They have survived numerous scandals in the past and now come into the crosshairs of a recent editorial at Bloomberg.
For more, be sure to read Did Joseph Wharton Cause The US Financial Meltdown? by Tim Hartnett and The End of Business Schools? by Pfeffer and Fong
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it is about time!!
Looking at the statistics from Pfeffer & Fong
“…in 1955-56, graduate business education was virtually nonexistent, with only 3,200 MBA degrees awarded in the U.S. By 1997-98, this number had grown to over 102,000″ (Zimmerman, 2001: 3). By the fall of 2000, there were 341 accredited master’s programs in business in the United States (U.S. News and World Report, 2002), 900 American universities offered a master’s in business (Leonhardt, 2000: 18), and in the spring of 2001, some 1,292 schools, or 92% of all accredited colleges and universities, offered an undergraduate major in business (U.S. News and World Report, 2002). In 1996-1997, more than a quarter million undergraduate degrees in business were awarded (AACSB Newsline, 1999). New business education programs have started, and existing programs have expanded in the U.S. even as business education has grown around the world…”
I am suspecting that somehow the Alan Greenspan’s easy-money reign in the Fed has a lot to do with the rise of the MBA class. Notice the positive correlation between the increase in MBA activities and the Fed funds rates during the period 1999-2002?
Capital misallocation can take on a myriad of forms – bubbles in business education not excluding.
Again we see that old prose: incentives don’t matter, government intervention is completely ok. Lets fix people instead.
No, education is a huge bubble. Most of it is useless garbage. I would imagine only the very technical disciplines that require years of training (math, engineerings, etc) will survive. The only reason education became bloated was because of the wide availability of low interest rate loans. So, just like the housing bubble created a glut of housing, the education bubble (from the credit bubble) created a glut of universities and education.
good riddens, America needs productive people.
Thank you for connecting the dots. Oh yes,the melt-down the break-down, the fall-out,and all that is happening to destroy the free-market system, individual freedom and personal property rights,, has been taught in schools beginning in kindergarten thru hi school and on into so-called higher education.I write about it on my blog site, octogenariansblog.com
Thanks
Anne Cleveland
banker,
The word you’re looking for is “riddance” not “riddens”.
Anyway, I agree that education (as it is today) is mostly useless garbage. Oh well.
I think there IS a future for b-schools. Especially after the college bubble bursts.
Obama has recommended that kids DO NOT major in finance or business. That is the best endoresement for an MBA imaginable.
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