How many students are enrolled in an MBA program at present? It depends on the method of counting.
The most recent statistics from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the leading regulator of business schools, indicate that 250,389 students were pursuing an MBA in 2020-2021. The majority of these students (155,996 to be exact) attended business schools in the United States.
Enrollment in online MBA programs exceed enrollment at campus based full-time MBA programs.
These 155,996 students are not all enrolled in full-time, residential programs. In fact, enrollment in online MBA programs in the United States currently exceeds enrollment in full-time schools. This is a significant change from a few years ago. In the United States, 45,038 MBA candidates are enrolled in online programs, while 43,740 students are enrolled in campus-based full-time programs.
Why are more students deciding to enroll in online MBA programs?
Given the rapid expansion of online education in recent years, this makes sense. Students prefer distant education since they do not have to quit their jobs and lose two years of income. At many business schools, online MBA students currently outnumber full-time MBA students, including the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. Moreover, a number of institutions, notably the University of Illinois Gies College of Business, have discontinued their on-campus MBA programs in order to focus on providing high-quality online MBA programs.
But where are the majority of MBA students found?
Despite the rise of online education, the majority of MBA students are enrolled in part-time, on-campus programs. In reality, part-time enrolment is roughly double that of full-time enrollment in the United States and throughout the world. Globally, there are 127,842 MBA students enrolled in part-time programs, compared to 82,322 in the United States.
There are currently 41,214 working professionals enrolled in Executive MBA programs worldwide, with 11,534 of those students located in the United States exclusively.
What does this mean for you?
Business schools are usually a leading indicator of what can happen in other areas of graduate education. And other graduate programs, particularly professional degrees, will most likely follow the same trends as M.B.A.s. Online learning is a means to make higher education more accessible. And right now, academic institutions do not currently serve millions of individuals. However, if we work together to transform the way we think about online education, we may achieve significant societal benefit.
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