Bauer News - New Dean and Freeze of FT MBA

Academic Excellence
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Gang,

Good news: Dr. Xianjun Geng, from Tulane (AD) is the new Dean of Bauer. Link Link Link Link

Bad news: Bauer is putting a permanent freeze on the Full Time MBA. Link Link

Texas (Southwest and West Coast regional) and Rice (Texas) are the only two highly recruited full time programs with SMU as a Dallas only option. I get why UH is doing this, but hopefully it can recapture its mission to go back out to market, in the future. Probably won’t, but I’m concerned at the long term reputational risk. I kind of think UH squandered Ted Bauer’s endowment without having a bold plan until Pavlou showed up. For example,UH had its investment simulator three years before Texas did (both funded by Ted and Invesco alumni).

Honestly, I’m surprised we didn’t get James Weston from Rice given his background at a rising program and his stature as a Finance academic, but Geng has a similar background in MIS (the star for Bauer academics) to the outgoing Dean Pavlou.

Wild times in 2025.

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So wait.

Bauer is going to ONLY a part-time MBA. I don’t like that.

What about law students in the joint JD/MBA? They used to go to school full-time and do BOTH degrees.

The law school is mostly full time; they admit only one part-time section per year against 3/4 full-time.

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It’s been a national trend. University of Illinois, university of Iowa, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Purdue have all paused or scrapped their full time MBA programs for online and part-time options.

The reality is that many (very good) universities are having challenges recruiting MBA students.

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Glad that isn’t a law school trend.

Aren’t the top ten MBA programs like Harvard, Stanford, and Penn all strictly full-time?

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They can do the MBA portion at night and the Law portion during the day.

The part time MBA is broken into Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday cohorts.

It’s not bad at all

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Again though. Aren’t the top MBA programs (Harvard, Stanford, Penn) strictly full-time?

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Our market is the working professional that got their undergrad elsewhere and started their professional career in Houston and found UH’s Part Time MBA program to be incredibly convenient and manageable.

That was probably 90-95% of my class in the part time program. Only a few of us had our undergraduate degree from UH and we all had full time jobs.

Just a different type of student than what the Harvard/ Stanford/ Penn State type of students are looking for. So, their market reach is reversed. Those going to those Universities are not juggling a full time job with it.

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Penn (Ivy League)

Not Penn State (B1G)

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Ivy League Students typically don’t hold a desk job while going to Grad School.

They typically have the means to focus solely on the highly competitive program they are in

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Yes, that’s correct. It seems like if you’re not an elite business school, then the trends for other business schools (even business schools for universities with stellar reputations like I mentioned) are for them to cut their full-time MBA programs and strengthen their part-time and online options.

Money and a dwindling talent pool is forcing even great schools to make tough choices.

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The dual program information is still up for the Law Center, but removed from Bauer.

This looks like a poor implementation. This dual program was the way for Coogs to have a better way of getting into M&A or IB roles.

I thought about investigating the PT MBA + PT JD, but looks like that isn’t an option… yet?

So lame.

I think the biggest issue for the MBA at Bauer is that they’ve focused so much on undergraduate outcomes through their job recruitment office. The FT outcomes are not as impressive for a program like this one. The curriculum design is very good compared to other schools. Even if they retooled the FT to offer Top 25 B-school outcomes with a population of 50-75 students, the PT could remain humming at 500-1,000 students. That’s what UCLA, NYU, USC, Indiana and other prospective peer institutions do.

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Yes, but only if you consider an Executive MBA to not be a Part-Time MBA.

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An exec MBA is a different degree.

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An executive MBA is NOT a different degree than the MBA.

You just pay more to be “grouped” with fellow executives in your cohort plus they help with organize your classes.

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It definitely was at my undergrad business school.

Fewer class meetings, different types of projects and assignments, more weekend sessions……VERY different.

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Was just going to say that. Iowa dropped its FT MBA about ten years ago to focus on its undergrad and non-MBA grad programs (MS in Data Analytics, Risk Management, Accounting, etc). Seems that is what the marketplace is asking for.

Fact is, outside of a few select schools (mainly Ivies and top private universities plus a few very select public’s) it is rare today for a student to stop working and go spend two years and $200K to get an MBA. Employers don’t care that much so it doesn’t make sense.

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This is sad to hear, mostly because of the potential reputational risk.

Granted I did my MBA and law school part time at UH while I was working in public accounting and got the same level of education.

Perception matters in national reputation though.

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How hard was it to do both in part-time format? Curious for this guy.

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The MBA wasn’t too difficult. Part of that may have been my undergrad being in accounting, but it was more of a time commitment than anything else.

Law school nearly killed me, serious depression. In orientation they warned us that at least 1/3 of us would either drop out or develop s substance abuse problem.

They were not kidding. Many days driving home from school, i would think to myself that i could just drive into the wall and end it, but thinking about my family is what got me through it.

The problem is the amount of time you have to spend outside the classroom to be prepared. You never know when you’ll be called on to speak in class and there were more than a couple of times when i was berated by a professor for not being well prepared. I was not ready for that.

This was with me working 8-5, then going to class from 6-9. I went home to sleep then woke up at 4am to read for the next day.

Worst 4 years of my life.

But it shaped who i am today.

I’ve always been the smartest kid in class and never had to try hard to succeed until i tried to do this.

Without the experience, I would have just coasted and lived a really good life, but this showed me how much more was possible.

I’ve accomplished more than i ever imagined, thanks to the drive i was able to build in myself.

This is going to sound like bragging, that’s not what i want to do, but it’s hard to explain without doing it.

I’m a first generation immigrant, my mom worked at target and my dad worked at a local Indian newspaper just to barely make it.

I’ve made it to executive level roles in global fortune 500 companies, have an amazing wife and 2 kids, drive a Ferrari 458 spider and live in an 8400 sq foot mansion in sugar land.

None of that would have been possible without going through what i did at the law school. I worked 80 hours a week at pwc after law school but that felt easy after what i had been through.

Its the hardest most rewarding thing I’ve done in my life.

Everything else seems easy in comparison.

Sorry, I’m multiple scotches into the night, celebrating the great football win tonight and just saw this message to reply.

Let me know if you have any questions, happy to help in any way i can.

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As someone with six academic degrees from six different schools, including an LL.M, I will say straight up that my JD from UH Law Center was BY FAR my most difficult degree, and the one that I am proudest of.

No comparison.

That said, I don’t have anywhere near the material success to match the last poster!

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