Part-time offerings prospering

Stephanie Travison says it was her co-workers who finally nudged her into pursuing a master’s degree in business administration, but it was not anything they said. It was what they had done.
Travison, an accountant at manufacturer Arkwright Inc. in Coventry, noticed everybody above her on the company ladder held an MBA. And many of her peers were working toward theirs.
“I thought maybe it’s something to push for now,” she recalled recently.
Travison, 35, researched the four part-time MBA programs offered in the Providence area, and chose to attend the University of Rhode Island program based at its Providence campus because of the flexibility to take courses in the summer and, in some cases, on weekends.
Now, five years later, she’s wrapping up her studies. “I went very slowly,” explained Travison, whose tuition is subsidized by Arkwright. “I wanted a balance – time for work, time for class and time for Stephanie.”
Travison is one of hundreds of older local students who are giving their career – if not their salary – a boost by getting an advanced business degree while still working full-time.
They’re also giving local universities a financial boost. Tuition can range from $14,000 to $26,000 by the time the MBA coursework is completed. For that reason, school administrators don’t take these programs lightly.
Officials at URI, Bryant University, Johnson & Wales University and Providence College say each of their MBA programs has different features that draw different types of students. Still, there appears to be some competitiveness among the schools in attracting Rhode Island’s MBA candidates, judging by the marketing campaigns.
Both URI and Johnson & Wales have bought space on highway billboards to raise the profile of their MBA programs. Newspaper ads for Bryant’s program contain the tagline: “For people with more ambition than time.” There are radio ads, too.
“No program could survive by word of mouth alone,” said Keith Murray, associate dean of Bryant’s College of Business.
In addition, URI recently tweaked its MBA tuition charges to make them more comparable to what neighboring schools charge, and Bryant has overhauled its program in recent years to make it more responsive to the needs of the business community.
At Johnson & Wales, administrators are investigating adding a “distance learning” component on the Web for their MBA program.
In addition to the four schools close to downtown Providence, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Salve Regina University, in Newport, offer MBA programs, too.
With a recession looming, these programs may take on a new level of importance.
At URI, Mark Higgins, dean of the College of Business Administration, said the MBA program peaked in enrollment in the early 1990s and had waned in recent years as the economy boomed. The numbers are starting to grow again.
“When the economy goes south, enrollment in MBA programs [grows],” explained Higgins. “It makes sense. When there’s contraction in the economy, the people with the highest qualifications are more likely to keep their jobs, and when there’s growth they are also the first to be hired.”
The part-time program – which has been offered at URI since the 1960s – has about 200 students, with 30 new students starting this month, the largest influx of students in the spring semester since 1992, Higgins said.
While most programs offer night classes for those who work during the day, URI touts the flexibility of its program, offering summer and weekend classes as a differentiator. “Our program has the ability to get the courses when you need them,” Higgins said.
Until recently, URI’s out-of-state tuition created a problem in attracting students from nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut. People who lived over the border in Attleboro, for example, had to pay $3,150 in tuition per class. That’s why only 10 people seeking an MBA at URI are Massachusetts residents, according to Higgins. Many have chosen less costly programs at Bryant ($2,000 per class), Johnson & Wales ($1,323) or PC ($1,140).
Higgins said his department has received permission to charge residents in nearby out-of-state cities and towns at the in-state rate, plus 25 percent. With the in-state tuition at $1,200 per class right now, that would mean someone from Attleboro would pay $1,500 a class.
At Bryant, administrators decided a few years ago to move to what they call a paced program in which students stay together as a class through two years of studies. The intention was to compress the benefits of a full-time MBA program into a part-time experience, Murray said.
The format doesn’t offer much flexibility, Murray acknowledged, but students haven’t complained. “They come looking for flexibility, but after they’ve been with us for a term or two, they can’t imagine doing it differently,” Murray said.
The Bryant part-time MBA enrollment has remained steady at about 400 in recent years, but the attrition rate has dropped to “close to zero,” Murray said. “People value this imposed discipline.”
Other changes included adopting an integrated curriculum with a global perspective and focusing on developing critical “soft skills” – team management, communications and leadership qualities. “The program is vastly superior now,” Murray said.
Bryant, like URI, has been accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The programs at both Johnson & Wales and Providence College have not received the same accreditation.
Nevertheless, Frank Pontarelli, dean of the Alan Shawn Feinstein Graduate School at Johnson & Wales, said the MBA program’s enrollment has grown 8 percent in the four years since he’s been dean.
Although the school offers several types of MBAs, he said the MBA with a hospitality concentration is one of the most popular, attracting part-time students from as far as New York.
And while most local MBA programs require entrants to take the Graduate Admission Management Test, it isn’t required for the Johnson & Wales program.
Another difference: MBA students at Johnson & Wales must take a “capstone course” before graduating that includes completing an in-depth industry and company analysis that is graded by an industry advisory board, Pontarelli said.
At PC, the number of MBA students enrolled at the school has remained level in recent years, according to John Shaw, director of the MBA program. Currently, he said, about 80 to 85 of the school’s 200 MBA students are attending classes part-time.
He said he’s aware that many potential students research the local programs before committing to one, adding that he doesn’t feel the schools are competing for students. “The students are going to end up where they feel most comfortable,” Shaw said.
For Stephanie Travison, she said she felt most comfortable at a state school, particularly after earning her undergraduate degree in accounting at Rhode Island College.
She’s happy with her decision to go to URI, because it allowed her to take her time. She was even able to get married while studying for her MBA.
And the knowledge already has been useful at Arkwright Inc. “I’ve grown so much professionally over the time I’ve been in this program,” she said. &#8226