All Posts Tagged With: "mba"
Companies will add more MBAs in 2012
Three quarters plan to hire
A new poll shows that a Master of Business Administration may be a smart choice for 2012. The Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2011 Year-End Poll of Employers shows that 74 per cent plan to hire MBA graduates in 2012. That’s up from 58 per cent in 2011. And nearly one-quarter (22 per cent) of companies plan to increase the number of MBA grads hired in 2012 over 2011, compared to just six per cent last year. The GMAC surveyed 209 employers at 216 companies. The GMAC administers the test most students write to apply to management schools.
Click to see Canadian Business’s list of the MBAs with the greatest return on investment.
Canada’s most lucrative business schools
Hint: the top three aren’t in Toronto
#4. Schulich at York by of Elango on Flickr.
Canadian Business has released its annual MBA Guide and, along with it, a slideshow that shows potential students what they want to know most—which MBA gets the best return on investment?
Here are the top five MBAs in Canada by R.O.I.
1. Desautels (McGill, Montreal, Que.)
Entering Salary: $49,000
Starting Salary: $112,000
(Tuition $65,000)
2. Dalhousie (Halifax, N.S.)
Entering Salary: $33,000
Starting Salary: $67,000
(Tuition $38,879)
Saskatchewan MLA is a PhD student and a mom
Jennifer Campeau balances motherhood, school and politics
Saskatoon Fairview MLA Jennifer Campeau
Running for office isn’t easy. But how many politicians can say they won their seats while parenting and working on their PhDs?
Not many. But Jennifer Campeau, the newest member the Saskatchewan Legistlature can.
Campeau, 38, is pursuing her PhD in Native Studies at the University of Saskatchewan.
The Yellow Quill First Nation members’ election in Saskatoon Fairview on on Nov. 7 marked only the second time a First Nations woman was elected to the Legislative Assembly in Saskatchewan and the first time an Aboriginal Canadian woman snagged a seat for the Saskatchewan Party, which cleaned up with 49 out of 58 ridings this month.
Despite the rigours of campaigning, Campeau chose not to take any time off from her studies.
“You’ve really got to be out there knocking on doors at least 3 hours a night, if not more,” she says. Still, Campeau doesn’t take the opportunity of post-secondary education for granted. A single mother, it took her a long time to earn her first degree. It was simply too difficult to study full-time while working to support her young daughter. ”It was just the two of us so I didn’t have the support that I could have had to do well in school; I had to work to support us both,” she says.
“[But] when I was 30 and she was old enough to be in school all day, I’d had enough of telling her that education was important when I didn’t have a degree myself,” she says. Sometimes she would bring her daughter to class, explaining “it instilled in her the value of post-secondary education.”
Campeau now has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Saskatchewan.
She’s pursing her doctoral degree in Native Studies to learn more about aboriginal policy. She says the economic challenges facing Yellow Quill First Nation are part of the reason she chose her field of study.
As an MLA, Campeau hopes to provide a voice for both Aboriginal Canadians and newcomers alike. “The Saskatchewan economy and population is growing, so we have a lot of people new to Saskatchewan in Saskatoon Fairview,” she says. “I want to bring their concerns to the table.”
You’re forigiven if it all sounds tiring. ”In the last eight years, I haven’t really had a life of leisure, I’ve always been working and going to school,” jokes Campeau, “so I kind of got used to a fast pace.”
Learning biz to the sound of rap
How Baba Brinkman is teaching M.B.A.s
Photo by Mark Peterson/Redux
From the Maclean’s Rethink Issue. Story by Angelina Chapin.
It’s a Sunday night in Manhattan, and the only place in the world where 40 white people have their fists in the air chanting “I’m a African.” Their ringleader is performer Baba Brinkman: a tall, gangly man who is explaining to his audience in the off-Broadway theatre how the theory of evolution is captured in the lyrics of New York City-based hip-hop duo Dead Prez.
Brinkman’s riff on their song, which argues that until 60,000 years ago Homo sapiens all lived in Africa, is a part of his rap guide to evolution—the second in a series of educational rap guides he’s produced. The songs unpack such Darwinian principles as natural and sexual selection using the analogy of the rap industry: just as certain organisms are selected to survive in nature based on favourable qualities, certain rappers are selected by their audience to succeed based on talent.
Montreal MBAs jump in Economist rankings
Where does your business school stand?
John Molson School of Business by Canuckistan on Flickr
The Economist has released its annual ranking of full-time M.B.A. programs. Below, we show you all the Canadian schools on the list, with their 2010 ranks in parentheses. The thing that jumps out here is how much Montreal’s two primarily English-language programs have climbed. After winning a long fight with the Quebec government to charge tuition in line with what other schools charge, McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management leaped onto the list at 64th. It’s unclear whether those two facts are related, though the upped tuition did begin in 2009-10. Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business also made a significant gain. Congratulations to all.
Quebec government accepts McGill MBA tuition hike
School raised price by nearly 90 per cent
Photo courtesy of bagriton on Flickr
McGill University will be allowed to charge $32,500 this fall year for its MBA program after the university struck a deal with the Quebec government last week.
Before the 2009-10 school year, the program had cost only $3,400. Last year, they raised the price by nearly 90 per cent to $29,500, prompting the Ministry of Education to fine them $2.1 million for breaking regulations. Quebec requires universities to charge domestic (Quebec) students a uniform rate, which is currently just over $70 per credit for most programs. A typical 30-credit school year costs roughly $2,100.
The new deal redefines the program as a “specialized MBA” with a focus on international business and a “mandatory study trip abroad.” Specialized MBAs are not subject to the same strict regulations. Concordia offers an EMBA with tuition at $34,000. McGill and the HEC Montréal offer a joint EMBA that costs $72,000.
Some student groups have criticized the decision. The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, the province’s largest student lobby group, and the McGill Post Graduate Students’ Society issued a joint statement describing it as a step towards two-tiered education.
However, another student group — McGill’s MBA Student Association — supports the school. They condemned the government’s fine and released a survey claiming that 70 per cent of students in the program supported the increase.
Line Beauchamp, the Minister of Education, wrote that McGill is not getting special treatment. “This isn’t an exception, because there are other institutions in Quebec that already offer programs with a similar status,” she said.
McGill’s new price may allow it to better compete with other schools. The University of Toronto charges residents $40,000 per year for its MBA program; the University of Western Ontario’s one-year MBA program has a price tag of $73,500 for Canadians.
Wilfred Zerbe, Memorial University’s Dean of Business, suggested in May that tuition fees there should climb too. Currently, Memorial charges MBA students $4,400 per year. He says the school could attract better students and offer more support with tuition fees closer to $10,000 per year.
Top Canadian M.B.A. programs for return on investment
Three schools make Forbes’ Top 12 ranking
Schulich at York courtesy of Elango on Flickr
Each year, business magazine Forbes ranks international M.B.A. programs based one single statistic: the return on investment realized five years after graduation. They call this the “5-year M.B.A. gain.” Three Canadian schools round out this year’s Top 12 Non-U.S. M.B.A. Programs:
10. York (Schulich)
The class of 2006 started with an average salary of $36,000 and were earning $121,000 by 2010.
Less tuition, fees and forgone compensation, the “5-year M.B.A. gain” is $47,000.
11. McGill (Desautels)
The class of 2006 started with an average salary of $43,000 and were earning $134,000 by 2010.
Less tuition, fees and forgone compensation, the “5-year M.B.A. gain” is $40,000.
12. UBC (Sauder)
The class of 2006 started with an average salary of $31,000 and were earning $92,000 by 2010.
Less tuition, fees and forgone compensation, the “5-year M.B.A. gain” is $21,000.
To see a comprehensive list of Canadian M.B.A. programs and how they compare, buy the Canadian Business M.B.A. Guide. All figures above are in U.S. dollars.
McGill University–’perplexed and disappointed’
Defends decision to raise MBA tuition 900%
McGill University has issued a statement, pasted below, responding to the provincial government’s decision to fine the institution $2.1 million for raising MBA tuition by 900 per cent.
McGill University is perplexed and disappointed with the response of the Government of Quebec to the changes made by McGill to transform the University’s MBA program. Rather than celebrate the dramatic progress and success McGill has achieved in a short period of time with its renewed and self-funded MBA, the government has imposed a significant fine against one of its own universities.
This action puts an arbitrary, elective and unprecedented exercise of authority of government as a priority over demonstrated quality and program performance.
Since McGill moved to a self-funded program, it has developed an MBA that is attracting top-calibre students from Quebec (some of whom have otherwise gone outside the province for their MBA), and from elsewhere.
The McGill MBA’s improvements include: leaping from 95th to 57th in the prestigious Financial Times rankings; maintaining stable enrolment rates; having McGill graduates enjoy the highest job placement rates and highest starting salaries in Canada; being ranked by FT as the only Quebec MBA program in the Top 100 in the world.
To sustain the University’s increased investments in its program, McGill moved last fall to a self-funded tuition model under which it does without any government subsidies for its MBA students, thus saving Quebec taxpayers about $1.2 million annually.
McGill has created, at the same time, student aid at a unique level of support for any Quebec university program, on a per-student basis. The McGill MBA program provides an average of $12,000 per student in financial aid.
Quebecers deserve better than to have a top quality program fined. Quebecers deserve a world-class MBA program and McGill is providing it. McGill has demonstrated that it can do so without limiting accessibility, and without doing so on the backs of our undergraduate students.
McGill’s rejuvenated program, now with better facilities, improved student-teacher ratios, top-level professors, improved advising and novel educational elements, costs significantly less than top MBA programs elsewhere in Canada, and the world.
McGill will continue to meet the interests of our students, and of Quebec.
Why your business degree is like an app store
Call it democratizing education if you want, but Facebook MBA is going to make a lot of money.
These days volume is everything. It’s not enough to have a great idea, it has to be a great idea with mass-market potential. That’s the entire business model for smartphone apps like Angry Birds. Alone, a $0.99 app isn’t a strong revenue stream. But when it goes viral, and tens of millions of users start to download the product, it becomes a revolution.
That seems to be the idea behind The London School of Business and Finance’s new Facebook MBA initiative.
With the launch of these MBA classes, the school is allowing students anywhere to check out their program, free of charge, on Facebook before deciding to enrol. Essentially, they are letting prospective students take their product for a test drive before any commitment is made.
“It is the first online MBA, which will be free to all until the optional point of assessment for qualification … there will be [hundreds of] hours of free study resources available to all users, including 80 hours of high definition video content. Unlike all other MBAs, no fees will be required up front allowing students to save for exams or to pay when it suits them financially,” states a press release about the program.
Is it the democratization of education? Or is it the mass-marketing of course materials that will draw in millions in revenue once those students decide to become certified?
By making these classes free, the discussions easily accessible and the course materials available for download, the LSBF is doing more to promote mass business education than almost anything to date. And that their certification program is a fraction of the price of Queen’s University or the University of Toronto only amplifies the draw, which are $65,000 and $75,000, respectively.
What young people interested in an MBA will see is free study opportunities with a cheap certification exam at the end of the line.
Just like with apps, while $23,000 per exam isn’t going to cover the cost of preparing the system and running it, getting thousands of more students interested in the program than could possibly fit in lecture halls will solve the problem through simple volume.
Maybe their new slogan should be: “There’s a Facebook page for that.”
The highest paid MBAs in the country
Hard to complain over huge tuition hike at McGill with postgrad earnings of over $100,000 a year
On Monday McGill circulated some of the results in Canadian Business magazine’s MBA guide. According to the rankings, graduates of McGill’s Desautels School of Management have the highest starting salary of any business school in the country, at an averagre of $103, 000 a year. While this sort of thing is going to be a point of pride for any business school, scoring high on post-graduate salary is bound to be big for McGill’s efforts to promote and maintain the massive MBA tuition increase that went into effect this year.
The Quebec government sets tuition fees in the province directly and they’re the same across the board, $68.93 per credit. No matter what the level of study, or the program.
Some universities have taken issue with this approach. They say that some programs cost more to teach than others so students should have to pay more. They also point to the fact that most of these expensive programs lead to higher paying jobs than cheaper programs. Medicine and dentistry are expensive to teach and lead to high salaries, so these universities argue that students in these programs should pay more than a student in, let’s say, literature, a program that is inexpensive to teach and doesn’t necessarily lead to a high salary. It’s no surprise that the Université de Montréal and McGill have been at the forefront on this issue. They’re both relatively prestigious universities with medical schools.
While U de M hasn’t gone as far a McGill, they did raise the issue at the National Assembly’s education and culture committee back in August. Calling for tuition to be differentiated by program, U de M rector, Guy Breton said that students in the faculty of arts pay 40 per cent of the cost of their education while students in veterinary medicine pay five per cent.
Of course there’s another side to this story, student groups and the Parti Québécois, who implemented a tuition freeze in 1994, have argued that this model would discourage those from poorer backgrounds from entering these fields and that it’s the government’s responsibility to ensure an even playing field when it comes to university entrance.
McGill’s decision to dramatically increase tuition fees for their MBA program this year, students went from paying just over $3,000 to just under $30,000, was the first move in what will certainly be a long, drawn out battle. The current, Quebec Liberal, government has criticized the move but stopped short of doing anything about it.
But these rankings show why McGill picked the MBA program for their first foray into unregulated tuition increases, and point to the reasons why the government hasn’t acted.
McGill has always argued that the MBA program is different, the students who enter the program are already in the workforce and they see it as an investment in their future, one with a high return. Quite simply, it’s hard for students or the general public to get upset that people who already make more than the average Quebecker are paying a lot to make even more.
Your move McGill
Quebec renews promise to take ‘action’ over tuition hike for MBA students
Quebec has renewed promises to take “action” against McGill University over a tuition hike for MBA students. Incoming McGill MBA students are paying $29,500 a year, up dramatically from around $1,700. Earlier this month, the two sides were still in the grips of a months-long stare down over a threat from the province to cut the university’s funding by $30,000 for every student who pays the deregulated fee. On Friday, a spokesman for education minister Line Beauchamp said “there will certainly be action in the future.” However, the minister who took over the education post last month from Michelle Courchesne, is “still reflecting” on what to do.
Financial Times Executive M.B.A. Ranking 2009
The FT’s E.M.B.A. evaluation looks at a variety of performance measures for each school
Similar to the Financial Times’ regular M.B.A. rankings, the FT’s E.M.B.A. evaluation looks at a variety of performance measures for each school: the career progress of students, faculty quality and the diversity (female and international) of both faculty and students.
Source: FT.com
Canada’s E.M.B.A. Programs: for the working professional
Executive M.B.A. programs normally allow their participants to remain at their jobs, pursuing the degree part-time
Targeted at people who already have a career but want to take it to the next level by earning an advanced degree, executive M.B.A. programs normally allow their participants to remain at their jobs, pursuing the degree part-time. Tuition, often covered by employers, is generally high.
Information is for the 2010-2011 academic year. **Tuition differs for international students: $44,025 at Guelph; $39,874 at UPEI; $36,000 at Regina; $53,975 at Royal Roads. UQAM program open to Canadian residents only (tuition higher for out-of-province students).
Source: Canadian universities
How do Canada’s business schools stack up internationally?
Canadian schools didn’t crack the top 20 in either of the Financial Times’ rankings, but York (Schulich) placed first on the alternative Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey
Beyond Grey Pinstripes M.B.A.
Ranking 2009-2010
Beyond Grey Pinstripes is an alternative ranking of business schools, conducted every two years by the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education. The ranking assesses the degree to which leading M.B.A. programs integrate issues concerning social and environmental stewardship into the curriculum.
Source: Beyondgreypinstripes.org
Canada’s M.B.A. programs: a variety of options at 35 institutions
The traditional M.B.A.—two years, full-time—is no longer the only way to go, with many schools offering part-time studies
Tuition and program length vary considerably—the differences are often determined by the type of program—as do size, diversity and the average GMAT score of incoming students. The traditional M.B.A.—two years, full-time—is no longer the only way to go, with many schools offering part-time studies.
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
Information is for the 2010-2011 academic year unless indicated otherwise. Enrolment figures are for full-time students. Tuition is shown for the full cost of a program and includes compulsory fees. Tuition can vary depending on length/type of program. Two figures are shown for schools in Quebec and Nova Scotia as tuition is higher for out-of-province students. Sherbrooke program open to Quebec residents only. Regina program is part-time. *2009 figure. †2006 figure.
Source: Canadian universities
Canadian M.B.A. schools climb the global ranks
Despite not having brand-name cachet, Canadian business schools excel in attractive areas
Many of Sarah Kaplan’s former students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School asked her the same question when they found out she took a job at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management last year: “Why Canada?”
It’s an understandable question. Wharton, after all, is one of the top business schools in the United States, if not the world. And while Rotman has made significant strides in climbing up the global rankings over the past decade, it is still a long way from being considered in the same breath as Wharton, Harvard and Stanford—the sorts of places where a mere mention of the institution’s name will instantly open doors.
In fact, only two Canadian M.B.A. programs made it into the top 50 on the respected Financial Times list for this year. They are Rotman (45) and the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business (49). York University’s Schulich School of Business’s M.B.A. program was ranked 54th.
But rankings don’t paint a complete picture “Rotman has one of the top strategy departments,” Kaplan says. “If I look at the quality of research and quality of faculty, I’ve joined one of the top schools in North America.” For students, though, a lack of name recognition at Canadian schools presents a conundrum. While the education may be of high quality and more affordable than in the U.S., it can be more difficult to get on the radar of big U.S. companies and the recruiters that scour the globe for top talent.
The good news is that things are beginning to change. The meltdown that started on Wall Street and reverberated around the globe in a flurry of bank failures and government bailouts largely skipped over Canada, where a more conservative approach was credited for keeping the banking sector out of trouble. Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has since suggested that Canada be used as a model for other countries, an argument bolstered by global surveys and even U.S. President Barack Obama, who said, “Canada has shown itself to be a pretty good manager of the financial system and economy in ways that we haven’t always been.” And there’s reason to believe Canadian business schools are poised to benefit by association. “The fact that the Canadian economy gets a lot of attention can only be good for Canadian business schools,” Kaplan says.
The challenge will be successfully capitalizing on the spotlight to show the world that there’s more to the Canadian approach than being conservative about money—a trait that appeared admirable during a once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis, but may also be holding back the country when it comes to producing global champions.
The financial crisis, spawned by the risky mortgage-backed securities created by Wall Street, inevitably resulted in soul-searching about the roles of business schools in promoting a profit-at-all-costs breed of capitalism. By contrast, many Canadian schools emerged from the recession with comparatively little baggage, and even enjoyed a perception of being part of the solution.
It added up to a unique opportunity for those charged with attracting top talent north of the border. “When the American schools scaled back on their hiring, many of the Canadian schools took advantage of it,” says Rick Powers, Rotman’s associate dean, noting that Rotman has made several key hires as part of a drive that will see faculty grow from 115 to 150 over the next four years. In addition to Kaplan, new faculty includes: Kent Womack, a visiting professor of finance who has taught M.B.A. and executive programs at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College for over 10 years, and Partha Mohanram, an associate professor of accounting who came from Columbia University. Powers says, “Now Canada has become a very viable destination, not only for students, but faculty.”
Mcgill and Quebec play chicken
A tuition hike for MBA students is opposed by the province; so far neither side has blinked
McGill University and the Quebec government have been locked in a stare-down ever since the school announced last year it would no longer abide by provincial caps on tuition fees for its M.B.A. program. The province promptly kicked up a fuss, and even threatened to fine the school for its insolence. So far, neither side has blinked—even though students are back in class and their tuition bills are in the mail. “We’re still in the same place we were several months ago,” says Peter Todd, the dean of McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management. “We’ve made it clear we’re going ahead.”
The 56 students entering McGill’s M.B.A. program this fall will shell out $29,500 a year for the privilege. That’s about 15 times what Quebec residents will pay in tuition for any other master’s program at McGill, and more than five times as much as out-of-province Canadians. McGill’s M.B.A. fees are hardly out of whack with those of other top-tier programs across the country—Canadian residents beginning their M.B.A. studies this fall at the University of Toronto will have paid about $75,000 in tuition before the end of the two-year program, while those at the University of Western Ontario will be out $68,500 for its one-year program. (Like the University of Toronto’s, McGill’s is a two year program.) The big difference is McGill didn’t wait for the government’s permission to announce the hike.
This past spring, Quebec’s then-education minister Michelle Courchesne lashed out at the university, reminding it that “tuition fees are set by the government.” Courchesne also threatened to claw back $28,000 in funding to the university—$11,000 of which would have been the province’s share of funding for M.B.A. students—for each student registered in the program if McGill went ahead with the hike. However, Courchesne was never given the opportunity to follow through on the threat; she was shuffled out of the education portfolio last month and replaced with Line Beauchamp.
Beauchamp declined to be interviewed, but a ministry spokesperson acknowledges there hasn’t been any movement on the issue, since “the new minister hasn’t yet had time to work on the file.” That means McGill still isn’t sure what to expect from the government in the coming months, though Todd says the school can absorb the fine should the province choose to impose it. “If we have to deal with some issues with the government in the short term, we’re absolutely committed to doing that,” he says. “We don’t see that we have a lot of choice.”
The spat is the latest in a growing list of ideological battles between supporters of Quebec’s cap on tuition and those who say it starves the province’s universities of much-needed funding. In 2007, the Jean Charest government announced it would hike university fees by $100 a year for the next five years—the first increase since 1994. But three years later, critics say Quebec’s universities are still teetering on a financial precipice.
At a speech to the Canadian Club this past June, McGill principal Heather Munroe-Blum argued, “The biggest obstacles to our universities’ success are the outdated objects of our ambition and underfunding.” Her complaints echoed those of a group of 16 prominent Quebecers, including former premier Lucien Bouchard and former finance minister Monique Jérôme-Forget, who in February called for the deregulation of tuition fees. “Quebec’s universities are hurting,” Bouchard said in a statement signed by the group. “The condition is not incurable, but it is chronic.” However, the call for reforms has yet to find a receptive audience either with the government or the opposition.
While the Charest government has agreed to hold wide-ranging talks this fall on university funding, its stance on McGill’s decision to privatize its M.B.A. program makes clear it’s not yet willing to relinquish its role in setting fees. In that sense, the Liberals are on much the same page as the opposition Parti Québécois, which argues deregulation would undermine Quebec’s increasingly unique egalitarian approach to post-secondary funding. “If we’re going to raise the issue of tuition fees, it’s not with the idea of having the state disengage itself,” says PQ post-secondary education critic Marie Malavoy. “By making such a provocative move, what McGill University is doing is calling into question the model of Quebec universities.”
Todd rejects the notion that McGill is charting a revolutionary course with its expensive new M.B.A. program. “We’re at the end of a chain of this kind of transformation across the country,” he says, “not at the vanguard of it.” And he’d be right, of course, if McGill were anywhere else but Quebec.
New Brunswick shuts down private online university
There are certain standards that have to be abided to that are not the same standards as you may have for a little convenience store
A private online university based in New Brunswick will close by the end of the year after questions arose about its administration and finances, but the school says the shutdown is unfair. The province’s Department of Post-Secondary Education ordered Lansbridge University to close after three reviews found problems with the school’s operations.
The concerns over Lansbridge date back to December 2007, when a review by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission was launched. It found that Lansbridge had failed to meet 10 of 16 benchmarks for post-secondary schools, including dispute resolution, student protection and financial stability. In February 2009, the post-secondary education minister ordered that Lansbridge comply with four conditions: inform its students that it had failed the assessment, address the commission’s concerns, implement a student protection agreement, and pay for a second review.
Rene Boudreau, New Brunswick’s director of post-secondary affairs, says the department did not immediately shut down the school after the first assessment because it believed the university had potential to improve.
Lansbridge underwent the second review, which concluded the school had not made sufficient progress. The department then ordered an investigation conducted by academic governance experts, which confirmed the findings of the first two reviews. The department ordered the school effectively shuttered.
Lansbridge president Ernest Smith did not return calls seeking comment. But in a statement, the school disputed the department’s decision. “We are stunned as to why the (degree-granting) license was revoked. Our programs have been deemed by our students and faculty as above average,” Lansbridge said in a statement. The school said it will prepare a response to the department.
Mireille Duguay, CEO of the commission that carried out the first two reviews, said Lansbridge lacked credibility. “If you’re going to be granting degrees in this province, the institution that will grant those degrees … has to be credible in the pan-Canadian perspective,” she said. “As such, (there) are certain standards that have to be abided to that are not the same standards as you may have for a little convenience store.”
The business school had been offering MBA programs to more than 150 students, most of whom are Canadian.
The Canadian Press
Top CEOs back McGill tuition hikes for business program
Quebec education minister stands firm on threat to reduce university’s operating grant
Business leaders are backing McGill in its decision to move its MBA program onto a completely self-funded model, and hike tuition to nearly $30,000, despite threats from the Quebec government to cut the university’s operating grant, the Globe and Mail reported.
In an open letter to Quebec education minister Michelle Courchesne, 45 of the province’s top CEOs write that the minister’s uncompromising position to cut funding to the program lest the school reconsider, is “encouraging mediocrity,” the Globe reported.
“We won’t build the future of Quebec by asking universities to choose between excellence and access,” the letter reads.
The controversy over the tuition hike hit in January when Le Devoir broke a story about a letter the minister sent to McGill principal Heather Munroe-Blum. In it, Courchesne expressed her disappointment in McGill’s decision to increase tuition for the MBA program to $29,500, writing the increase “contravenes the very principle of accessibility.”
Since then the minister has vowed to cut provincial funding to the program by $28,000 per student enrolled if the school refuses to abide by the province’s tuition rules. Tuition fees for Quebec students are currently less than $1,700, among the lowest in the country.
While Minister Courchesne is not backing down, and her aide Tamara Davis told the Globe that “no exception” can be made for McGill, Quebec’s powerhouse CEOs are standing up for the school. Their argument? Universities can’t be expected to exist on an equal playing field if they intend to attract and compete for talent.
The McGill Daily reported in September that McGill’s MBA students were informed of the tuition increase via e-mail by MBA director and professor Don Melville. Tuition would jump to $29,500 for September 2010 — more than a 1,663 per cent increase for Quebec residents, 531 per cent for out-of-province students, and 48 per cent for international students
McGill privatizes MBA program
Tuition fees to rise to $29,500
The Master’s of Business Administration program at McGill University will be moving to a completely self-funded model this fall, effectively privatizing the program. McGill had announced in September its intentions to transition a related program, the executive MBA, to a self-funded model. Both programs will forfeit public funding and increase tuition to $29,500 per year, up from just over $3,200. Tuition for most students at McGill is set at just over $1,100.
In January, the provincial government threatened to decrease McGill’s operating grant if it went ahead with its plans for the executive MBA. Education Minister Michelle Courchesne has said that the university didn’t seek the government’s permission to increase fees.
According to the Desautels Faculty of Management, the two MBA programs were running a deficit of about $10,000 per student, which has required other faculties to heavily subsidize them.
