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  • I'm mostly looking for flexibility, since I am a working professional.

  • I think the network is a huge factor.

  • I feel like an MBA for me is a second chance.

  • Is an MBA worth it?

  • It's a question that many prospective students, like these, are asking themselves.

  • Until recently, getting an MBA was considered a relatively safe bet, one likely to yield a big bump in salary.

  • But in recent years, applications to programs across the country are down.

  • Why, that's not entirely clear.

  • Some point to the strong economy, others to rising costs.

  • But what is certain is that schools are beginning to change as a result.

  • The Questrom School of Business at Boston University, ranked 36th last year among two year MBA programs, recently made headlines when it announced an alternative to its, roughly, $55,000 a year Residential Program.

  • A new online MBA had a ticket price far lower than its competitors.

  • We plan to launch in the Fall of 2020 an MBA degree priced at 24,000 and available only online on the edX platform.

  • It's an MBA degree, but the product is completely different than what you would get in the full time MBA, on campus.

  • It's a completely different product designed for a different audience that has different lives, different needs, so they don't have six years experience, they have beyond 10 years experience.

  • They're much more seasoned, and the MBA allows them to advance in the career they're in.

  • One of the challenges your facing, and many business schools are facing nation wide, decline in applicants.

  • Yes, nation wide the applications for MBA are down.

  • They've been down at different levels in different schools for almost five years now.

  • What about your school?

  • We were down as well, but not as significantly as others.

  • How much were you down?

  • In the MBA we were down, this year, 18%.

  • The school's dean, Susan Fournier, says, "Her MBA program was able to fill its incoming class "with qualified students."

  • But, she also saw a need for something new.

  • I was curious was Questrom's current full-time students thought about this declining interest in their degrees.

  • How many of you are confident that five years from now it'll have been worth it?

  • Meet Nari, Airian, Michael, Carolyn, Saeid and Danesh.

  • Each of these full-time Questrom students has a different background and a different career goal, but they're all confident that their MBA degree will help them take their careers to the next level.

  • Do you ever have moments when you ask yourself, is it worth it?

  • - Yes I do. - Saeid, you do?

  • Yeah, it's because the opportunity cost for me is really high.

  • You're a doctor.

  • Yeah, I had those moments, but when I sit in a class and I hear some new concepts, some new lessons, and it's like eye opening to me, wow, this is what this happen to us, or this what, this is happening.

  • I just say, this is the right time to be here, this is the right place for you.

  • Carolyn, you've never questioned whether it's worth it or not?

  • When I hear conversations like this, I think a lot of it depends on where you were before, and it sounds like some people were really in a job that they really saw themselves in and felt deeply entrenched.

  • For me I really wanted a big change, and I didn't know what that change would be, so I feel like I was the perfect person to leave and be excited about being here to reset and relearn.

  • Today, Questrom also offers a variety of specialized MBAs.

  • There's the Social Impact MBA, the MBA plus MS in Digital Technology, and the Health Sector MBA.

  • Half way through my undergraduate degree in biochemistry I realized I didn't wanna do the academic thing, but I did wanna make an impact in the health sector in life sciences.

  • And so I thought, the best way of doing that was to kind of, follow the money.

  • As an engineer, you're limited in your career choices.

  • As an engineer MBA, the door opens.

  • And so now I have the technical expertise and I know how it translates into the dollar math.

  • Have you all heard about the online program that BU just announced?

  • You know it's not gonna cost quite as much as what you're paying for here at the residential program?

  • Do you feel like, if that was offered to you as an alternative, would you have said, I'm gonna stay at home, save some money.

  • I was considering going to an online program when I was applying, but decided against it for a few reasons.

  • One is, definitely the experience.

  • You get to actually meet people.

  • It's a huge part of the value that I saw in the degree.

  • When they start offering MBAs to people through an online program, does that dilute the value of your degree?

  • It's something I'm concerned about, but having a more specialized degree, having it specifically in health sector, I think it helps me a little bit more.

  • You're here because you wanna get more than just the education out of it, and that's the biggest thing that sets the regular MBA from the online MBA part.

  • In terms of academic knowledge that one gains through a residential program, the two year program, can you get all that in an online program?

  • You won't get the ability to go deep and to specialize.

  • Can you learn leadership in an online course?

  • - Yes. - You can?

  • Yes, but you can't go as deep as you might if you took a whole other year and took nothing but leadership courses.

  • Is this a good time to be a dean of a business school?

  • It's really a test for how to manage a business.

  • This is a business.

  • It is a business, and you know, we provide products that meet people's needs and the market is very, it's very dynamic.

  • By dynamic you mean there's less demand right now?

  • No, dynamic meaning it's evolving a lot.

  • It's challenged in some ways.

  • There are some cultural trends that challenge business, overall, challenge higher ed, so you really have to know the astute business analysis of your case.

  • I'd say 50 years ago, you know, you had two products, an undergrad, an MBA, you were good to go.

  • Some schools today have one product.

  • We have 10 products, because the market is very complex.

I'm mostly looking for flexibility, since I am a working professional.

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