As birthdays go, the centennial that took place at Harvard Business School in mid-October was one high-powered affair. Roughly 2,000 alumni crowded into a huge temporary building on the campus green and watched as a two-day procession of CEOs took the stage, including former eBay boss Meg Whitman ('79), General Electric'sJeff Immelt ('82) and JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon ('82). (The organizers even included a few M.B.A.-less types, like Bill Gatesand Larry Summers.) In panel discussions, they offered their views on the current financial crisis, generally praising Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke while also urging more-frequent dialogue between corporate bosses and Washington even when the Dow isn't in daily free-fall. But after the last panel adjourned, an equally robust discussion began in a small adjacent classroom before far fewer attendees. The topic: "The Future of M.B.A. Education." As professors David Garvin and Srikant Datar clicked through Power-Point slides, there was little to celebrate. For 18 months they'd interviewed deans, recruiters, faculty and alumni from several dozen top B-schools. As graphs flickered across the whiteboard, they laid out their conclusion. While top schools like Harvard still receive plenty of applications, many top-50 M.B.A. programs are seeing full-time enrollments decline as students migrate toward part-time or executive programs, which they view as more cost-effective. At some companies, longer-tenured employees without an M.B.A. face better odds of getting promoted than newcomers who hold the degree, and some employers now dissuade star employees from returning to school for an M.B.A. at all. Recruiters say the M.B A.s they do hire have learned little about such skills as giving presentations, navigating corporate politics or leading co-workers. "The M.B.A. degree may be at an inflection point," Garvin says.
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