent institution itself had no standard rate across the board. Interestingly, almost all the schools that reported differential rates (74 of the 80) were AACSB-accredited.

Table 1. Reported Differential Tuition Rate Statistics

Differential Rate (% diff. from inst. standard)	N=	Mean	Std. Dev.	Max	75%	Median	25%	Min
	80	+19.9	+24.1	+100.0	+30.0	+11.0	+6.0	-25.0

 

As you can see, the range of differentiation from the institutional standard is very wide. It is worth noting, though, that of the 80 schools that entered the percentage by which their tuition rate differs from that of the standard institutional rate of their parent, only five indicated that their tuition rate was lower than the institutional standard, all of which were AACSB-accredited.

An even more interesting picture emerges when we look at the differential rates broken down by a couple of other dimensions:

Table 2. Differential Tuition Rates by School Size

School Size	N=	Proportion of Total Participants of that Size	Mean % Difference from Parent	Median % Difference from Parent
Small (35 or fewer FT faculty)	15	15.3%	+28.9	+16.0
Medium (36 to 75 FT faculty)	34	24.8%	+17.3	+10.0
Large (More than 75 FT faculty)	31	27.9%	+18.3	+10.0

 

When we look at the difference that school size makes, it seems that smaller schools have a tendency to differ from the standard institutional rate of their parent university by a larger percentage than their medium-sized or larger counterparts, whose differential rates are very similar. This may be a function of sample size, because the proportion of small schools reporting differential rates is significantly lower than the same proportion of their medium-sized or larger counterparts.

However, of the nine schools that reported differential rates of +50 percent or more, four were small schools (including two of the three that reported the maximum differential rate of +100 percent), versus only two medium-sized schools, and three large schools. Additionally, no large school reported a differential rate higher than +71 percent, and three of the five schools that reported rates lower than the standard institutional rate were large schools (including the school reporting the minimum differential rate of -25 percent).

Table 3. Differential Tuition Rates by Degree Levels Offered

Program Levels Offered	N=	Proportion of Total Participants of that Category	Mean % Difference from Parent	Median % Difference from Parent
Masters only or Masters/Doctoral only	4	26.7%	+34.8	+28.0
Undergrad/Masters only or Undergrad/Masters/Certificates	37	18.5%	+19.8	+10.0
Undergrad/Masters/Doctoral	39	33.9%	+18.4	+12.3

Note: There were no “Undergrad only” schools that reported a differential tuition rate.

When we look at the difference made by the degree levels offered by the school, it seems that schools offering only graduate-level programs have a tendency to differ from the standard institutional rate of their parent university by a significantly larger percentage than those that offer undergraduate programs as well. While this might appear to be a function of the smaller sample size of schools offering only graduate-level programs, it should be noted that the proportion of such schools reporting differential rates is virtually the same as the proportion of such schools in the overall set of survey participants. Interestingly, schools that offer programs at all three levels were much more likely to report differential tuition rates at all, as compared to other categories, with just over one-third of all such schools reporting a differential rate.

Changing Program Composition

By Elliot Davis

If you’ve been tapped into the news regarding higher education and business schools lately, you may be concerned by some of the words being used to describe the current landscape. There have been cries of enormous upheavals occurring at business schools, describing these changing times as any one of a slew of natural disasters, like the higher education tsunami, or earthquake, or avalanche. With this whirlwind landscape in a constant state of flux, how have business schools adapted their program offerings to the changing environment?

Using a controlled set of AACSB Accredited schools that responded to the Business School Questionnaire over the past five years, the following chart shows the percentage gains and declines in program offerings by discipline across all educational levels. 

Source: AACSB Business School Questionnaire, 2008-2009 to 2012-2013. Controlled set of AACSB Accredited Schools Reporting in all 5 Years. N = 493. 

I was immediately struck by the large falloff in e-business and e-commerce programs. This program has seen a whopping 46.81 percent dip over the five year time frame. On the flip side, business ethics including corporate social responsibility has seen a 37.50 percent increase over that same period.

The following are the programs that have seen the greatest increases and decreases over this time frame:

To drill down further, the following dashboard shares more details by displaying the changes broken down by educational level and the number of programs being reported.

Learn About Tableau

Is what we are seeing occur here in business school programming reflective of the times? When we look at the next five years’ worth of data, what programs will have seen the largest growth and largest decline?