Schools have a good reason for boosting women’s enrolment: a more diverse classroom enriches the learning experience of all the participants, and may contribute to closing the gender gap in the higher ranks of business.
There are a number of reasons for the gender gap in MBAs, including the high fees deterring many women, who will earn less than men throughout their careers, and the challenges associated with taking a career break for a prolonged period of time to study, or family commitments often preventing people from doing that. “For these reasons, the women who tend to pursue the MBA do it online or part-time, and they are older,” says Moshe Porat, dean of the Fox School.
Indeed, the MBA requires significant professional experience, with the average applicant aged 28. Women who want to begin families are often less willing to leave the workforce to get an MBA for fear of losing career momentum, says Moshe. An internal study by Hewlett Packard suggested that women are less likely than men to feel confident about their qualifications, which may also deter them from applying to MBAs.
Fox requires candidates to have spent only two years in a job to apply to its full-time MBA, which has contributed to improving class diversity. The share of women in the programme has risen from 37% in 2013 to 55% last year. However, a less experienced MBA cohort can lower the quality of education. The mantra of the degree is that students learn as much from their peers as they do from professors. “I’m not in favour of lowing the work experience barrier beyond two years,” Moshe says.
“The best students are those with work experience. Your entire absorption and retention of information is better than if you went straight after an undergrad degree. When we talk strategy and marketing, you can relate to that immediately. The value experienced students bring to the education is incredible.”
Moshe also believes that the comparatively cheaper tuition fees — $64,000 for the whole MBA program, he says — are attractive to women because of the gender pay gap. “I would not jump the gun and say women are more interested in value than men, but it is the truly strategic value proposition that we present that women appreciate.” The return on investment is enormous. Research from Forté Foundation found that women see salary gains of up to 65% of their pre-MBA pay within five years of graduation.
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