A glut of Online MBAs?

Inactive User

325 139

Posted Jul 19, 2017 21:00

I saw this today:

https://find-mba.com/news/2017/07/santa-clara-university-leavey-school-of-business-to-offer-online-mba

Santa Clara is launching an online MBA.

Then, there are these, all within less than a year:

https://find-mba.com/news/2017/06/st-johns-university-introduces-online-mba
https://find-mba.com/news/2017/05/university-of-denver-announces-new-online-mba
https://find-mba.com/news/2017/04/university-of-south-florida-to-offer-an-online-mba
https://find-mba.com/news/2017/03/ohio-s-kent-state-university-to-offer-online-mba
https://find-mba.com/news/2017/02/newman-university-to-offer-online-mba
https://find-mba.com/news/2016/12/colorado-state-university-pueblo-to-offer-online-mba
https://find-mba.com/news/2016/10/university-of-dayton-announces-new-online-mba

That's a lot of new programs! What's worrisome is that they all kinda look the same. Click through to some of the program pages, and there seems to be hardly any differentiation between some of them. And still, these programs are not inexpensive: that new Santa Clara program, if I'm doing the math right, is more than $70k.

It's like they're not even trying.

I realize that these programs are low overhead and don't cost as much to administer as an in-class program. But I'm wondering at what point does this turn into a glut? For people who want to do an online MBA from a US school, I'm hard pressed to suggest anything other than the Nebraska-Lincoln program or the Illinois MBA. With the price points of those programs - and the fact that there's barely any differentiation among the competing programs - I'm wary of even suggesting IU Kelley's or UNC's Online MBAs - two long-standing MBAs that are probably great in their own right but don't seem to offer anything 'above and beyond.'

Am I missing something?

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Duncan

1.173 1.016

Posted Jul 20, 2017 10:27

If a school can get the marketing right and the learning experience then there is certainly room. Many people all over the world value an MBA from a private US university but cannot afford to leave their jobs. The FT rankings show that state universities like Warwick, Massachusetts, and Nebraska deliver excellent outcomes, so they don't need to be too different. However, as the failure of Imperial College's initial online MBA shows, you need to work to get success.

Many of these schools are in any case digitizing courses for allow them to better support full-time and executive programs. As long as the demand is there, these small programs won't canibbalize their core market but they can help with future declines in demand for the US full-time MBA..

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mrashid7

2 4

Posted Jul 20, 2017 15:48

what is average salary of IE Global MBA? what you rate/weight age to IE Global MBA against Full time MBA ,if some one not attend on campus MBA.
which is better Full time MBA / EMBA (please mention school)/ Online MBA .?

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Inactive User

325 139

Posted Jul 21, 2017 15:34

[quote]If a school can get the marketing right and the learning experience then there is certainly room. [/quote]
I honestly think that many of these new entrants are struggling with the marketing aspect. There's barely any differentiation. Look at these two program pages:

https://onlinebusiness.american.edu/mba/
https://onlinebusiness.syr.edu/mba/

They look practically the same!

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mrashid7

2 4

Posted Jul 21, 2017 15:40

what is average salary of IE Global MBA? what you rate/weight age to IE Global MBA against Full time MBA ,if some one not attend on campus MBA.

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Razors Edg...

92 63

Posted Jul 24, 2017 18:28

I think that schools with strong name brands will pull through. People want to have brands like Carnegie Mellon, USC, etc. on their CVs. I think the smaller schools will only be relevant regionally, or if they can offer accredited MBAs at a discount.

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