And now, a history

MBA ProgramsIt all started in 1900 when Dartmouth College founded a graduate school of business on its Hanover, New Hampshire, campus. The Ivy League school decided to branch out from educating its students to be lawyers, ministers, diplomats and doctors. Two years later, seven young men graduated from the Amos Tuck School of Business with the equivalent of today?s M.B.A. degree.
Carter Daniel, a Rutgers professor and author of ?MBA: The First Century,? has chronicled the M.B.A.?s evolution from an educational backwater to a course of study that generates 140,000 graduates a year. While the first New Jersey business school started in 1865 in Trenton, later to become Rider University in Lawrenceville, students generally have been able to take courses in marketing, accounting and management?often through a university?s economics department?only since the early 1900s. In 1910, Harvard founded its business school, lending some prestige to the study of business.
But it took a while for for the M.B.A. to get going. Rutgers opened New Jersey?s first graduate business school in 1950. That year, only 500 students were awarded an M.B.A. nationally.
Daniel says the surge came in the 1960s and 1970s. Now most universities?including bastions of liberal arts like Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah and Rowan University in Glassboro?offer the degree.
The M.B.A. has surpassed even the graduate degree in education to become America?s most popular graduate degree. In fact, according to Daniel?s calculations, one out of every 250 people in the country has one.
And he predicts that the growth will continue. ?The M.B.A. is very adaptable,? says Daniel. ?It?s outwardly driven by students and the economy.?
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