砸錢蓋大樓能留住MBA學生？
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2013/1/31
2014-01-22 Web only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/patriciadrury/ |
商學院的學生受到的呵護實在無微不至；牛律賽德商學院的學者可能會誤以為自己身處一旁的魯道夫飯店，史丹佛的學生可以在自己的博物館裡觀賞絕佳的現代藝術藏品，哈佛商學院的MBA學生則能預約按摩服務，緩解一整天的勞累。
下一代商學院學生的生活還會更好；過去幾年裡，名列前茅的學校都在募集資金以建造新設施。原因之一在於，許多商學院的校園是在1960和70年代建成，現在都有待整修。另一項因素則是學生的期望提高；哈佛商學院的校園傲視群倫，但根據《經濟學人》2013年的調查，其設施排名僅全球第27。哈佛MBA課程的總學費約為20萬美元，學生當然有權要求完美。
建造昂貴的新設施並非沒有其風險。MBA課程的需求依舊不振，2012～2013年度GMAT報考人次僅有23.8萬，較前一年少了5萬，也是6年來的最低點。對部分學校來說，風險會比較低。劍橋賈吉商學院正在為新建物募集5,200萬英鎊資金，此建物的目的之一，就是講授利潤豐厚、目前四散於其他學院的非學位高階主管課程。
此外，多數大學校的建築經費出自校友和贊助者，而這些人並不打算回收這些資金；以哥倫比亞商學院的6億美元新校園建築計畫為例，其中只有1億美元由大學支付。事實上，越來越多學校有能力負擔大型建築計畫的原因之一，即為它們將慈善變成了專門業務；現在，幾乎每間一流學校都雇有全職的資金募集者。
就算學校不致面臨太大的財務風險，這些設施還是有可能乏人問津。許多人相信，遠距離學習科技即將搖撼高等教育；未來會有更多學生遠距學習，美麗的校園也可能成為遺跡。西北大學凱洛格管理學院院長布朗特（Sally Blount）認為，人際網路和學位的吸引力並不會消失，最棒的學校還是可以吸引學生前往校園。不過，部分學校還是決定分散風險；耶魯在新校園啟用之際，也開始在網站上宣傳新一代的線上課程。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
The Economist
Business
education
Build it and
they may come
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: January 22, 2014
Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition
Management schools are on a building spree. That is a risk for some.
BUSINESS-SCHOOL students are a pampered bunch. Scholars sipping a glass
of red in the posh rooftop bar of Oxford's Saïd Business School could be
forgiven for thinking they had wandered into the nearby Randolph Hotel by
mistake. Stanford students can view an impressive modern-art collection housed
in its own museum. Harvard Business School MBAs can book a masseuse to relieve
the stress of a hard day slaving over case studies.
Life for the next generation of business students is to get even
cushier. In the past few years the leading schools have been raising vast
amounts to spend on new facilities. On January 9th Yale's School of Management
formally opened its swanky new home, designed by Foster + Partners, Norman
Foster's architecture practice. The Kellogg School of Management in Illinois
will soon start work on a new headquarters
for its MBA programme on the shores of Lake Michigan, at a cost of
$200m. Stanford's business school spent $345m on its new campus, largely thanks
to the largesse of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike.
The biggest project, at least in terms of cost, is under way in New
York. Columbia Business School is within touching distance of raising the $600m
it needs to complete a new campus in West Harlem. From Cambridge, MA, to
Cambridge, UK, an arms race is under way to provide MBAs with the plushest
place to study.
There are several reasons for this. One is that many business schools
built campuses in a previous expansionary phase in the 1960s and 70s, and these
are now ripe for regeneration. Rising expectations among prospective students
also play a part. The posher the school, the more demanding its applicants.
Harvard Business School's campus is the envy of all its competitors, and for
good reason. Yet in a survey by The Economist in 2013, MBA students ranked its
facilities (measured, admittedly, by more than just the quality of its
buildings) a lowly 27th in the world, below those of institutions such as
Brunel University, a modest college in Uxbridge, in west London. Since Harvard
puts the total cost of taking its MBA at around $200,000, students have every
right to expect perfection.
Breaking ground on expensive new facilities is not without risk. Demand
for MBAs remains soft. Some schools, particularly lower down the pecking-order,
may find their new state-of-the-art classrooms sparsely populated. In the
2012-13 testing year there were 238,000 entries for GMATs, the de facto
business-school entrance exam. That is 50,000 fewer tests taken than the year
before and the lowest number for six years.
For some schools, the risk is lower. The University of Cambridge's
Judge Business School is raising £52m ($85m) for a new building that will,
among other things, house its lucrative non-degree executive-education
programmes. These are currently scattered around Cambridge's other colleges.
Judge thinks it will recoup the outlay of bringing them together under one,
expensive roof within a few years.
In any case, the money for most big schools' projects comes from
wealthy alumni and sponsors, who do not expect it back. Of the $600m Columbia
is raising, for example, only $100m is from university coffers. The rest will
come from gifts, including donations of $100m each from two private-equity fund
managers, Ronald Perelman and Henry Kravis. Kellogg says not a single
tuition-fee dollar will be spent on its new building.
Indeed, one reason more schools can afford big capital projects is that
they have turned philanthropy into a professional business. Nearly all the top
schools now employ full-time fund-raisers. Their preferred targets tend to be
former students who have made it big since graduation. Deans are often judged
on just two criteria: how a school fares in rankings (including ours) and how
much money they have screwed out of rich alumni.
But if there is little financial risk to schools, there is a danger of
obsolescence. Higher education is, many think, on the brink of being disrupted
by distance-learning technology. In the future, many more students are expected
to study remotely. Trophy campuses could become relics. "Our industry is
about to transform itself," says Sally Blount, Kellogg's dean. "And
you have to decide whether you are in or out of face-to-face education."
Being "in" means investing now in better facilities, to keep
up with rivals. The best schools, Ms Blount thinks, will continue to attract
students to campus; the lure of networking and securing a brand-name degree
will not diminish. Yet some are hedging their bets. As Yale opened its fancy
new campus, its website was plugging its "new generation of online
courses".
From the print edition: Business
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
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