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The Changing Face of EMBAs

More corporate up-and-comers are paying for executive MBA programs out of their own pockets these days. The expected reward: promotions and higher salaries down the road.
By Kerry Curry |
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It had been about 10 years since Travis Mathews was a fulltime college student. But here he was in his 30s, face down in a textbook, surrounded by other 30-somethings all doing the same thing.


His Executive MBA study group was an eclectic coterie: a human resources executive, a manager of a global manufacturing company, a commercial real estate broker, a restaurant designer and owner, and Mathews, a former real estate agent who was now COO of Dallas residential brokerage Allie Beth Allman & Associates. Mathews and his study-group members graduated in the spring of 2015 from Southern Methodist University’s executive MBA program. “I couldn’t have done it without the help of my study group,” he says. “We had some nights that we were up until 3 or 4 in the morning.”


Mathews and his group aren’t alone, by any means. Five Dallas-Fort Worth universities offer an executive MBA program—a rigorous and expensive advanced degree designed for working professionals. Area schools offering so-called EMBAs are Southern Methodist University, Baylor University-Dallas, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Texas Christian University. Executive MBAs have been around since 1943, when they were introduced at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The concept of arranging course work around full-time workers’ schedules was touted as a way for time-stressed professionals to accelerate their movement up the career ladder and prepare them for the C-suite. 


“I had been working on the management side for awhile, and I was encountering things that I wish I knew more about.”

Travis Mathews, Allie Beth Allman & Associates
EMBAs proliferated in the 1990s and 2000s, and now there are hundreds of programs. The Executive MBA Council, which formed in 1981, has 230 business schools worldwide as members that gather periodically to share best practices and industry data.


“The EMBA industry is becoming more mature and more global,” says Michael Desiderio, executive director of the council.


At the time of enrollment, EMBA students, on average, are 37 years old, have 14 years of work experience, and are working full time—often in middle- or upper-management positions. 


Mathews says he saw a need to beef up his business knowledge with exposure to things he didn’t get while obtaining his bachelor’s degree in journalism: accounting, financial forecasting, statistical modeling, and organizational behavior, among them. “I had been working on the management side for a while, and I was encountering things that I wish I knew more about,” he says.


How It Works


Because of the unique needs of professional students, EMBA programs typically hold classes on Fridays and Saturdays, two weekends per month, over a 15- to 24-month period, while students continue working full time. The programs cost roughly the same as a traditional MBA. In Dallas-Fort Worth, that means between $74,500 and $120,000. 


The class schedule and and compressed time commitment appeals to working professionals such as Jack Thompson.


“I was running my own company, and I didn’t want to spend more time than necessary going through the courses,” says Thompson, 46, a principal of Orasi, a Fort Worth economic-development consultancy that represents municipalities. Thompson graduated with a University of Texas at Arlington EMBA in December 2009.


UTA offers the shortest program available in DFW: 15 months. North Texas universities also tout their small class sizes—many around 20 to 40 students—and the opportunities for students to network and collaborate with one another. 


Universities offering EMBAs also use perks to attract busy executives. It’s not uncommon for the schools to provide concierge services such as ordering all the books and materials needed for the classes. Others offer additional incentives such as an executive coach or a mentor.


Putting the Brakes on Tuition


Today, 41 percent of global EMBA students pay their own way, according to the EMBA council. That’s in stark contrast to the early days, when universities started EMBA programs based on the premise that employers would fully sponsor their employees. 


“Since 2008, very few people are getting tapped on the shoulder and told, ‘We want to send you to an MBA program,’” says JL Radford-Williard, director of the University of Baylor-Dallas program, which meets at the Cooper Aerobics Center and graduated its first Dallas class in 1995. 


“It used to be that a quarter of the students had really good company support,” she says, but companies have since trimmed back the amount of tuition reimbursement they offer.


A variety of factors have affected these reimbursements. For one, employers don’t have the training/education budgets they’ve had in the past. For another, employers want employees “to have skin in the game,” the EMBA council’s Desiderio says. Employees move around more than they have in the past, so a company might reimburse for expensive tuition only to see the employee jump ship once he or she graduates. 


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Full-time employees at Children’s Health today are capped at $5,250 a year in centralized tuition reimbursements. A $3,000 ceiling was originally put into place in 2012, says Stephanie Speights, Children’s vice president and chief learning officer. Prior to 2012, Children’s had no established cap on tuition reimbursements, which were discretionary. 


Changes were based on market research and industry benchmarks, Speights says. The healthcare company also added in prorated clawback provisions if the employee leaves within a year of earning his or her degree. If that happens, the employee’s last paycheck could be garnished, Speights says.


“We want to be very competitive, and we want it to reflect our commitment to continuous education and employee development,” she says. “When people pursue a formal education and professional certifications, that benefits us in the long run, so it is a benefit we are happy to provide.”


Dr. Suzanne Carter, executive director of the Neeley EMBA program and professor of professional practice strategy at TCU, says about 55 percent of TCU’s EMBA students were fully sponsored by their companies when TCU’s program was initiated in 2000. Today, it’s more like 31 percent. Nationally, full employer sponsorship has not exceeded 32 percent since peaking with the class that enrolled in Fall 2013.


International Studies and Electives


All DFW programs include a global studies element during the second year that usually involves a one- or two-week trip abroad to one or more countries. Mathews and his SMU colleagues, for example, went to Santiago, Chile, and Lima, Peru. The class visited local businesses and did group projects related to starting a business in one of the countries or forming a business relationship.


Dr. David A. Mack, associate dean for communications and executive education at UTA, touts the school’s special comprehensive relationship with China, to which it returns every year. The school has offered an EMBA in China for 14 years, longer than it’s had its domestic program, which is 10 years old.


“We have a tremendously strong relationship with China because we have a huge EMBA program in China,” Mack says. “This gives us a really strong connection with business and government entities over there.”


Other programs change up the global trip each year. This year, the TCU class will go to Casablanca, Morocco, as well as to Barcelona, Spain, and Athens, Greece. 


“The cultural aspects of being in a country that is very different from the U.S. will be invaluable,” TCU’s Carter says.


The Big Payoff


So, is it worth it? The average total compensation of someone entering an EMBA program is $160,000, says Tom Perkowski, assistant dean of the SMU EMBA program. Students will want to consider costs and return on investment, he says. Colleges have some difficulty determining the ROI, as it’s affected by numerous factors including tuition reimbursements and tracking students’ whereabouts after they graduate.


“When people pursue a formal education and professional certifications, that benefits us in the long run, so it is a benefit we are happy to provide.”

Stephanie Speights, Children’s Health
Amber Roy said she received a promotion just four months into her EMBA program at Baylor-Dallas from her former employer, Bank of America, which reimbursed her about $16,000 for the degree. She graduated with her EMBA in May 2014. One year later, Roy left BofA to become senior vice president over national operations at Caliber Home Loans, where she said her salary, combined with bonuses, is about 80 percent higher than at her previous position.


Mary Beth Martin, who graduated from UTD’s program in 2011, had her EMBA fully funded. Three semesters were paid for by Children’s Medical Center Dallas, and her last semester was paid by her new employer, Children’s Colorado, which she joined one month shy of finishing her EMBA. Martin now is executive director of the Colorado Institute for Maternal and Fetal Health—a position that pays 68 percent more. She commuted from Denver back to Dallas to complete her EMBA degree. 


Martin liked the executive coach she had in the EMBA program so well that she continued to call on her for an additional two years while at her new job. “She came and talked to the people I worked with and for and did personal interviews to learn what I needed to do to be successful,” Martin says.


Making a Commitment


Pamela Foster Brady, director of executive MBA programs at the University of Texas at Dallas, says EMBA programs will continue to evolve to meet the needs of today’s executives.


Programs aren’t just about accounting and finance anymore, she says. UTD, for example, tailors the EMBA experience to each student by offering two electives, plus one-on-one executive coaching. It also is the only DFW program to offer a global leadership EMBA for executives wanting to expand their international business acumen. 


Executives who are considering pursuing an EMBA should be warned they aren’t for the faint of heart, says Desiderio of the EMBA council. “These are high-quality rigorous programs that shouldn’t be undertaken lightly,” he says. “This is not a rubber-stamp degree. People are going to have to work hard; it’s a master’s in business.”


Mathews, who put in 20 to 25 hours every week during his 21 months of EMBA study at SMU, says he doesn’t regret the time commitment or the cost, which he self-financed.


“I’ve told a lot of people, if I had the decision to make again,” he says, “I’d still do it all over again.”  

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