UIndy announces new one year MBA program
The University of Indianapolis has a new one-year Master’s degree in Business Administration program. The program is a full-time, 42-credit hour program geared toward recent college graduates. It is the first of its kind in Indianapolis and one of only a few in Indiana. Classes will take place Mondays through Thursdays, 8-11:30 a.m.
According to Director of MBA Recruitment Anna Stumpf, UIndy’s new MBA program is unique because of the small amount of time needed to complete it.
“Most MBA programs are two-and-a-half to three years long,” Stumpf said.
The program will group students together into a cohort. A cohort will comprise 25 students who will go through the program together. According to Stumpf, the university plans to have only one cohort, but if the program receives enough qualified applicants, it may have two.
Each student admitted into the program will receive a laptop that contains all of the software that he or she will need to complete the program.
Students also will take an international trip at the end of the second semester, when they will visit one or two businesses and several cultural landmarks. According to Director of Graduate Business Programs Stephen Tokar, the international trips are designed to give students some intercultural experience.
“One thing that students need to realize is that people from different cultures think differently,” he said.
Tokar said that people cannot go to another country, which has a different culture, and try to do business the same way that they would in the United States. He also said that the international trips associated with any business program work to give UIndy students valuable experiences that students from other universities do not have.
The cost of the entire program is just over $30,000, not including housing or books. According to Tokar, the price of UIndy’s one-year MBA program is considerably less than that of other universities. The cost of other programs ranges from $50,000 to $70,000 or more, and such programs take a few years to complete.
According to Tokar, the new program came from some basic market research conducted over the summer.
“Nobody was looking at recent college graduates,” Tokar said.
According to Tokar, someone applying to the one-year MBA program does not have to hold a bachelor’s degree in business. The program is designed for people who have achieved degrees in different areas of study, as well as for business graduates.
However, students will have to find their own way to pay, because there are few opportunities for assistance from the university, Stumpf said.
“The only disadvantage to the program is that there are very few scholarships and grants,” Stumpf said. “And UIndy does not offer graduate fellowships.”
According to Stumpf, though, UIndy it is still a great program because the business faculty members have well over 12 years of business experience.
Tokar said that one of the major advantages of getting an MBA at UIndy is that the faculty has real-world business experience.
“Why go somewhere where all that the professors do is write research papers for academic journals that nobody reads?” Tokar said.
