" We are very proud to be running a high-quality MBA in cyberspace, " announced Professor Julius Weinberg, vice-chancellor of Kingston University, earlier this year, as the university launched its first distance learning Master of Business Administration degree.
The university is one of the UK's most respected providers of MBAs and has already spread its wings as far as Moscow, delivering MBA courses in the Russian capital. But in venturing into cyberspace, offering prestigious UK degrees to students based thousands of miles away, it is joining a sizeable and ever-growing club. Cyberspace, increasingly, is where the MBA of the 21st century is being forged.
There are more than 20 UK universities and business schools offering MBAs and similar qualifications off campus, attracting students from all over the world. Most of the students will need to visit the UK at some point, but they are spared the hefty costs of a full-time residential course and, thanks to flexible teaching methods and modular courses, can combine part-time study with full-time employment.
Kingston's new distance learning MBA, beginning in January 2014, is fairly typical of what the UK has to offer. The cost of the course, spread out over three years, is £16, 000, compared with £18, 560 for a full-time MBA, a saving of £2, 560 ; and after a two-week induction in Kingston, students can continue their studies online, wherever they are, be it a bedroom, a café or an aeroplane.
Learning on the hoof may not compete emotionally with the old university ideal of long lazy days on campus, arguing about Keynes and Marx, but it is an option more and more people are choosing – or being forced to choose in straitened economic times.
" The way the global job market is changing has led to much more pressurised working lives, " says Professor Jean-Noel Ezingeard, dean of the Kingston Business School. " It is increasingly hard for people to take time off work to study – hence the attraction of an MBA delivered by a leading business school which incorporates the flexibility to study at home, in the office or while travelling. "
The new course has attracted interest from over 70 countries, with students from Russia, the Americas and the Middle East leading the pack. The distance learning model, which can be traced back to the 19th century, when London University pioneered the concept, has never been more popular. Almost a third of all MBA enrolments in the UK are now for distance learning courses, according to a survey last year by AMBA, the Association of MBAs.
As a stepping stone to a fatter pay cheque, the distance learning MBA still lags a little behind the residential MBA. The average salary of a graduate after completing a distance learning MBA is around £80, 106, that of a graduate of a full-time MBA £85, 865.
But that gap is closing fast, and the differential in earnings needs to be offset against the significantly higher cost of residential courses. The £2, 560 which distance learners at Kingston will save is dwarfed by the £10, 000-odd which they would save at the Manchester Business School or the London School of Business and Finance.
Students enrolling for distance learning MBAs are typically a few years older than those opting for the conventional MBA. At the Open University, where the MBA course costs £14, 425, the average age of students on the course is 37. They come from 126 countries and can take between 30 and 84 weeks to complete the course, according to their personal circumstances. Flexibility – and the more flexibility the better – remains the guiding principle of distance learning.
Once rather esoteric, the distance learning MBA has now become such a familiar feature of higher education in the UK that those shopping around for courses are spoiled for choice. Almost all institutions offering such MBAs are accredited with AMBA, AACSB (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) or EQUIS (the European Quality Improvement System), or sometimes all three, creating an alphabet soup in which it is easy to flounder.
The closest thing to a league table is the annual QS Distance Online MBA Rankings, which takes into account employability, student quality, diversity, faculty and teaching, class experience and accreditation.
The distance learning MBA offered by the Warwick Business School emerged as the top-ranked such course in the UK in 2012, with Manchester Business School, Durham Business School and Imperial College London also scoring highly.
The most important thing for students looking to enrol for a distance learning MBA is to find a course tailored to their needs, with modules compatible with their choice of career and a pattern of study suited to their personal circumstances.
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