YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Two college administrators in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys agree that securing a master’s degree in business administration can be a key tool for career advancement.
Youngstown State University has more than 3,000 MBA alumni and now has about 600 students enrolled in its MBA program, Betty Jo Licata, interim dean at YSU’s College of Business Administration, says. Demand has been strong and consistent for YSU’s MBA program, “a bit counter” to what the national trend had been, Licata says.
“We graduate probably 150 to 180 a year,” Licata says.
Demand also is strong for the MBA program at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa., which has been active about three years, according to Christy L. Crute, associate dean, graduate and online programs.
“We’re just graduating our biggest cohort right now. The demand has been surprising,” Crute says.
“You’re going to find MBAs in a wide variety of industries – health care, manufacturing, small businesses,” Licata says. “Certainly, nationally there’s always been a focus on financial services, tech, health care, consulting, but regionally, because we’re made up of primarily small- and medium-sized businesses, we’re going to see our MBA students across a wide array of industries.”
Grove City’s 39-credit MBA offers concentrations in areas including accounting, finance, leadership and human resources, Crute says.
It doesn’t offer a health-care concentration yet but plans to add one because of interest from UPMC participants. “That’s an important concentration for them,” she says.
YSU’s program shifted completely online in 2020, a development that coincided with but wasn’t driven by the Covid-19 pandemic that year, Licata says.
“We were moving online prior to 2020, and we made a commitment to have a fully online MBA that began in early 2020,” she recalls. “Then the pandemic hit, and it became the best and only way to go.” Today, more than half of all MBA programs nationally are fully online.
All of Grove city’s MBA courses are online but an on-campus “leadership summit” takes place each fall, Crute says. Most courses have a mandatory online meeting time.
PIVOTING TO A NEW CAREER
The degree allows individuals to advance their careers in their current organization or by moving onto a new one, Licata says.
“Some students use it as a way to pivot in their career,” she continues. “They may want to get out of one area and move into another.”
For example, several nurses in YSU’s program are earning MBAs with a health-care concentration as a means of moving into administration. The degree also has been “an incredible added value” for engineers or others with backgrounds in a technology-related field.
Probably one of the largest segments participating in Grove City’s MBA program is engineers, Crute reports.
“That was a little bit surprising to me,” she acknowledges. Many have worked in industry and moved up in their companies, then decided they want to move into senior leadership roles.
Ryan Sheffield of Canfield, a continuous improvement engineer at Associated Materials, a Cuyahoga Falls-based building materials supplier with plants across the United States and Canada, earned his MBA from YSU in 2022. He previously received his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from YSU.
He points to two reasons for pursing the MBA. One is to attain the additional knowledge and skills to work with and present information to executive leadership. Additionally, it gives him “the ability to kickstart and jump forward” in his career at a younger age and allows him to move into leadership roles.
GETTING AHEAD
Career advancement is certainly one benefit of the MBA,” Licata says. “Many students cite significant advancement opportunities and increase in salaries once they’ve earned their MBA. It opens a wide array of professional networking opportunities for students.”
Grove City’s program has a current cohort of 30 students, including 14 who plan to graduate this year, Crute says.
The program gets students from companies including Salesforce, Hitachi, Sherwin Williams, KPMG and UPMC. Many already are senior leaders in their companies and are pursing advanced learning in specific areas or are seeking a senior leadership role.
“Historically, we also have some students who own their own businesses and they’re trying to grow those businesses to the next level,” she continues. They might have a multimillion-dollar business and are seeking to grow it into the billion-dollar range.
Most of YSU’s MBA students are working full-time and attending classes part-time, Licata says. “Obviously, when you earn a graduate degree too, you are developing a whole additional area of knowledge and expertise, strategic thinking, leadership skills, the functional areas of business, so you’re gaining increased knowledge and skills,” she says. “You’re gaining increased access, increased earning power, and those opportunities for either career moves or career advancement.”
Being able to dive deeper into different supply chain or operational challenges and possessing the skills, ability and knowledge to make improvements and provide solutions is one way Sheffield says his MBA has proven valuable.
While valuable, Licata cautions that an MBA offers no guarantee of success on its own.
“It’s important to understand that an MBA is an important addition to an individual’s professional portfolio. It’s an excellent pathway to expanding your expertise, your knowledge and skills in business, strategic thinking, leadership, problem solving, but it’s also the experience that you have and the skills that you bring to the job,” Licata says.
“An MBA, in and of itself, is not going to be the silver bullet for career progression or career success. You’ve got to have the knowledge, the skills, the context, the experiences that bring that all together.”