More competition for full-time MBAs

Competition in the full-time MBA market is heating up.  The University of California at Irvine just announced that all newly admitted full-time students who are California residents will automatically get a fellowship of $10k.  This follows recent announcements by Arizona State and UMass-Amherst that full-time students will get free tuition.

Now here's the fine print: In-state tuition at UCI is $40k and change per year.  Here at NC State the full two-year cost of the degree is $45k for in-state and $74k for out-of-state.  Over half of our full-time students get a graduate assistantship or fellowship, which makes NC State an even greater value.

What is going on in the full-time MBA market?  We see some schools (Wake Forest, Virginia Teach) dropping the degree whereas others are doubling down to attract students.  The real challenge all full-time MBA programs face is that the biggest cost to students is not the tuition; it is two years' lost earnings.  If a school cannot deliver post-graduation a significant bump in income, then that school will have trouble attracting students.

The real numbers applicants should be looking at are these: (1) where am I now?  (2) where will I be immediately after completing the degree? (3) where will I be five years later?  In the most recent Bloomberg Businessweek full-time MBA rankings, their survey of 2007-09 NC State Jenkins MBA alumni found that
-- pay more than doubled between the start and finish of the program
-- pay almost doubled again five years later

That is a big reason NC State's Jenkins MBA placed #25 in alumni satisfaction and #29 overall in the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings!