Wayne State MBA enrollment grows 85% over 2 years

Christine Mellesmoen felt like she had hit a plateau in her career. So, after starting at General Motors in February and learning about the company's tuition assistance plan, she decided to head back to school for a master of business administration degree.

But she faced another hurdle — she wasn't really looking forward to taking the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, which is required at most universities for admissions to an MBA program.

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Enter Wayne State. Already under consideration by Mellesmoen because of its location close to her work, Wayne State's program, which  waives the GMAT for working professionals, made a lot of sense to the 30-year-old Waterford resident.

"I liked the appeal of not having to take the GMAT. It was nice that my academic record and work experience were taken into consideration, and the GMAT was waived," she told the Free Press.

Mellesmoen will start classes in the fall as part of a surge in enrollment at the MBA program at the Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State.

As of Monday, there are 1,119 graduate students for fall. That's the largest class since fall 2008. If 20 more students enroll in the next month, it will be the largest since fall 2007. The increased numbers are a huge turnaround from just two years ago, when there were only 606 graduate students in fall 2014. That's an 84.6% increase over two years.

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The school's enrollment increase bucks the broader trends. Enrollment in U.S. MBA programs is down 11% since 2009, according to a survey by accrediting group AACSB International.

Wayne State officials credit the waiver of  the GMAT  for at least part of that increase. The test is waived for applicants with "at least three years of relevant professional experience that shows increased responsibility over that period."

"There are people who want to come back and get an MBA but have been working for a while and don't want to think about taking the GMAT," said Ilitch school dean Bob Forsythe.

The school also is benefiting from other exposure, including the renaming of the school for Detroit businessman Mike Ilitch, who is giving millions of dollars toward the construction of a new building near the new Red Wings stadium. The boom in Detroit is also helping, school officials said, with more people wanting to be a part of what is going on in Midtown and the rebirth of Detroit.

The business school also has been out in the workplace, targeting professionals looking to increase their education for their careers, said Kiantee Jones, the director of the school's graduate programs office.

"We're working with a number of corporations, going in for brown-bag lunch sessions or setting up tables for people to get information from," she said.

The school has increased its online offerings and even changed up the length of some classes, offering some that run for 11 weeks and some that run for four weeks.

David Contorer, an MBA student who will finish up this December, has seen the change first hand.

"I have seen more of a commitment from the WSU instructors to bring in real-life Detroit professionals who are WSU MBA alumni as guest lecturers to address the students and challenge us to apply the MBA lessons learned," the 46-year-old Royal Oak resident said in an e-mail to the Free Press. He is the executive director of Hebrew Free Loan, a nonprofit agency.

"Detroit is in an exciting metamorphosis at this time, and WSU is tapping more into the real laboratory of this energy for the benefit of the students. There are also more overseas programs for supply-chain management and other specific MBA areas of specialization, so WSU is exposing Detroit students to best practices in Italy, China, Brazil, Central Europe and other targeted parts of our global stage."

The rise in enrollment, especially among working professionals, has helped the school in terms of what students are learning, Forsythe said. He said it's not uncommon for class discussion on the topic of the day to feature questions and situations the students are facing in their working life.

Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj