A Bear Market for Business Schools (BusinessWeek): “Recessions usually are good for business schools. For the first two years of the current downturn that pattern largely held. But this year, business school is suddenly less of a draw. Applications for the B-school Class of ’05 — the students who will hit the books this fall — have fallen by as much as 30 percent at some top schools compared with last year. The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, for example, has received 27 percent fewer applications for the autumn term than it did in 2002. Why the drop-off? For one thing, fewer would-be applicants can afford to forgo their salaries or pay annual tuition of $30,000-plus. And new visa restrictions are making it harder for foreigners to apply. But the big reason many twentysomethings may be hanging on to their jobs, however unrewarding, is that the once-coveted MBA no longer comes with the implicit guarantee of a big-bucks job offer on graduation.”
