As the economy suffers, many people are interested in finding a new career. Sometimes this is a personal choice, and sometimes, like in the case of people who have lost their jobs or have gotten laid off, it is a necessity. There are certain types of careers which become at risk when the economy takes a turn for the worse. A career in the medical field is not one of those risks. If anything, a career in the medical field can be expected to increase in demand overtime, regardless of our economic situation. That is because the medical needs of the population are not necessarily driven by the status of the economy. As the population grows the need for highly trained and qualified medical workers will rise.

The Healthcare Job Outlook for 2008/2009 describes new job growth from 2006 – 2016 as excellent with over 3 million new jobs added for the period. As well, the projected salary increase is 22% compared to just 11% for other industries combined.

The Department of Labor shows similar findings, projecting that medical assistant jobs are expected to increase over 35 percent over the next decade, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. The health care industry is expanding as our population grows and ages, and as technology advances, so will the need for highly trained health care workers such as a surgical assistant medical assistant, vocational nurse, computerized office assist, and so on.

A career in the medical field has been referred to as “recession-proof.” Few industries can boast this kind of employment outlook. If you’ve been laid off in another work field, this should not be a concern for you in considering starting training in a medical career. It is highly unusual for medical layoffs to occur.

And if you are considering a career in the medical field, even if you have no medical training, or even a GED, it is best to get started right away, in order to take advantage of this growing industry. Medical career college courses are available for every type of lifestyle. You will receive hands on training, job placement assistance, and in some cases even financial aid. The career choices are nearly unlimited, from vocational nursing programs, to diagnostic medical sonographer training, to pharmacy

For many MBA students, earning power is one reason, perhaps the main reason, for enrolling in B-school. So which programs really deliver the goods? Over the course of a career, what’s your MBA worth? The numbers will surprise you.

The slides that follow list the median cash compensation—base salary and bonus—for MBA graduates of each school who have less than two years’ experience, 10 years’ experience, and 20 years’ experience, as well as an estimate of total earnings over a career spanning two decades.

The upshot? According to data compiled for Bloomberg BusinessWeek by PayScale, a Wharton MBA has 90 percent of the value of a Harvard MBA. University of Chicago, 76 percent. University of Iowa? Forty-eight percent. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of Businessweek’s annual ranking of the top undergraduate business programs, senior business students from the 139 participating schools were asked to assign letter grades—from A to F—to their business programs in 12 specialty areas: quantitative methods, operations management, ethics, sustainability, calculus, microeconomics, macroeconomics, accounting, financial management, marketing management, business law, and corporate strategy. Based on those grades, scores were calculated for each of the ranked schools in each area.

Not surprisingly, the top-ranked schools in the overall ranking, published in March, have the most top-10 specialty rankings, as well. Notre Dame leads the way, appearing on eight top-10 lists, followed by Cornell University and Babson College —Nos.5 and 15 in the overall ranking, respectively—with six top-10 specialty ranks apiece.Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business (Goizueta Undergraduate Business Profile), the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (Wharton Undergraduate Business Profile), and the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill each ranked near the top of five specialty lists. Read the rest of this entry »

Natalie Grinblatt, director of the office of admissions and financial aid at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, offers some tips for prospective applicants. She was interviewed by BusinessWeek Online reporter Mica Schneider. Following are edited excerpts from their discussion:

Q: Who’s the best candidate for Cornell’s B-school?
A: Someone who’s a leader. We look for a candidate who isn’t only going to succeed in our program academically, but who is going to lead. There’s a distinct leadership quality we look for: being able to assess a situation and seize opportunities or create new ones that have positive results for an organization. This requires independent thinking and collaboration. Both qualities are valued at the Johnson School. There are many people who can reach a goal, but we look for that extra something — the ability to make a difference.
Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Storer, director of admissions at the Boston University School of Management (Boston University Full-Time MBA Profile), has a decade of admissions experience to his credit, including a stint at the Harvard School of Public Health and four years at BU. In a conversation with BusinessWeek’s Rachel Z. Arndt, Storer talks about the great GMAT myth and why BU’s international diversity makes the School of Management stand out. An edited version of the conversation follows. Read the rest of this entry »

The Indian government is considering liberalization of higher education in the country, a move that would allow foreign universities to establish campuses in India. Check out this story from Monday’s Financial Times for more on the proposed changes. One angle that story misses: How the proposed reforms could help local schools. Consider one problem faced by the Indian School of Business, the B-school based in Hyderabad that is partners with Wharton and Kellogg and has just announced an alliance with Sloan. (For more on ISB, look at my story about the school in the current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek here.) Since ISB isn’t affiliated with a university, it can’t give MBAs to its graduates. Indian students don’t mind: Most of the other top B-schools in India can’t give MBAs either, and everybody knows that the piece of paper you get from ISB is an MBA in everything but name. Read the rest of this entry »

Most Valuable MBA Programs Ranking
MBA Programs Ranking By Three-Year Salaries
MBA Programs Ranking By Starting Salaries

US MIS Graduate Program Ranking 2009
List the top 20 MIS (Management Information System) graduate programs in 2009 ranked by USNews.

Tuition and Future Income Ranking Of US MBA Programs
Is a business school degree worth the considerable investment? Our ranking will help you make that determination by comparing the cost of attaining an M.B.A.–foregone income and tuition–to the prospect of a bigger salary. In short, our study shows which schools offer the best return on your investment.

A Complete List Of US Financial Engineering Programs
A complete list of graduate Financial Engineering/mathematical finance Programs in United States.

No GMAT MBA Programs?
Harvard Business School, Standord and MIT Sloan has announced that they no longer require MBA applicants to submit GMAT scores. Is this a no-GMAT trend?

List of US and Canadian MBA Programs that Accept GRE Scores
According to ETS, the following business schools in United States and Canada accept GRE General Test scores for admission to their MBA programs…

If you’re the type to take advice from country and western songs, then you no doubt already know that it’s a big mistake to let your kids grow up to be cowboys. Now I’m beginning to wonder whether the same injunction holds true for business majors.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which surveys college and university career services offices nationwide, the highest-paid disciplines are not in business. In fact the top 10 are all in engineering, computer science, and information systems. Not a business discipline in sight.

How bad is it? Well, when Bloomberg BusinessWeek compiled its ranking of the top undergraduate business programs, we asked all 111 schools for the average graduate’s salary. It turned out to be $48,311, topping out at MIT Sloan (Sloan Undergraduate Business Profile), where the median starting salary was $62,000.

In the NACE survey, that was more or less the average for all bachelor’s degrees ($48,351)—suggesting that business undergrads, which for years enjoyed a significant pay premium over many other disciplines, no longer do.

And when it comes to the engineering disciplines, business is a clear also-ran. Here are the NACE numbers:

Petroleum Engineering: $86,220
Chemical Engineering: $65,142
Mining & Mineral Engineering: $64,552
Computer Science: $61,205
Computer Engineering: $60,879
Electrical/Electronics & Communications Engineering: $59,074
Mechanical Engineering: $58,392
Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering: $57,734
Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering: $57,231
Information Sciences & Systems: $54,038

Hmmm. Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be business majors….doesn’t have quite the same ring. Now excuse me while I go study up on petroleum.

Source: BusinessWeek,by Louis Lavelle.

Source: Financial Times
Note: This is calculated using the salary earned by alumni today, course length, fees and other costs, including the opportunity cost of not working for the duration of the course.

Source: Financial Times

** Note: The average alumni salary today with adjustment for salary variations between industry sectors. This figure includes data for the current year and the one or two preceding years
where available.

Global MBA Programs Ranking By Three-Year Salaries

Source: Financial Times

Note: The average alumni salary three years after graduation. (The 2010 ranking surveyed the MBA class that graduated in 2006). This figure includes alumni salary data for the current year and the one or two preceding years, where available.

Within regions, there are substantial differences in salaries offered across industries. The chart below shows the salaries offered in different industries within the US and Canada. Salaries in the US are consistently slightly higher than those in Canada.

Consulting traditionally offers the highest salaries in the region and averages $97,000 in 2009. However, in the USA this year, it is the Government sector which reports the highest average salaries at $100,500. Telecoms reports an average of $95,000, Pharmaceuticals are reporting an average of $93,000. Financial Services and Energy are both reporting average salaries of $91,000. Details are shown below (Source: QS TopMBA.com International Recruiter Survey 2009)：

Salary stagnation was a major concern for candidates this year as the gap between supply and demand widened. Recruiters have the bargaining power to determine how many jobs they will post and at what level they will set MBA starting salaries. However, employers surveyed stated that they planned to maintain salaries at 2008 levels.

The definition of entrepreneurship vary. Here are some examples:

Entrepreneurship, the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources you currently control, is now a subject with segmented interest across a wide variety of fields and topics, including new venture creation, venture capital, social ventures, business model innovation, open software, internet, corporate entrepreneurship, global business, and biotechnology. — Haas School of Business

The concept of entrepreneurship was first established in the 1700s, and the meaning has evolved ever since.
To some economists, the entrepreneur is one who is willing to bear the risk of a new venture if there is a significant chance for profit. Others emphasize the entrepreneur’s role as an innovator who markets his innovation. Still other economists say that entrepreneurs develop new goods or processes that the market demands and are not currently being supplied.

In the 20th century, economist Joseph Schumpeter viewed entrepreneurship as a force of “creative destruction.” The entrepreneur carries out “new combinations,” thereby helping render old industries obsolete. Established ways of doing business are destroyed by the creation of new and better ways to do them.

Business expert Peter Drucker took this idea further, describing the entrepreneur as someone who actually searches for change, responds to it, and exploits change as an opportunity. A quick look at changes in communications – from typewriters to personal computers to the Internet – illustrates these ideas.

From Business Week (JAN 04, 2010): Six universities have joined a new program of “no co-signer” loans for international students at U.S. B-schools, and more are on the way.

By January 2009, Booth School of Business became the first school to sign onto the Affiliated Loan Program for Students (ALPS), a pilot program financed by Deutsche Bank (DB) which makes it easier for international students to come study in the U.S.

Nearly a year later, the loan program is starting to gain traction at schools across the country. A number of top schools signed on to ALPS in 2009, including Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, the University of Rochester’s Simon Graduate School of Business, and UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, among others. Six universities and 15 graduate programs are now using the lending program, most of them business schools. The program holds appeal for international students because it doesn’t require them to have a U.S. co-signer to take out a loan, a crucial requirement for many students, schools say.

Over the past year, ALPS has so far issued about 3,500 loans to foreign and domestic students, and loan volume is upwards of $100 million, organizers say. Business schools are not the only ones taking an interest in the loan program; graduate law and medical programs are also taking note, and more schools are expected to join in 2010, says Kevin Moehn, president of Moehn & Associates, the loan program’s administrator, who’s in the midst of signing agreements with at least four other universities.

“As a result of the global financial crisis, we saw some of the country’s most prestigious schools struggling to replace student loan funding that had been restricted or discontinued by previous lenders,” says Brettschneider in a statement. “By utilizing our resources to create and invest in ALPS, Deutsche Bank is able to help students around the world further their education despite the challenges of the current lending environment.” says Fred Brettschneider, head of global markets for the Americas at Deutsche Bank.

The ALPS program is by far the largest of the business school international student loan programs currently available, and it replicates some of the popular features of the old loan programs, such as not requiring students to have a co-signer or established credit. Interest rates for the student loans are less than 10%, though rates vary depending on the school, and organizers hope rates will be even lower in 2010.

Some features of the program also make it especially appealing to graduate schools. For example, the program leverages a participating school’s credit rating, not its cash, to meet the level of student financing that the school determines. Schools also don’t incur any up-front expenses and don’t need to commit to any minimum or maximum level of loan volume, though they are required to act as co-signers on the notes for the loans, which students obtain from Liberty Bank, an Ohio-based lender. Deutsche Bank purchases the student loans from participating universities and bundles the loans into securities, which are then sold on the capital markets.

It’s a tough time to be starting a career and this year has been extremely rough: a new report shows that new college graduates had 40% fewer job prospects. And the outlook for 2010, while better, is still not very promising.  Jobs for graduates with bachelor’s degrees, which account for most new graduate hires, will drop nearly 1% next year, according to Michigan State University’s survey on recruiting trends.

Overall, hiring of grads with any degree will decline by 2% compared to 2009. ”Things fell apart really fast last year, but it looks like the job market for graduates has hit a bottom,” said Phil Gardner, director of MSU’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute, which conducts the annual survey.

Hiring of master’s degree graduates will plummet by 11% based on a weaker labor market for accounting students, the study said. But, jobs for Ph.D.s will spike by 20% and those for MBA graduates will rise 11%. A good sign for MBA students.

Large companies, those with more than 4,000 employees, plan to decrease hiring of all graduates by 3%, and medium-sized companies, those with between 500 and 4,000 employees, expect to lower hiring by 11%. Smaller companies, however, may provide a bright spot in the job market for new graduates.

Employers with fewer than 500 staff members said they expect hiring at their companies to jump by 15%. These companies will hire 11 new graduates on average in 2010, and 8 of them will be at the bachelor’s level.