Category — Business Education

Soon universities (and possibly others who offer business education) will have access to an additional source of funding.

The folks who bring you the GMAT, the Graduate Management Admission Council Board, earlier this month approved $10 million to establish a fund to advance business and management education around the world. This in support of the Council’s initiative to make strategic philanthropic investments for the benefit of business and management education globally.

GMAC president and CEO, David A. Wilson states:

"We recognize that substantial change will only occur with substantial investment. That is why we think the board’s action can make a difference. These are investments against which the Council expects no return other than the advancement of the objectives for which grants are made."

GMAC Projects

Although the fund is new, GMAC’s sponsorship of projects that further business and management education globally is not. Two groups that have received support from GMAC in the past are The Ph.D. Project to increase the number of minority business school professors and their own Management Education Research Institute (MERI), which provides funding for faculty research on issues affecting management education, among others.

• Programs currently offered by MERI include the following:
• Grants up to $100,000 each for research that will impact management education.
• Faculty Fellowships designed to support innovative and thought-provoking management education leaders. Currently they offer up to four annual faculty fellowships up to $50,000 each for research at the fellows’ institutions.
• Doctoral Student Fellowships for doctoral students and beginning faculty. Up to four annual year-long doctoral student fellowships with awards up to $20,000 are available.

The Fund Formalizes GMAC’s Commitment

Over the next several weeks, the Council Board will put together a formal structure for the fund. Judy Phair in the council offices stated that the guidelines and process for applying for funds will be decided by an advisory committee to be selected by the board in early 2009.

Depending on your current level of training and education, you have several different choices of business degrees. Any business degree will provide practical skills in business as well as some real world experience, but there are vast difference in the depth of instruction from Associates Degrees all the way up to PhDs. Your decision will be based on your interests, qualifications and goals.

On Campus vs. Online Study

The first decision you might make is whether to pursue a traditional course of study on a physical campus or to get your degree in the ever more popular online arena. Regardless of which you choose, a business degree program will typically include courses in accounting, finance, management, marketing, analysis, and computer applications. You may also study organizational behavior, ethics, social interaction, and research methods. [Read more →]

College Crunch has put together a useful list of the top 20 best business schools with ten schools being traditional and ten online.  This is an interesting development, as most of these lists have historically focused on traditional schools.   We think that this is evidence of the normalizing of online education.

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Once you’ve decided to apply to business school, the choices for obtaining your MBA can be overwhelming. Use the journalistic approach to cover all the angles. These questions, based on the 5 Ws of journalism, provide a nice framework on which to base your B School inquiry!

Why is business school the right choice?

Examining your motivations for pursuing an MBA is the first and most important step to choosing the right business school.

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GradeFund is a new tuition financing tool that lets students garner sponsors online who pay for good grades. This web application allows students to enlist friends and family to ease the burden of heavy tuition bills. The system works like a charity sponsorship pledge, where sponsors agree to pay a certain amount per specified grade.

“Understandably kids get disheartened when contemplating the rising costs of education,” said Michael Kopko, CEO of GradeFund. “The debt load of the average graduating student is nearly $20,000 and growing every year. However, where many people saw a problem, we saw an opportunity.”

How GradeFund Works

After creating a profile and inviting sponsors on GradeFund.com, students periodically upload their transcripts to the site. GradeFund charges the credit cards sponsors have on file credits the student’s personal account or makes payment directly to an educational institution, depending on the sponsor’s choice. (GradeFund’s site states that they verify the grades.)

[Read more →]