Enrollment at Southland MBA Schools Rebounds in Past Year
By CHRIS CZIBORR
Greater interest from part-time students helped Southland business schools post healthy enrollment growth in the past year.
This year’s Business Journal directory of Southern California universities offering master’s in business administration degrees shows a 10% increase in enrollment to 3,796 students at Orange County campuses. Campus-wide MBA enrollment grew 6% to 17,151 for the schools in the directory. Last year, total enrollment fell 2%.
The number of MBA students in OC graduating in the past year grew a slimmer 3% to 1,328, reflecting previous years of lower enrollment. The directory includes all Southland universities offering MBA degrees.
School officials say the weak economy in the past couple of years has pushed more students into slower-track MBA programs. Students who take MBAs while working are afraid of losing their jobs, so they take fewer courses each semester and focus more on their jobs.
Many of the MBA programs in the California State University and University of California systems, which rely heavily on state funds, showed little change in enrollment compared to the previous year.
The University of California, Irvine’s Graduate School of Management saw enrollment rise a modest 3% to 751 MBA students.
“Demand for full-time MBA education the last couple of years has been down,” said Jone Pearce, the school’s interim dean. “We made a decision a year ago to shrink our class in the full-time program from three sections to two so we could maintain quality in light of what we thought would be lower demand.”
Pearce said the school plans to stick with two MBA sections for the next year.
UCI officials said that the number of sittings for the Graduate Management Admission Test required for entry into an MBA program has been down in recent years. Nationwide this year about 105,000 students took the exam, compared to nearly 117,000 last year.
But Pearce said the school’s enrollment in executive and part-time MBA programs has been strong.
“Most people in our part-time program should be in the full-time program, but they are loath to quit their jobs,” Pearce said. “They don’t want to automatically assume they can get a better job two years from now.”
Pearce also said that the school’s MBA students are using UCI’s job placement services more than ever,another sign of the times.
“We have more and more part-time students using our placement services, which traditionally have been for the full-time people,” Pearce said. “Our part-time students these days are looking to change jobs. Traditionally they wanted to keep their current jobs and use an MBA to move up within their current companies.”
Pearce said she expects a gradual enrollment uptick in the next couple of years.
California State University, Fullerton, OC’s second-largest public school MBA program behind UCI, posted a 2% drop in MBA students to 400.
The university, which faces a budget crunch along with other California public schools, doesn’t plan to boost enrollment significantly anytime soon, said Thomas Johnson, associate dean of the school’s College of Business and Economics.
“We plan to grow things at a steady pace,” Johnson said.
The Southland’s biggest MBA program is at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Pepperdine’s Irvine campus saw enrollment dip 1% to 653 students in the past year.
Linda Livingstone, dean of Pepperdine’s Graziado School of Business, said the privately run college has been spared the state budget issues afflicting public universities.
“I hope that turns around for those (public) schools because it’s not good for education in general,” Livingstone said.
Chapman University in Orange saw a 5% boost in MBA enrollment to 138 students in the past year. The number of Chapman graduates fell 4% to 44.
The MBA school of St. Louis, Mo.-based Webster University grew enrollment at its Irvine campus 62% to 485 students.
A couple of factors led to the gains. “We introduced a new human resource management program here and also have been doing a lot more advertising,” said Irvine campus office manager Luis Dantan.
“Our students used to take a couple of classes per term,” Dantan said. “But now because of the economy they are being more careful with their schooling and are only enrolling for one class per term.”
Fullerton-based Hope International University grew OC enrollment 135% to 47. The bulk of that increase was due to a group of students from China. The school had a one-off program with the Chinese government, which paid for 18 teachers and school administrators to study at Hope.
Azusa Pacific University saw its enrollment in OC fall 72% to 5, which will be the last five students enrolled at the Azusa-based school’s OC campus.
“Our OC program is a weekend MBA program, which we have discontinued due to lack of interest,” said Azusa graduate recruiter Susette Trinque.
