The value of the MBA market to drop to half in 2009

“Generally, the reduction of financing will be some 50 percent. I expect that funds invested by companies last year on the MBA market will drop to half,” according to a statement for Business Standard by Adrian Stanciu, Deputy Senior Lecturer of General Management at the CEU Business School, an institution offering MBA programs in Romania and Hungary.

 

The CEU Business School reports that, at present, less than 20 percent of students fully finance their own MBA programs, some 20 percent enjoy full sponsorship and most only partial funding from the companies for which they work. “In future, I believe that this picture will remain the same, but while companies financed 75% of MBA programs for their employees, now they will finance only 50 percent, said Oliver Olson, Managing Director of the CEU Business School in Bucharest.

It is expected that the number of persons interested in fully meeting the cost of an MBA program will drop, due to difficult economic conditions.

 

Adrian Stanciu further believes that companies will reduce their training budgets by at least 30 percent, except in those industries less affected by the crisis, such as fast-moving commercial goods (FMCG), retail, pharmaceuticals, and to some extent telecom. The expected trend wasconfirmed by Radu Panait, HR Vice President for Ursus Breweries, who indicated that the brewer’s recruiting and training budget in 2009 is 30 percent lower than last year.