Is the MBA Going MIA?

According to the University of Washington, the average
salary for 2009 MBA graduates from its Foster School of Business is $81,000.
Unfortunately, a salary only counts if you have an employer to pay it, and the
number of MBA grads with jobs has been on the decline.

In 2008, 84 percent of the MBA students at UW had a job upon
graduation. In 2009, that figure fell to 53 percent. Three months after
graduation, a greater number of students found a job, but totals remained well
below the previous year.

Much of the problem can be blamed on the economy. As more
people find themselves jobless, they turn to business programs to help patch up
their resumes. This, coupled with an increase in the number of MBA graduates,
has flooded the market with people seeking upper management positions.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there were about
50,000 new MBA graduates a year during the early 1980s. Now, that amount has
almost tripled.

Matthew Stewart, the author of The Management Myth, thinks there is another reason. The economic crisis
uncovered flaws in business education, particularly the trend toward more
students taking business as an undergraduate major and then going on to study
business in graduate school as well.
I would like to see students focusing on real subjects. Im plugging
for the humanities, Stewart says. The humanities or other solid subjects, he
contends, are more likely than undergraduate business classes to teach strong
analytical skills.

The MBA isnt going away, but Stewart thinks it will evolve.
Newly minted MBAs will have to start looking for jobs in a wider variety of
fields, switching their focus from financial services and consulting into areas
like manufacturing and nonprofits. But graduates from less prestigious schools,
those outside of the top 20, will continue to struggle even as the economy
improves. Low-tier schools should be concerned; they arent getting that
prestige value, and there are just too many students, says Stewart. Washington
State, UW, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle University and Gonzaga are all
on the Princeton Reviews list of the
top 300 business schools.

Paula Klempay, director of career services for the UWs MBA
program, is confident the program (the only state program among Business
Weeks top 30) will be among those that
continue to thrive. And demographic trends, she says, will keep demand high.
The boomers are going to be retiring, and there has to be someone to fill that
talent, she explains. Klempay adds that 2008 was an unusual year because of
the constant drone of negativity and she expects demand for MBAs to climb
again.

Although some have looked to jobs overseas, Klempay thinks
that this trend is little more than lots of smoke. Unless someone is trained
in a foreign language, finding an international job after graduation isnt
easy. Its expensive to import and export employees, she notes.

Klempay says that the best way to get a job right now is to
deepen your knowledge of a field in which you have experience, rather than to
make a career change. A degree doesnt open the door to change, and career
changers are having a much harder time than career deepeners, she explains.
We arent out of the woods yet, but its shaping up to be a much better year.