Renewed Popularity of Acquiring MBA Degrees Abroad

The syndrome of `leaving Korea` is now giving birth to the popularity of `Foreign MBA degrees`.

Among those people with high educational level and in the middle-income class or above, those who can not afford to go to foreign countries to study for a long period of time are choosing the MBA courses as an alternative.

The MBA takes shorter period time to complete compared to acquiring a doctorate, as it just takes 3-5 years to prepare for the course and acquire the degree. Also it provides greater job opportunities after the graduation. Another merit is that, by utilizing internship programs of the universities where the person is taking the course, there is high possibility of getting a job in that country.

The number of applicants dropped since 2000, as employment benefit is lower than cost needed. But recently the number started to rebound, with many people lining up for consultation at consulting companies. Also at some language institutions in Gangnam, Seoul, new courses on GMAT, which is needed for enrollment at an MBA course, are opening up.

In case of JCMBA Consulting, which is known to Korean MBA applicants as the `representative consulting company`, the number of new subscribers from the beginning of this year to the end of Sep (10,000) surpasses the number of subscribers during last year as a whole (8700).

In special classes such as those on weekends, so many people come that some of them have to take the class standing up.

At the `Tenth MBA Exhibition` held in Hilton Hotel Seoul on Sep 27, 620 people registered. Many young couples with babies were seen at the exhibition.

Mr. Cho(32 office worker) had unofficial interviews with admission supervisors of 3 US universities at the hotel before the exhibition started. He said, ˝I asked if I can get a job in the states as I want to live in the states.˝ Mr.Cho said, ˝Getting a job there in the only way to settle in an advanced country without being ill-treated.˝ He also added, ˝If I can not get a job in the US, there is no reason for me to go there by spending 200 million∼300 million won.˝

Mr. Kim(28), who visited the exhibition on the same day had quit his job at a subsidiary of a conglomerate in May to prepare for the MBA course. His annual salary was around 29.5 million won. Mr. Kim said, ˝I expect around 200 million won as the cost. But cost is not that important.˝ He said ˝I believe that it is the last opportunity for me to get out of the routine lives of an office worker.˝

Young people, who want to live abroad but are hesitant to do manual work and do not have enough money to settle there, are choosing the MBA courses as an alternative.

Representative of JCMBA Chung Byung-chan (39) said, ˝During the financial crisis, people went out for the MBA courses to bring up their social positions, but now they are going to get actual jobs.˝ He said, ˝Therefore unlike in the past, people no longer insist on the top 10 MBA universities, but say that any university that ranks within 50 in fine.˝

Representative Chung ˝Most of applicants are 30∼35 years old. Their aims are not to recover their expenses which is about 100-200 million won but rather to bring about new turning point in their lives.˝

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