The start of school and university terms always tempts me to enrol in another part-time master’s subject. There’s a course I’d love to do, but for the first time I’ll bypass university and try to replicate some of the learning experience using textbooks and free online material.
It’s hard to justify paying $2,500 for a master’s subject and losing a day each week to study, while also running a small business.
Shonky?... Research shows many Australian institutions offering MBAs are performing well below world standard. Illustration: Karl Hilzinger.
And let’s face it: most Australian business schools are ordinary by world standard.
So ordinary in fact, that students should take advantage of our high dollar to study full-time or part-time (online or in short courses) at better-performing overseas institutions.
The Federal Government’s inaugural audit of university research quality found 26 institutions performed below world standard in business and management.
Research quality from 41 local institutions was assessed against international benchmarks, across a range of disciplines, in the recently released Excellence in Research for Australia 2010 National Report.
In business and management, three institutions scored a full five marks: the universities of Melbourne, New South Wales and Queensland. These unis are well above world standard in research. Thank goodness for a few great Australian business schools, and their academics.
Twenty six of 39 institutions assessed received one or two marks, meaning they are below or well below world standards in this field – a shocking result.
In marketing, 21 of 29 Australian institutions ranked below or well below world standard.
What’s your view: is university business education as good as it used to be?
Are master’s degrees still worth it?
Do some university business schools need a kick up the pants?
Australia cannot afford so many business schools ranked below world standard. Great research is vital in its own right, and underpins great teaching.
The Excellence in Research project received much attention. But its most important implication was overlooked: what about students and businesses that subsidise this slackness through high fees?
Why would any rational student pay $30,000 or more for a master’s degree from a business school ranked well below world standard?
Why would any rational company or small enterprise pay for its staff to attend a business school ranked below world standard?
I want to know: how many universities ranked below world standard use phrases like “world-class” or “leading researchers” in their marketing material to attract students?
Did their introductory marketing sessions claim the school was a “leader in its field”? How many students enrolled in these courses the basis of false advertising and over-promotion?
Where’s a class-action law firm when you need one, or the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on this issue?
The ACCC should examine marketing materials from underperforming business schools, to safeguard against false advertising.
These universities usually promote favourable statistics to attract students. They should be forced to outline key survey rankings – good and bad - so students can make informed decisions.
Every business school should be forced to tell prospective students how much postgraduate teaching is done by professors and lecturers with PhDs, and how much is done by PhD students, or consultants with modest academic qualifications.
The Economist had a terrific story earlier this year about universities taking advantage of the oversupply of PhD students to lower teaching and research costs.
Such students are teaching more courses and even leading key research projects. That’s fine for undergraduates, but business owners and managers deserve much more at postgraduate level.
They should not pay huge fees for a master’s degree where unqualified people teach so many subjects. (My definition of unqualified is a student less than halfway through their PhD or an external consultant without decades of experience.)
Master’s students being lectured by consultants or other students barely into their PhD, for more than a few subjects, are being ripped off. There’s no other way to put it.
Even worse: students are almost powerless to do anything about it. Course requirements mean students usually have to lump it when it comes to bad teaching, or drop out.
University business courses should be treated like any other product: consumers must get what they are promised and have recourse if the product is not up to scratch.
How many unis have ever given students refunds for bad teaching?
Business schools might argue, with some justification, that the Excellence in Research project favours other programs, such as the sciences, that receive vastly better research funding than business.
Some might argue the survey understates their standing in research. That may be true, but other surveys show Australia has low representation in the world’s top 100 business schools.
I wonder if universities are the real culprits, having milked their “cash-cow” business schools to fund more prestigious research programs elsewhere.
Or how many universities have stifled good business schools and excellent academics with crippling bureaucracy and bad management?
How many business schools have become glorified TAFEs by focusing too much on vocational training and churning out students, when their true job is research and transcendental learning that helps students think differently, rather than force-feeds them information?
This is a problem of national significance.
Australia cannot afford so many business schools ranked below world standard. Great research is vital in its own right, and underpins great teaching. Without world-class research, university teaching is hollow, and Australian business suffers.
We risk losing our best students to overseas universities and offshore companies.
To be fair, I know many MBA students who rave about the experience. The fees were nothing compared to the life-changing experience of a great MBA and the career benefits.
A passionate, informed lecturer, vibrant classroom discussion, and an excellent group of classmates (who join your network) are worth a lot more than the subject cost, in my view.
And I know some excellent business academics are held back by awful university management.
But someone has to say it: there are too many slack business schools and lazy academics who refuse to change, barely publish significant research, and lack customer focus.
They think teaching is beneath them and have weak links with their ultimate customers: business and industry. They spend more time whingeing about the university than informing business.
Perhaps there are too many business academics in management positions who do not have what it takes to change organisational culture, innovate and reinvent their organisation.
This would not surprise; some universities operate in the dark ages. I can’t understand why so many only teach for two big semesters a year and have facilities gathering dust in winter and over Christmas.
Are all their business academics seriously working during these long breaks, bludging, or doing side projects? Would you run your business this way?
Why do universities own so many buildings and so much land, when they are in the business of education, not property?
Why don’t they reinvent their business models and focus on whole-of-life education and offer paid recruitment services for students? Seek, for example, is doing so well combining education and employment services – an obvious fit.
I still love universities and the higher education experience. But the gap between the quality of bricks-and-mortar university education, and private education and online material, is rapidly closing – at least in business teaching.
Sadly, for a lot of business schools, the piece of paper that comes with the degree isn’t what it used to be.