As business programs struggle to find students, UMD offers a faster way to an MBA

The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business has reduced requirements to earn an MBA as business schools around the country face declining international student enrollment.

The school has redesigned its full-time, flex and online MBA programs beginning with this fall’s cohort, reducing the number of credits needed to graduate from 54 to 48. That means students will need three fewer courses to earn their degree, reducing the cost of the full-time MBA program from $94,986 to $84,432. Tuition for part-time and online MBA programs will also drop by about $10,000.

The changes aim to help the business school recruit more domestic students as federal changes to international student visas and limits on graduate student loans limit its pool of prospective students.

“There’s been a reduction in students coming from international locations for our full-time MBAs,” said Rosellina Ferraro, associate dean of MBA programs at the university. “It’s definitely a reflection of national trends and uncertainty regarding student visas.”

Other business schools, like the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, are trying similar strategies to boost enrollment. Carey announced this spring that students graduating from a Maryland college or university this year qualified for a 50% discount on graduate tuition.

Last winter there were 660 students getting their MBAs at the University of Maryland, according to a fact sheet. Of those, 111 were enrolled in the full-time program.

The UMD program doesn’t yet have a final count for its fall enrollment, Ferraro said, because usually MBA admissions run until the first week of classes. But she said the class sizes have been down in recent years.

That’s not unusual. Graduate business schools across the country tend to enroll a lot of international students, and with fewer of them to go around, the schools are facing stiffer competition for domestic students.

But fewer domestic students are interested in earning MBAs.

That’s largely due to declining salaries and fewer job opportunities. A new report from the Graduate Management Admission Council, a nonprofit association of 228 business schools, found that the median starting salary for Master of Business Administration degree holders is projected to fall this year to $120,000 from $125,000 in 2025.

Those with other types of business master’s degrees are projected to see their starting salaries slide by about 10% this year as well, to $82,500.

Graduates of business programs are also having a harder time finding jobs. At the top 15 business schools, the share of students who found a job within three months of graduating has decreased by 6 percentage points, to 84%, from 2024 to 2025, according to an analysis by The Economist. Last year’s graduates struggled to find jobs as artificial intelligence reduced entry-level opportunities, lower turnover limited openings, and employers held back because of inflation and recession concerns, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The university is seeing more interest in its online and hybrid programs, which allow students to work while earning their degrees, Ferraro said. Leaders are also in the process of designing a new program that will allow students to earn their MBAs in one year instead of two, which she said they hope to announce soon.

In the meantime, restructuring the current program’s curriculum makes it more appealing to potential students, Ferraro said. The redesign embeds AI fluency and “reflects the evolving expectations of employers and the accelerating pace of technological change,” according to the business school’s announcement this week.

“We’re not just trimming the credits,” Ferraro said. “We’re really refocusing the curriculum to make sure we’re teaching those core capabilities that today’s business leaders need.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.