North American MBA Review
Jonathan Calens talks to Dr Robert Nixon and Vernon Foster » Introduction
Q
You offer several MBA options, which we discussed when we last spoke.
However, please could you provide an overview of your MBA value proposition for our newer readers?
One of the things that we clearly see for the University of Louisville and the College of Business is the fact that our return on Investment (ROI) is very high. Taken in the context of a student’s outlay for our programme compared
with his expenditure for a similar programme across the US, and even internationally, our ROI is significant: and elsewhere, it is interesting to note that programmes with a comparable high ranking charge substantially more. It’s not unusual to see competitors charge up to twice as much as we do for our MBA. In the interests of clarity, we want the students to understand what our ROI represents and we want them to understand all of the preparatory work involved.
When you look at our programmes in full context, the knowledge acquired extends beyond the classroom environment. It’s also about the additional subset that we bring to that equation, part of which is the leadership series. I am referring here to those individuals that we bring in at CEO level, who engage with the students in the classroom talking about their experiences at different stages of business development from entrepreneurial start-ups to running Fortune 500 companies. We also try to give our students grounding in softer skills, e.g. communication, including business communication. Other soft skills
The overall mission is the provision of a public service, but in the business school we feel that our students get the quality of a private education at a public school price. 22