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While applications to business schools historically spike during periods of economic uncertainty, there may be other reasons behind the latest surge in MBA interest globally.

Although the national unemployment rate remains low at 4.0%, much of the U.S. job market’s growth over the past two years has been fueled by lower wage positions in retail, dining, health care and government.

As a result, the white-collar workforce may be growing frustrated by the extended cooldown in their respective markets. A July 2024 analysis from Roseland-headquartered ADP found that hiring rates for jobs requiring college degrees decline, turnover rates also remain low because more established professionals are staying put, which leaves fewer open positions.

A downturn that began in 2022 with tech workers that has since spread to other sectors is exacerbating the situation. In the past year, companies like Microsoft, Lyft, Goldman Sachs and PricewaterhouseCoopers laid off tens of thousands of workers.

Along with a high volume of applicants seeking admission for more traditional reasons, business schools are seeing a boost from individuals who may not have previously considered getting a Master of Business Administration, such as women and first-generation students.

Between 2023 and 2024, total applications to graduate business school programs climbed 13.2% – a sharp reversal from two-straight years of declines, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, a nonprofit that tracks application trends.

After surveying data for 1,090 programs at nearly 300 business schools across 40 countries, GMAC found a 10-year high in applications for flagship offerings. That includes an 80% increase in full-time two-year MBAs and 64% in full-time one-year MBAs.

Within the U.S., overall applications went up 8.1%, the analysis found. Across the board, there was a 66% rise in full-time two-year MBAs, a 50% uptick in full-time one-year MBAs and 52% growth in part-time MBAs in the U.S., GMAC said. Offerings with more flexibility are in high demand, too — 61% of online programs and 56% of hybrid programs reported increased interest.

Some of the most prestigious American business schools – like Stanford Graduate School of Business, Yale School of Management, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School – posted double-digit increases in applications over the past year.

Within New Jersey, highly regarded MBA programs – like those offered at Montclair State University’s Feliciano School of Business, William Paterson University’s Christos M. Cotsakos College of Business and Rutgers Business School – are among the local schools showing growth.

Commenting on the trend, GMAC Chief Executive Officer Joy Jones said, “This year’s record growth in applications hints at a pendulum swing toward graduate business education, especially staple programs like full-time MBAs and accounting and management master’s degrees. While the phenomenon could give proof to the countercyclical trend long observed between interest in graduate business school and the strength of the economy, I would give much credit to global business schools and their tremendous efforts to continue innovating with new technologies, new delivery tactics, and new ways of operating that satisfy the latest interests and needs of students and their future employers.”

Meeting the demand

At William Paterson University in Wayne, officials said they’ve experienced a 75% growth in MBA enrollment in the past four years. The push makes it the second largest such program in the state. Its population of 670 MBA students puts it behind Rutgers and just ahead of Montclair.

“The combination of William Paterson’s quality, affordable offerings, including excellent faculty and innovative degree concentrations, together with the flexibility of our 100% online WP Online platform has fueled the rapid growth of our MBA program,” said Richard Helldobler, the school’s president. “As with our full slate of diverse online offerings, WP Online has truly unlocked the full potential of our MBA and, by extension, it is empowering our students to achieve greater career success.”

He went on to say the university’s program, accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, “attracts a large number of working professionals at various stages of their careers who see the William Paterson MBA as a powerful tool for accelerating their prospects, whether with current or prospective new employers.

“By offering multiple start dates and a fully online option, we have made our MBA accessible to working adults whose job and family obligations would otherwise prevent them from an in-person program. We are proud that this growth has allowed us to put more WP MBAs in the hands of students who are powering the New Jersey economy,” Helldobler continued.

William Paterson University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Joshua Powers agreed, saying, “For us, providing the vehicle of an MBA through the online space was a game changer, but that’s been a trend in the MBA world that has been happening for some time. It didn’t just happen as a function of the pandemic. If you go back and see, you’d see the on-campus residential experience had been increasingly challenged in some places,” he said.

He added that many MBA students typically hold jobs and have families, so the “traditional semester-based model doesn’t necessarily optimally serve everyone.”

“In our online programs, generally two-thirds of our students enrolled are women and the average age is 35 … Our programs are set up not only to serve the working professional, but to serve the complex lives that people lead. And women sometimes can be the primary person who’s managing a home or many of them are single parents.”

At Rutgers Business School, the AACSB-accredited program has 800 students enrolled in its full- and part-time iterations for the Spring 2025 semester. That’s about 100 more than the Spring 2024 semester population, according to Weiwei Chen, senior director of MBA programs and professor of supply chain management.

“A large population comes from the part-time MBA program,” he said. “We try to offer flexibility to all of these part-time MBA students in terms of course offerings, how it’s delivered and the kinds of networking opportunities that we set up in order to attract students.

“Although our business school does not offer online MBA, we have seen the demand from students for online courses. So, it’s right now operating more under a hybrid for our part-time program … we still offer many courses in person, but we are also adding in some online options for students who sometimes need to take courses remotely when they’re working,” he said. “For example, if we have a student from J&J [Johnson & Johnson] and they say, ‘The fourth quarter is always a busy time, can I do more online?’ Flexibility is very important for part-time MBA.”

As recruiting gets underway for Fall 2025, Chen said they’re already seeing an increase in applications.

Chen agreed that he believes economic conditions can influence MBA enrollment on the full-time side, because those students’ main objectives “are to either change their career paths or enhance their original career paths.”

When it comes to attracting and retaining students from all kinds of paths, Chen said Rutgers remains keen on innovating.

“We have to keep exploring new opportunities and we have to recognize the different needs for different student bodies. The demands for full-time MBA and part-time MBA are quite different,” he said.

Let’s concentrate

According to GMAC, applicants in the U.S. had the most interest in concentrations that have “longer legacies at business schools,” such as accounting, management and business administration.

At Rutgers, the most popular full-time pathways are finance, marketing and supply chain management, according to Chen.

“In our part-time MBA, we’ll also see a very popular concentration with strategy and leadership,” he said. “That’s because most of our part-time students are working professionals who are ready to elevate to the next level of their career, so these courses really help them.”

“We also have some very customized programs tailored to the population nearby, such as pharmaceutical management, real estate, entrepreneurship and innovation, and global business. These are slightly more smaller programs but tailored to a very specific area,” Chen said.

William Paterson’s most popular areas of studies are accounting, applied business analytics, accounting and marketing, according to Powers.

“One of the tracks that’s really started to take off since we launched within the last year or two is health care economics & management,” he said, “Health care is an exploding industry all over the country, let alone in New Jersey.”

As part of the program, MBA students are given in-depth instruction on the role economics plays in health care and taught how to make strategic, financially sound decisions.

Powers said, “This is a place that we feel is well matched with the goals for the State of New Jersey for economic development. And based on the data about who we’re serving and the size of [the population] we’re serving, we are providing extraordinary social development, too. Meaning that communities that have maybe more difficult and challenging access to higher education – for example, working mothers or persons of color – they are having opportunity through this program and it’s changing lives.”

Working AI into the curriculum

While traditional concentrations like strategy, finance and leadership are still a major focus for students, a growing number are seeking an MBA to learn about the evolving business landscape when it comes to topics like artificial intelligence and sustainability.

Starting this spring, Rutgers will offer a program specifically on AI, according to Chen.

“The courses in this particular concentration are trying to offer students not only the techniques in AI and machine learning, but also how to lead during this era of transition that AI and large language models have become so much more popular among all the companies,” Chen said. “How do we respond in academia to train our future managers and employees to be able to lead and succeed in this rapidly changing area? We keep adding new courses to this concentration and try to make it more interesting and relevant to the industry so that we benefit our MBA students.”

“Our goal is to train students to be able to succeed in the business world and the business world is embracing AI. And so, and that’s why we came up with the AI concentration. It is meant to teach AI tools to students and how to use them in different fields – how does it work in accounting? How does AI innovate supply chain? How do we lead in the world of AI?” Chen said, noting, “It’s a work in progress and we are thinking about courses such as how to maintain fairness in AI, for example. These are very important topics.”

Powers said William Paterson University has “been working aggressively to ensure that AI skills are part of the MBA curriculum.”

“Prompt engineering and the ethical use of AI are critical skills for frankly any student — undergraduate or graduate student. But in the MBA space, it’s adapted specifically around the MBA skills that would be necessary in the various subdisciplines for that degree,” he said.

Whether it’s online, remote or in-person, ensuring MBA students are connected to each other, feel supported and have opportunities for networking is a priority on campuses.

“We’re very focused on curricular innovation, career service, experiential learning and getting them out of the door with a good job,” Chen said.

Last year, Rutgers began renting space near its New Brunswick campus to serve as a homebase for part-time MBA students. Located at One Corporate Place in Piscataway, the facility features classrooms, meeting rooms, MBA staff offices and amenities like pool tables. The business school has similar spaces in Newark and New York City.

For its online students, William Paterson University takes several steps “to build community in that asynchronous space,” Powers said.

“So, for example, there are expectations around discussion forums that the students have with one another. There are mechanisms for putting students together in teams to engage with one another, and those can involve the telephone, Zoom or whatever. But it also could involve – they could choose to meet up somewhere and those sorts of things. So, there are varied ways which we build community in the classroom and in those senses. But what’s also key, so our faculty are highly trained to do those sorts of things, and it’s a very peer team-based learning [that] is certainly integrated into the curriculum,” he said.

“It’s a mix of students who are in this space. Some of those students, in a previous life, had a negative experience with college – something may have happened in their personal life, and they could no longer afford to go to school. And so, when we work with them to onboard in some new ways, they’re bringing their families and their husbands in the mix. It’s just a powerful thing to watch and see the pride in the family when their mother, brother or sister walks across that stage,” Powers said.

“Some of these students never imagined they could even get an MBA because they didn’t believe they were good enough, that they had the ability to afford it or that they could work it into their complicated life,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing to watch.”