The MBA’s Ever-Expanding Options

A distinguished credential with evolving formats and concentrations, today’s MBA can be a launch pad to a greater career.

By George N. Saliba, Contributing Writer On Mar 4, 2025

The MBA degree’s popularity is soaring, with applications to graduate business school programs increasing 12% in 2024, and MBA graduates’ starting salaries now averaging $120,000 in the US, according to the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC). It all underscores a theme stemming from the first-ever MBA program launched in 1908, at Harvard University: The MBA degree teaches core concepts and skills associated with both individuals’ and employers’ success, and it today remains relevant in the face of competing certificate programs and other educational pathways. 

“We can [debate] whether an MBA is essential for career growth, but a lot of students come to my campus because they feel like they are hitting roadblocks and they’re not getting that next-tier position in their company because [the job description] says ‘MBA preferred,’ or, in many cases, ‘required,’” explains Stephen Tomkiel, MBA director at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). “Once a student has the [MBA] credential, that can never be a roadblock in the future.”

The MBA Investment 

Although investing in an MBA can be daunting – with the total average cost at $62,600, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), many universities are increasingly offering financial aid and alumni-sponsored scholarships. 

There’s more: Higher education institutions additionally have adopted a “stacked credential” approach such as TCNJ’s, where the MBA program’s first year teaches specialized MBA courses and yields a certificate. The second year is then comprised of core courses that confer the MBA degree itself. TCNJ’s Tomkiel says this approach has allowed many students to assume new work titles and responsibilities following their first year.

MBA programs are also now increasingly hands-on, with case studies and similar exercises commonplace. Michael Williams, PhD, MBA, dean of the school of business and management at Thomas Edison State University, says, “We can talk about teaching from a scholarly point of view, but the idea of doing [MBA tasks, at some universities] is [sometimes], ‘Well, have a nice day. Do it yourself.’ No, you have to integrate [the hands-on training].”

Eugene Kutcher, PhD, dean of the Norm Brodsky College of Business at Rider University, explains more broadly that this is true even at the undergraduate level. “Modern business school education looks different than it used to [look],” he says. “There’s an expectation that students are applying what they’re learning in the classroom to real activity, and that’s [through] internships and co-ops, which I understand is not the same as being fully employed, but [students are] getting a more applied experience. Even our classes have built-in consulting projects with organizations or more high-fidelity case studies, so that [students are] learning and practicing more at the undergraduate level than they used to.”

Post-Pandemic Hybrid and Online Learning 

Online and hybrid MBA degree offerings are also expanding, particularly in a post-pandemic world. Once viewed as inferior to in-person instruction, numerous educators tell New Jersey Business Magazine that in 2025 – with people intimately familiar with online communication tools such as Zoom and Teams – remote-learning higher education degrees are not only viewed more favorably, but are easier to facilitate. 

TCNJ’s Tomkiel says of his institution’s hybrid learning model: “[Students coming to a Zoom class] are raising their [hands], they see the professor nodding, or kind of raising their eyebrow: ‘Oh, really? Tell me more about that.’ So, they have that deep interactive environment, even though they are learning online.” These students report to TCNJ’s campus two times per semester for in-person residencies replete with increased levels of interactivity and engagement, including but not limited to, presentations from industry practitioners.

Shortened Courses

Some higher education institutions are also gravitating away from traditional semesters for their graduate programs and are offering short, seven-week-long courses for business professionals. “That’s really convenient because let’s say you’re in a business or an organization where you have a very specific busy season, or busy period,” explains Joyce Strawser, PhD, dean of Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business as well as associate professor of accounting and taxation in the department of accounting and taxation. “You can [take] a seven-week course at the beginning of the fall, but you can just step out for that second seven-week period – focus on your work and maybe have issues with your family – and then come back in the start of January. Having different course modalities, shorter sessions, and evening sessions really speaks to the convenience of the offering. It can be so important for our graduate students.”

When to Obtain the MBA Degree 

While the question of whether in-person learning or online/hybrid is best can depend on many factors including distance from the university as well as family commitments. Another trending question is: When in one’s life an MBA should be pursued? 

While the average age for MBA degree seekers is now 28, some students pursue their MBAs immediately following completion of their undergraduate degrees, and others wait until they have obtained work experience. 

Rider University’s Kutcher says, “I know some students who are self-aware enough to tell me that once they [graduate from college], earn money and they’re out of the school mentality, they don’t trust that they will ever be back into the school mentality. So, for certain students, I think ‘now’ is the time [to pursue an MBA program].”

Seton Hall’s Strawser explains the other side of the equation: “If I am speaking to the student and they have a [job] opportunity that’s well suited for them, and they feel like they’re ready and they want to go out into the workforce, they should do that, 100%. You don’t want to set aside something like that, at that moment.” She adds, however, that Seton Hall students who do pursue an MBA directly from their undergraduate studies can save on tuition costs.

MBA Concentrations

MBA students are also increasingly seeking specialized knowledge and skill sets when they obtain degrees. Seton Hall University, for example, now offers a staggering eight different MBA concentrations (with three of them available in on-campus or online formats) ranging from sport management and supply chain management to information technology management and business analytics.

Strawser says overall, “In order to stay competitive, [universities] must have a very distinctive and compelling value proposition – something that you do that’s different, that people can point to and say, ‘Hey, that’s why it makes sense to pay for this.’ But to have just a generic MBA [offering] without really something that it can speak to … it’s going to lag in terms of enrollments, and maybe it’s going to be a program that schools will start to shelve.”

Echoing others’ sentiments, Strawser explains that popular MBA concentrations include business analytics, finance, and management. She adds, “The business analytics concentration allows you to get that broad-based business background that you always do with an MBA, but you also are taking courses and focusing in an area that enables you to develop knowledge of, and skills with, tools that will allow you to analyze data so that you can use that in making business decisions. That just seems to be such an important requirement of somebody going into the business world these days.”

Conclusion

TESU’s Williams asserts that as a general business degree, the MBA landscape is not only shifting nationally and internationally, but it’s changing rapidly and discontinuously. He concludes, “The graduate degree in general, but the MBA degree [in particular], is a launch point for what happens next [in one’s life]. In my view, the MBA is the new bachelor’s [degree].

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