イリノイ大学・カレッジ・オブ・ビジネス to End Full- & Part-Time MBA Programs

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced today (May 24) that it will eliminate both its full- and part-time MBA programs to focus more resources on its online MBA and specialty master’s programs. 

• Illinois Gies becomes the second top-50 U.S. school in the last three years to eliminate its residential MBA program.
• Like the University of Iowa, which dropped its full-time MBA in 2017 to redirect resources to its online offering, Illinois Gies is banking on the continued popularity of its iMBA — and they have good reason to be confident in that popularity. 
• With a total tuition bill of $22,000, the iMBA is by far the cheapest online MBA from a major university.  
• Applicants to the iMBA do not need to take the Graduate Management Admission Test. That, along with the cost, is part of Illinois’ mission to open up the MBA experience to a wider applicant pool.

Why? Application volume for the Gies full-time MBA has fallen by about 25%  since 2016, partly because of the general wane that’s impacting all MBA programs and particularly due to the drop in international interest that has plagued so many schools.

• In November, Illinois made headlines when it took out a $400K insurance policy against the further loss of Chinese students amid what Brown told P&Q was an “unprecedented decline.”

In its heyday in the 1990s, the Illinois MBA had an enrollment of more than 600. Compare that to today, with fewer than 100, including a fall 2018 intake of just 49 students.