What Every Business School Needs to Know About Its Master of Business Administration (MBA) Graduates

Abstract

Although the 1990s represented an expansive period for business schools in the United States the past few years have seen a significant drop in demand for this once popular degree program. As many schools of business struggle to retain their market share in this increasingly competitive environment, one powerful, but sometimes overlooked, strategy is to survey program graduates to better understand the many ways in which they may have benefited from their program. Because this information can be used for more focused advertising, targeted recruitment, and program improvements, the authors present a plan for gathering, analyzing, and using this important information. In their plan, they use results from a recent survey of more than 2,200 Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduates from a business school associated with a private university in the southwestern United States.