YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Earning a Master of Business Administration degree fosters career progression and increases industry knowledge, area business educators say.
At Youngstown State University and Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa., the MBA programs are online only. Thiel College in Greenville, Pa., offers its MBA program through in-person classes.
At YSU, the switch to online started in 2020 after a reimagining of the program, says Patrick J. Bateman, director of the MBA program at the university’s Williamson College of Business Administration.
“There’s just been a shift in what learners are looking for even prior to then – and it has accelerated even more so in recent years – of folks trying to manage their professional commitments, their personal lives,” says Bateman, who is also a distinguished professor of management at YSU. And technological improvements provide a more engaging online learning experience than a decade ago, he adds.
It’s a national trend, Bateman says. YSU began offering an online MBA option about 12 years ago and the percentage of those opting for online began to grow.
Westminster also designed its MBA program with working professionals in mind.
“People want to go get an MBA and want to upgrade their skills but a lot of them work,” says Robert Badowski, assistant professor and chairman of the School of Business at the college. “A lot of them have families. A lot of them have other things going on – maybe parents that they’re taking care of – and they found it really difficult to be able to kind of remove themselves from that for a while and still get their degree. So that’s generally why we built ours the way we did.”
He says Westminster’s MBA program was built for working people who may not live in the area or are unable to get to Westminster easily, “but [they] still have the opportunity to upskill themselves and get that degree that moves you to that new managerial level in a lot of places.”
Anthony Kos is director of Thiel’s MBA program and chairman of its Arthur McGonigal Department of Business Administration and Accounting. He worked at YSU for more than 30 years, including as the director of its MBA program. Moving to Thiel in 2019 enabled him to start that school’s MBA program the following year.
Thiel has always boasted a good business program, Kos points out.
“The faculty at Thiel are very much professionals,” he says. “They’ve all worked some place in industry, have had careers and been successful in business… The business program is the largest department on campus. They’ve had a lot of success in business education.”
And the school has a high placement rate of its students, even before graduation. Thiel’s MBA program started as a fifth-year offering, enrolling undergraduates who choose to continue and earn their advanced degrees.
But a few years ago, Thiel added an option for working professionals, Kos explains. It’s an accelerated, one-year program with 12 classes for six to seven weeks.
The program for students enrolling immediately after earning their undergraduate degree involves 36 hours with 12 three-hour classes.
To earn a Westminster MBA, an individual takes a 30-credit, 10-class sequence.
“We have seven of our 10 courses – our core courses – where you get the accountings, the marketings, the finances, the strategic management and those areas,” Badowski explains. “But then you can focus a bit on those concentrations…”
YSU’s MBA program also requires 30 credits. Students complete eight core courses and two electives or specialization courses, including health care management, marketing and organizational leadership. It’s delivered in an accelerated seven-week structure.
ENROLLMENT
At YSU, Westminster and Thiel, the program is seeing increased interest.
“It kind of ebbs and flows, but it has been increasing lately,” Badowski says. “I read an article two days ago that says, ‘MBAs are back.’”
The ebbs and flows relate to the economy as people tend to pursue education when the job market tightens. They’re less inclined to enroll in a program when jobs are plentiful.
He estimates that the number of students enrolled in Westminster’s MBA program is between the high 30s and low 40s – a high mark for the college. And Badowski believes it’s a good value.
“Ours is built on a solid foundation and I don’t think you’re going to find a less expensive one in the area,” he notes. “All in with classes, we’re talking $10,000.”
Thiel’s program includes 16 students – a high in its five-year history.
“I think that people are realizing it’s important to get their education early,” Kos explains. “Sometimes it’s more difficult to get it later on.”
Thiel students are encouraged to complete an internship.
“But even if they choose not to, one of the things that we kind of built into the Thiel MBA is the idea of experiential learning,” he explains.
Students go through a 400-hour graduate assistantship while at the college, working on campus in an area of interest to them to help make them career ready. Through its business faculty of industry professionals, Thiel has connections throughout the community where students serve internships too.
Thiel works with a consulting group that assesses students to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Usually, the consulting group works with people preparing to move into executive positions, not college students, Kos says.
“So, our students are getting an opportunity to do this in a much earlier stage in their careers than they would otherwise,” he adds.
YSU’s MBA program has seen 300% growth in the last five years with enrollment at about 600. And it retains about 85% of students who enter the program.
Bateman attributes the growth to several factors. First, since moving online, the program is no longer limited by geography.
“While the majority of our students come from Ohio, they come from a broader part of Ohio” and are far enough away that they cannot drive to campus after work, Bateman offers.
YSU also redesigned the program, giving more value to work experience.
“We’ve always had an emphasis on valuing work experience, but we really looked at having admission pathways that would meet a variety of people with different backgrounds, even more so than ever,” he explains.
One of the college’s missions and strategic priorities is to increase access to education, he says, and the change is one way it’s accomplishing that.
Bateman points to Williamson’s accreditation through the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business as another factor attracting MBA students. AACSB verifies that the college is a quality business school that meets standards and fulfills its mission.
“And I think it’s 34% or less of the business schools in the U.S. have this accreditation…,” Bateman says. “It is like the hallmark that you have a quality business program. And we just went through our reaffirmation process this past academic year and we reaffirmed.”
It’s a rigorous process and the designation speaks to the quality of educational programming at Williamson, he adds. “We’re also incredibly competitively priced,” Bateman adds.
THE BENEFITS
The educators say earning an MBA aids career advancement.
“Depending on where you work, and especially major corporations or larger corporations, you work your job, and as you want to move up into different levels of management, that’s kind of where this MBA comes in,” Badowski says.
It helps managers, for example, understand the general dynamics of management, he adds. “So that’s kind of the ticket in a lot of places to get to regional manager, C-level and those kinds of places.”
Bateman relays a recent conversation with a long-time practicing attorney and company leader who reported the benefits to pursuing an MBA.
“One of them was it provided context and additional understanding of things that they picked up over their years in business,” Bateman explains.
Earning an MBA also boosts confidence and provides exposure to other areas of business, so students understand how a process is done.
An MBA may also benefit someone seeking a career change, Bateman says. He lists as an example a veteran nurse who wants to move into health care management.
Kos adds that all roads lead to some type of business, regardless of a student’s studies. “And I think the idea that having a business background just makes you that much more, either employable in any industry or gives you the opportunity to possibly strike out on your own, from a perspective of entrepreneurship,” he says.