International students shun UK MBAs

By Della Bradshaw and Laurent Ortmans

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Empty chairs: UK business school enrolment is falling

The number of students enrolling on the UK’s prestigious MBA programmes has fallen dramatically in the past year as changes in work visa regulations, a lack of student funding and the failing economy continue to bite.
Business schools have traditionally been a strong earner for the UK economy, but even the leading full-time MBA programmes have been unable to attract overseas students in the latest enrolment cycle, according to data supplied to the Financial Times Global MBA rankings, to be published on January 28.
Student numbers on the 18 MBA programmes regularly ranked by the FT in the world’s top 100 – there are about 150 UK MBA programmes in total – show that overall enrolment figures are at their lowest for the past eight years and 21 per cent lower than at their height in 2010.

Steven Haberman, dean of the Cass Business School at City University, says the UK is simply less attractive: “The package we can put to a student from India and China is difficult. The big thing that is missing is allowing students to work for one or two years [after graduating].”
What do the numbers look like?
● Last year only four of the top 18 UK schools admitted more than 100 students, compared with nine out of 18 in 2010. In 2012 half the schools – nine out of 18 – enrolled fewer than 50 students compared with one in 2010.
● Just three of the 18 schools – London, Cass and Warwick – enrolled more students in 2012 than in 2010.
● Those schools that have withstood the pressures most effectively are those that are most highly ranked: London, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and Warwick. These top five have seen a decrease in enrolment of 6 per cent over the past two years; the remaining 13 programmes have seen an average decrease of 35 per cent.
● The fall is because of a decline in international students – 86 per cent of all MBA students studying in the UK are from outside the country.