By David A. Wilson

“Is there really any value in earning an MBA?” “Has the pursuit of short-term profits made the MBA obsolete?” “Have business schools forgotten their missions?”

The questions—and a few troubling assertions—keep popping up, don’t they?

Last month it was a feature in The New York Times on hedge fund superstars bypassing business school in a race toward fabulous wealth. Two weeks ago it was a Wall Street Journal review of Harvard associate professor Rakesh Khurana’s just-published book From Higher Aims to Hired Hands, which intimated that both business schools and their students have lost their ways. And at the GMAC® 2007 Annual Conference back in June, strategy guru Gary Hamel vigorously criticized business school faculty for their lack of vision and their unwillingness to step outside of their comfort zone to explore new ways of thinking and doing.

As graduate management educators, we need to be cognizant of the questions and assertions, whether they come from within or without our community. Any sector worthy of being called a profession uses such criticism as a mirror for self-examination—and as a motivator for improvement.

At the same time, some perspective is in order. For two years in a row more than two-thirds of MBA programs have reported application increases. Graduate Management Admission Council® research also indicates that the overwhelming majority of incoming and currently enrolled MBA students pursue their business degrees to prepare them for careers that have nothing to do with private equity or hedge funds; indeed, many students look forward to entering sectors including healthcare, government, and nonprofit work.

And we know that employers from all fields continue to look toward business schools for their top recruits. The Wall Street Journal on September 19 reported that, “with growing demand for MBA graduates, it’s a seller’s market out there.” The article went on to report that two-thirds of respondents to a Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive survey said their companies are implementing new tactics to boost hiring rates of such graduates.

For those who would foretell the demise of graduate management education, to paraphrase that wise management strategist, Mark Twain: “Reports of our discipline’s death are greatly exaggerated.” Perhaps some of them are the same critics who predicted the MBA’s imminent demise in the late 1990s, in the wake of the Internet/dot-com boom.

That said, just as the Internet bubble compelled business and graduate management education to change, we should listen, and learn, and think about what our critics are saying today.

Will that self-examination lead to change? Should it? I’d like to hear from you: deansdigest@gmac.com.

Dave Wilson
President and CEO
Graduate Management Admission Council®