Who Needs An M.B.A.?

By Rebecca Winters

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.

AN IMAGE PROBLEM

The classic view of business school is a Paper Chase-style classroom full of hyper-competitive white guys in stuffed shirts. The defining 1973 movie was actually based on life at Harvard Law School, but the image of memorizing case studies, cold calling (when a professor calls on students at random) and learning by intimidation is one the B school can't seem to shake. It's also an image that may turn off a lot of women. "Many women feel that M.B.A. programs offer a very chilly climate for them," says Judith Sturnick, director of the Office of Women in Higher Education at the American Council on Education. "Women tend to look for an environment where collaboration is valued. There is a perception, often warranted, that business school isn't one of those places."

Plenty of schools still rely on the old-fashioned Paper Chase methods in at least some of their classes, but the reality of the business-school classroom today is a lot more cooperative. First-year student Joey Wat considered several schools before finally settling on Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where women make up 32% of the student body. "Kellogg is famous for its teamwork culture," says Wat, who was working in management consulting in Hong Kong. "That appealed to me a great deal."

At Harvard, the school most often associated with a traditional atmosphere, the disciplining of six male students for offensive behavior toward women last spring inspired a fire storm of criticism of what came to be known as the school's "woman problem." In 1998 only 24% of graduates were women, among the lowest of the top schools. Harvard has taken measures, both before the harassment incident and after it, to work on its climate and reputation. In 1997 the school devoted $1 million in grants and school funds to case studies that feature women business executives. The admissions department has placed new emphasis on women's outreach in the past three years and has sponsored open houses specifically for female candidates.

But some schools are doing much better than others at luring women. The Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, boasts 38% women, among the highest in the top tier. Eight of 11 student-government officers are women, as is the school's dean, a first for a business school of its stature.

While the battle rages on to be the school with the most, and the best, female talent, the real problem may not be with the M.B.A. programs themselves. "It's not just the business-school atmosphere that we're concerned with," says Jeanne Wilt, who is overseeing the study at the University of Michigan's Business School. "It's also the decision to go into business at all."

In a series of focus groups with undergraduate women conducted in conjunction with the Michigan/Catalyst study, students were asked to describe what characteristics they associate with certain professions. Who fared the worst? Not lawyers but businesspersons, whom the women described as "greedy" and "self-interested." It's too early to draw broad conclusions from the focus groups, say the researchers, but that negative view of business is in line with the long-standing theory that "women are drawn to jobs with some kind of obvious societal utility," says Carol Hollenshead, director of the Center for the Education of Women at Michigan. "Medicine, law and, increasingly, science and engineering can all be associated with helping people in some way," Hollenshead says. "The business world may need to make a better case for how it does some social good."

Had business made such a case, it might have been able to hang on to a proven performer like Valjeanne Estes. A graduate of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, with a master's in engineering from Georgia Tech, Estes, 36, worked in the booming telecommunications industry before heading for her M.B.A. Upon graduation from Fuqua, she interviewed with MCI and SkyTel. "But I wanted something that reflected my priorities, and I didn't see that in the corporate world," Estes says. She eventually became coordinator of a summer camp devoted to teaching girls about economic independence, putting some of her organizational know-how to work for nonprofits. "I love what I do," Estes says. "It's flexible, and I can see that I'm doing good."

GOING IT ALONE

If the corporate world is struggling to find and keep talented women, there is another sector of the business community that is having no trouble at all: between 1987 and 1997, the number of woman-owned firms increased 89% nationwide; their employment shot up 262%, and sales grew 161%. "Entrepreneurship is very hot. It's one of the most talked-about subjects on campus right now," says Myra Hart, who co-teaches a course at Harvard called Women Building Business. "For many women, entrepreneurship is viewed as a way to have a profession where you have some control over your life, which may or may not be true." But working for yourself, unlike landing a top corporate job, doesn't require an M.B.A. Just witness the success of Silicon Valley start-ups led by computer-science grads without a Finance 101 course to their name.

That may all change soon, says Stanford's Gray, who hopes to put her M.B.A. to use for one of those start-ups after graduation. "The bootstrapping engineers are starting to realize that they need some business sense. The venture capitalists are looking for companies with M.B.A.s from top schools on board," Gray says. "I think M.B.A.s will be a big part of success in the new economy."

If Gray is right, she'll be ready. But in the meantime, plenty of other women are banking on a different outcome, one in which a business degree is just an optional detour on the road to success. And in which the B school's loss is the new economy's gain.