The AMBA & BGA International MBA Survey 2020 on MBA student experience has revealed that 84% said the experience was living up to their expectations or exceeding them despite restrictions brought about by Covid-19.
The survey of 752 students conducted between 27 March and 27 May also suggested a high level of satisfaction with teaching quality in the last academic year.
A quarter rated teaching as excellent, 43% said it was very good and 24% that is was fairly good.
This comes as dissatisfaction with higher education is further worsened by local lockdown measures and restrictions in many countries.
MBA satisfaction levels are likely due to the vastly different makeup of business school students compared to other typical cohorts. Of those surveyed, 49% were studying part-time courses, while just 9% were living in school accommodation.
In the report, AMBA & BGA director of marketing and communications David Woods-Hale additionally noted that a separate survey had shown employers were “confident that business schools are producing MBAs with mindsets focused on maximising profit (42% thought schools are producing ‘a great deal’ of MBAs focused on this); and 49% thought business schools were producing a great deal of MBAs with an international outlook”.
“However, in spite of these encouraging findings, employers also revealed their worries about the recruitment landscape of tomorrow,” he said.
“There was an overwhelming lack of confidence in the future of both global and local economies, with most [employer] survey participants taking a conservative – and in some cases pessimistic – view on their plans for the near future,” he continued.
“With volatility caused by geopolitical issues set to continue and even exacerbate challenges in the recruitment market, future trends on MBA recruitment figures are hard to predict.”
Of the surveyed students, 78% said they were hoping to either move to a new company (62%) or launch their own business (16%) following graduation.
Looking at where the experience had fallen short of their expectations, one student noted also that their course had “too much focus on grades rather than experiential learning”, while another admitted they had received fewer networking opportunities than expected.
The Graduate Management Admission Council™ has reported an uptick in applications in 2020, fuelled largely by domestic students.
