Who Needs An M.B.A.?

  • Marilyn Mawn is a young wall Streeter most leading business schools would love to call their own. A Cornell graduate who relishes the intensity of her 80-hr. weeks as an analyst at Bear Stearns in New York City, Mawn, 25, has three years of experience in the financial industry, a head for closing major deals--and absolutely no plans to go to B school.

    It's not that she didn't give it some serious thought. Mawn researched the best financial-real-estate programs, sent away for applications and took a prep course for the Graduate Management Admissions Test. But after seeking advice from senior woman executives in her company, including some with M.B.A.s, she decided to forgo the degree.

    "I considered the opportunity cost," says Mawn, one of five professional women in an office of 50 people. She figured she would be giving up two years' income and experience, spending an additional $100,000 on education and not gaining enough to justify it. "I realized I would probably get more out of two years of work," says Mawn. "I've also watched my older sisters juggle law careers and new babies, and I'd rather have the option of taking that kind of time off in five years."

    Whether female candidates for the top business schools are opting out because of a feeling, like Mawn's, that they are better off with the work experience, or because of family considerations or a distaste for the business-school climate--or business in general--the fact is that they just aren't going. Women account for only 29% of those in the country's top business schools, and it's been that way since 1994. Meanwhile, other professional-degree programs are educating women in impressive numbers that continue to rise. Women made up 46% of first-year law students in the 1997-98 school year, for example.

    Not all business schools suffer from a dramatic gender gap, just the top tier. A survey of all accredited programs has women accounting for almost 40% of graduates. But in business, where who you studied with is as important as what you learned, the value of a name-brand diploma is particularly high. And the fact that women aren't getting them has the business world all worked up. "Women business leaders are tremendously important to our company. We market to moms," says Mary Kay Haben, an executive vice president at Kraft Foods. "We rely on the top business schools to help us find the women with a track record of success."

    It was with this in mind that the University of Michigan, together with Catalyst, a nonprofit research and advisory organization that focuses on advancing women in business, teamed up to find out why talented women aren't pursuing M.B.A.s. The study, sponsored by 13 companies including Kraft, Citicorp and Deloitte & Touche, is still in the data-gathering stage, with results expected in early 2000. But its organizers have some theories of their own, as do plenty of women who have M.B.A.s, are in school or have decided against the degree.

    A Matter of Timing
    Katie Gray, 30, is finishing her first year of business school at Stanford University; she is eight months pregnant. Gray had been married for three years when she told her husband that she wanted to move from their home in Washington to go to business school in California. "It was a really tough decision for both of us," Gray says. "He was on track to become a partner at a firm in Washington. He didn't want to pick up and move, and I don't blame him."

    The already difficult decision to interrupt a career and go to business school may be getting tougher, as top B schools are increasingly choosing applicants with more years of work experience. In the late 1980s the average business-school student was 24 years old; now the average age is 29. "For lots of women, this is a time when they're making decisions about family and marriage," says Gray. "People are in committed relationships, and traditionally it's the woman's career that takes the back seat." Gray's didn't, but she did spend her first four months at school on her own, until her husband was able to join her in California in December. Until the research is in to prove that inconveniences like that are what's deterring women from B school, admissions counselors aren't budging. They say the skills and real-life business experience older students bring to the classroom are invaluable.

    And while the jury is out, Aimee Martin is hearing stories from women like Gray every day. A second-year student at Harvard Business School, Martin fields questions for the admissions office from women applicants. "Women call worrying about the timing of having children, debating about whether to leave a successful career. The work/life issue comes up a lot," says Martin, who shuttles to St. Louis, Mo., on weekends to visit her husband, a surgical resident at a hospital there. "It's been a huge sacrifice to be apart," she says of her own case, "but I do believe it'll pay off." It already has--Martin will start work at A.G. Edwards, which has its headquarters in St. Louis, in the summer.

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