As I mentioned in my last post, this time I will be discussing the data from AACSB’s Collaborations Survey on student exchanges reported by our member schools, in the context of the educational level of the students who choose to study abroad. Continue reading

In AACSB’s Collaborations Survey, we collect information on many different types of partnerships and activities that our members pursue with partner institutions around the world. An increasingly large number of schools have reported such activity over the years, and the sheer number of collaborations between them has grown by leaps and bounds. Continue reading

Much has been said regarding management education offered online, including in the archives of our own blog. While it is certainly very much up for debate whether MOOCs will all take over instruction of basic classes, or if virtual campuses will come to replace brick-and-mortar, the one thing that no one can deny is that online education is increasing in popularity and availability. Continue reading

Much has been written in recent months about the affordability of higher education. Data from AACSB’s annual Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) indicate that the cost of tuition has indeed risen over the past five years, though it has not done so in a uniform fashion across geographic regions. Continue reading

Recently, I've been doing some deeper analysis of the data from AACSB's most recent Collaborations Survey in support of our upcoming Management Education Forum on Developing High-Impact Collaborations. While doing so, I noticed that there were significant differences between AACSB-accredited reporting schools and reporting schools without AACSB accreditation in the proportion of partnerships with other schools by accreditation status. Continue reading

Globalization is all the rage in higher education these days. Among the many different means by which higher education institutions may seek to broaden their global footprint, however, none is as attention-getting, resource-intensive, or demonstrative of commitment to globalization as the establishment of an international branch campus (IBC). Continue reading

In a post I made few months ago discussing the growing number of business schools gaining accreditation from one of the international accreditation organizations we track, I noted that there appears to be a growing number of schools gaining multiple overlapping accreditations from two or more accreditors. I just completed my semi-annual update of the figures, and it seems that the trend continues. Continue reading

In an increasingly interconnected world, many business schools have come to the realization that they cannot effectively train the managers and business leaders of the future without providing opportunities for their students (and by extension, their faculty and staff) to engage in international activities, which contribute to their understanding of that world. Continue reading

Recently I pulled data from the U.S. Department of Education’s IPEDS Data Center for one of our member schools. The data had to do with the growing market share of for-profit business education providers at the master’s level. Though my colleague Dan LeClair has touched on this topic once before, the data I saw gave me a new point of view for this increase. Continue reading

Accreditation serves many purposes for business schools, including quality assurance for themselves and their stakeholders, marketing advantages, and the ability to benchmark and network with their peers. While most nations have some form of basic quality assurance agency or agencies that are required to oversee higher education institutions, voluntary management education-specific accreditation by non-governmental, international accrediting bodies has grown increasingly popular as a marker of distinction by business schools the world over. Continue reading

One of the most difficult aspects of analyzing the data from AACSB's Collaborations Survey is that there is little to indicate how active a reported partnership is. "Active collaborations" are considered to be those in which the partner schools are habitually engaged. For example, a British school may have a formal agreement for collaborative faculty research and shared resources with a school in Malaysia, but do the faculty on either side take advantage of it regularly? Tougher to tell. Continue reading

The AACSB Globalization of Management Education Task Force states on page 211 of its recent report that "connections do not just happen; they require proactive and strategic action by schools" in order for them to get the most out of their globalization efforts. What does this mean for business schools? It means that if they want to reap the greatest benefits of their collaborations for their students, they need to have a plan. Continue reading

The growth of regionally-focused, multi-locational institutions to which multiple national actors contribute indicate an increasingly common strategy in developing regions, where individual nations have limited resources for promoting access to higher education. The three most commonly observed models for regional university structures are Public, Private, and Consortium. Regional institutions create locally relevant structures for dealing with development and educational needs. Continue reading

I recently performed a state-by-state analysis of the Board of Accountancy licensing requirements for Certified Public Accountants in the U.S., to see whether, and where, AACSB business school and/or accounting program accreditation impact the educational (or experiential) requirements. The short answer is: it depends on the state/territory. Continue reading