by Matthew Lynn
The credit crunch is already reshaping lives and forcing people to plan new careers.
In both the U.S. and the U.K., the two big countries most affected by the financial-market turmoil, more and more people are signing up to do a master's in business administration.
The days when arts graduates made good money doing public relations for hedge funds are over. There won't be so many jobs for lightly qualified bankers or private-equity executives as there have been in the past five years.
The times are getting serious, and anyone who wants to prosper within a much tougher global economy will have to get serious as well.
A few years ago, it was possible to argue that the M.B.A., long regarded as the gold standard of business education, was in decline. The McLean, Virginia-based Graduate Management Admission Council tracks business schools around the world, monitoring the number of students applying for the course. By 2004, it was reporting a drop in applications to business schools.
Fast-forward to 2008, and that has turned around as bankers lose their jobs.
The Council in August reported that M.B.A. applications were rising at the fastest pace in history. According to the Application Trends Survey of full-time programs, 77 percent of business schools had an increased number of applications in 2008, the highest rate in five years. That compared with 64 percent a year earlier. Part-time and executive M.B.A. programs also had higher numbers. The survey covered 521 graduate management programs in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the world.
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Source: www.bloomberg.com
