The New York Times did a story on the growing trend of public universities charging higher tuition for degrees in lucrative fields such as business and engineering. This practice brings up many issues including price sensitivity for poor students who may stay away from majoring in business. Some worry that students who are charged more for their major will stick to the courses in their field to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. Many are concerned that public universities have disregarded the premise that a well-rounded higher education is for the common good of society. Private universities who are not faced with the same budget constraints are avoiding differential pricing.

Starting this fall, juniors and seniors pursuing an undergraduate major in the business school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will pay $500 more each semester than classmates. The University of Nebraska last year began charging engineering students a $40 premium for each hour of class credit.

And Arizona State University this fall will phase in for upperclassmen in the journalism school a $250 per semester charge above the basic $2,411 tuition for in-state students.

Such moves are being driven by the high salaries commanded by professors in certain fields, the expense of specialized equipment and the difficulties of getting state legislatures to approve general tuition increases, university officials say.

“It is something of a trend,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Even as they embrace such pricing, many officials acknowledge they are queasy about a practice that appears to value one discipline over another or that could result in lower-income students clustering in less expensive fields.

“This is not the preferred way to do this,” said Patrick V. Farrell, provost at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “If we were able to raise resources uniformly across the campus, that would be a preferred move. But with our current situation, it doesn’t seem to us that that’s possible.”

Management Consultants made CareerJournal’s Best Careers List. Their ranking criteria were based on which careers make for happy and satisfied working folks. Since the list wasn’t compiled based on salary alone, and instead was based on not being miserable in your career, I applaud the list and the editors of CareerJournal.com for initiating the research.

I was interested to know exactly what is a management consultant and what makes it such a great job? Management consultants / management analysts help companies improve their performance. They’re hired by businesses to analyze lots of data, get a look at the big picture, crunch some numbers and from that information, propose recommendations (I’m guessing pie charts are involved) as to how the client might go about being more efficient, thereby increasing profits.

Why is management consulting ranked so highly? People pay you for your opinions and actually do what you tell them to do. You have a lot of independence, there’s quite a bit of variety. Who would be good at this? Someone with a good head for business (duh) since your whole job will be to make companies better than they were before they hired you. Having a number-crunching, analytical brain which is connected to a people-person would probably be necessary. Being a management consultant/analyst will require a lot of thinking and a lot of telling the client results and recommendations they may not want to hear; i.e.: “That whole department is redundant and if you want to streamline this company, you’ll have to let them go.” Although, as with everything in life, I’m sure it’s not all bad all the time.

The pay is pretty middle of the road — $48,070 to $72,480. But if you’re a senior partner at a management consulting firm, the Association of Management Consulting Firms says your typical earnings in 2004 could very well have been upwards of $317,339.

How do you get to be a management consultant? There aren’t many degrees offered in management consulting. Most people start out in an entry-level position as a research analyst or associate with a bachelor’s degree in business or economics. Advancing to a consulting position would probably require a master’s degree in a pertinent field of study, as well as some years of experience actually working in the field in which the individual wants to consult. Which makes sense—who would want to hire a consultant with no real-world business experience?

Posted by Alexa Harrington
MBA | Business School | Management Education

The Financial Times released its 2007 business school rankings on January 29th. Categories include Top Global MBA Programs, Top European Schools, Top American Schools, Top Asia-Pacific Schools, Top Canadian Schools and Top Salaries.

Top 10 Business Schools - Worldwide

1. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
2. Columbia Business School
3. Harvard Business School
3. Stanford Graduate School of Business
5. London Business School
6. University of Chicago GSB
7. Insead
8. New York University: Stern
9. Dartmouth College: Tuck
10. Yale School of Management

No surprises though — American universities continue to dominate, with Wharton topping the global list once again.

When searching for the best MBA, consider becoming an accountant. Accounting careers offer many great opportunities for future growth and success. Checkout this site to learn more about an accounting mba.

MBA | Business School

Entrepreneurs Are H-O-T

If you have a yen to make a dollar (holy bad joke, Batman) by joining the entrepreneurial ranks (the badness of that is still hurting me), then you are in luck, my friend. Being young and hip and using your noggin to come up with the next new thing is now considered perfectly respectable. So much so, that High Point University is now offering a Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship.

“The Entrepreneurship major is intended for people who are interested in becoming owners of small businesses, working in a family-owned business upon graduation, or who are interested in the unique concerns of managing a small business. Students will learn to deal with the issues of starting a new business venture and also the management issues unique to the small business.”

Which means that you might possibly be able to work it so the ‘rents will pay for you to learn how to kick some entrepreneurial booty. Or, if your parents won’t fork out the tuition, student loans are more easily obtained than business loans. I’m just saying.

You can look at all the entrepreneurial hype as intensely frustrating competition if you’ve already been slaving away in your basement for years working on that digital shoehorn. Or you can look at the new wave as inspirational information (I‘m rolling my eyes, too). Glean what you need, and try to remember that competition makes the world…shinier?

Here are some interesting articles that will either make you sing with inspiration or flare your nostrils and close your eyes while you try to keep the anger inside.

If you want to wonder what in the hell you’ve been doing with all of your spare time, be sure to read about the bright young things, all age 25 and under, who are considered by Business Week Online to be the best young biz whizzes in America. This includes the kiddos from YouTube, Digg and Facebook. And Ben Casnocha of Comcate, who you can just tell is incapable of turning his brain off. I think he just never stops.

Not on that list: Ramit Sethi. Is he under 25? Not sure. But he’s ridiculously smart, and it’s impossible for me to not have absolute respect for someone who has a ranting blog called Things I Hate. It doesn’t matter how foul my mood or how not funny my life is at the moment; if I read one line of Things I Hate, I’m laughing so hard I’m crying (and also snorting, which is certainly unfortunate and not at all polite).

An article on the blog gradschoolstory.com lists one of the top ten reasons for going to graduate school as the perfect place to start starting up your startup. It’s late, and yes, that was satisfying to write.

The Guardian has several articles in their technology section about a whole slew of Web entrepreneurs.

Web 2.0 in general
Bebo, Michael and Xochi Birch
Blogger/Odeo, Evan Williams
Craigslist, Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster
Del.icio.us, Joshua Schachter
Digg, Kevin Rose
Feed Burner, Dick Costolo
Flickr, Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield
Last.fm, Martin Stiksel
Netvibes, Tariq Krim
Technorati, David L. Sifry
Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales
WordPress, Matt Mullenweg
Writely, Sam Schillace

And if you just want to look at something pretty and be able to think to yourself (in a totally non-competitive way) “That’s genius! Why didn’t I think of that? Of course! A dance floor that generates usable energy!” then you should take a gander at Springwise.com. It’s one idea after another, in streamlined and well-lit perfection. Yes, it’s the rainy season in Seattle and I require well-lit websites.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

College | College Education

This Marketplace story talks about a college that has started an undergraduate program for students who have started their own businesses before college.

I feel like there are more and more such young students every day.

Here’s more:

“Champlain has launched a program called BYOBiz. It works this way: Students who bring their business to Champlain or start one there get flexibility with school requirements. But they also get active mentoring and regular meetings with Vermont business veterans. They help with everything from strategy to networking with venture capitalists.”

Is this inspiration for the Ivy Leagues?

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Youth Entrepreneurs | Business

The story of the cheating college student is old news, but, Len Boselovic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, reported that MBA students and graduate students may be just as bad.

According to the study, done by Professors from Penn State, Washington State and Rutgers University, “recent research showing 56 percent of graduate business students admit to cheating at least once an academic year, higher than the 47 percent rate for graduate students studying something other than business.”

What exactly qualifies as cheating?

“‘Cheating’ covered 13 behaviors, from using notes to take an exam to submitting someone else’s work as their own.”

Graduate students are in school because they want to be. And presumably, they have a genuine interest in the subject they are studying.

So why cheat? The article suggests that MBA programs, while teaching economics, forget to emphasize ethics.

But what about other graduate programs? “Ohio University is investigating its engineering school after the originality of some graduate theses and dissertations was questioned. In an Aug. 23 statement, the school said there were problems with 38 of the 55 papers reviewed to date. Two faculty members who approved the problem theses are no longer graduate advisers.”

When I lived in India, I heard stories about exam papers being “purchased” and teachers being “bribed” and degrees being “bought.” America’s institutions of higher education are held in such high esteem. We attract the best and the brightest. This data, if it is to be believed, is disturbing and questions the very foundation of our schools.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Cheating | Business School

onPhilanthropy.com has a helpful article up for those interested in working in non-profit management.

The article discusses the various degree options for anyone striving to work in the public sector or non-profit management.

“More than 100 schools across the country offer graduate degree programs focused on nonprofit management…these schools include some of our nation’s best: from Harvard and Georgetown to the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern.”

The options include a Masters degrees in Public Administration, Public Policy, Urban Planning, Philanthropic Studies, and Business Administration.

The article discusses, at a basic level, what each type of program offers, what the financial investment is, and what job placements are like.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Non-Profit Sector | Degrees | Management

Businessweek has an article that offers advice to incoming B-School students. 2nd year students tell it like it is to first year students.

Alasdair Trotter, a student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business said,

“I arrived on my first day and was completely caught off guard by the speed at which everything, from classes to recruiting, took place.” “You can be told as many times as you want that you will work hard, but nothing, not your undergraduate degree or work experience, completely prepares you for what it will be like.”

Kerry Twibbell, a student at MIT Sloan warns “Business school is like high school—but worse!” “People gossip about anything and everything. You spend so much time together with your classmates that you enter this warped world that’s not reality. It’s important to come up for air sometimes.”

What the heck? The article, aside from a few legitimate suggestions about investing in a Blackberry and a laptop, and getting prepared for the recruiting craze that hits campus as soon as the semester starts, is fluff. It warns B-School students to avoid gossip, learn how to use Microsoft Excel before the semester stares, be prepared to work in a fast paced environment. Oh, and it encourages them to try and travel abroad.

Isn’t that advice better given to an 18 year old? Then again, maybe it fits in with my previous post on MBA degrees.

Posted By Sindya Bhanoo
MBA | Business School