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 Business News | August 2005 
2-for-1 Degrees Appeal to Executives in Mexico
 Chris Hawley - Arizona Republic
Mexico City - Sadot Zúñiga is a budding Berlitz, the manager of a chain of Mexican language schools with its sights set on the Phoenix market.
So when Zúñiga decided to go back to school for his master's degree in business administration this year, Arizona State University seemed a natural choice. But if he is accepted by ASU, Zúñiga won't be going to the university's Tempe campus anytime soon.
Instead, he'll stay in Mexico City, earning his MBA on weekends for two-thirds the price that U.S. executives pay for the same program. ASU will fly professors to him. And when he graduates, he'll have two degrees: one from ASU and another from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, one of Latin America's top business schools.
It's part of a new trend in the highly competitive world of business schools, as U.S. universities join with schools in Mexico to offer two-for-one MBAs to Mexican executives, often at discount prices aimed at the Mexican budget. One school even throws in catered lunches and a trip to Europe as part of the deal.
Thunderbird, the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina, Texas Christian University and the University of South Carolina all have launched joint degree programs in recent years. The University of Arizona does not have one.
"It was the double-degree aspect that most attracted me," said Zúñiga, whose company, Quick Learning, is opening a school in Phoenix next year. "It's very important for us to have a global perception of business and not just a national one."
Some of the U.S. universities already have similar programs in other countries. ASU, for example, offers an executive MBA in China. But the schools say Mexico is a natural place to expand, as American companies move their production south and the two economies become connected ever more tightly.
"There's a tremendous desire to have a U.S. education, but these people need to keep their jobs and can't be coming up to the United States to go to school," said Bert Valencia, executive director of the joint degree program at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management.
The schools say everyone benefits.
Mexican schools get a powerful lure for attracting students, while U.S. universities get an international presence and brownie points in the all-important rankings compiled by business magazines.
"It's bragging rights," said Thomas Madden, head of the University of South Carolina's program. "It makes it easier to say you're interested in international business when you've got international sites."
ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business started its executive MBA program in Mexico last year with 26 students. Students pay $39,500 for the two-year program, compared with $63,000 for the same program in Arizona, according to José Méndez, director of the program. The price includes two weeklong trips to the Tempe campus.
Half of the classes are taught in Spanish by professors at ITAM, as the Mexican institute is known. The rest are taught in English by ASU professors flown in on weekends.
The Mexican price is lower because the use of Mexican professors lowers the cost of staffing, Méndez said. The university also is trying to set a tuition that Mexicans can afford.
"We could charge the same thing as in Arizona, but then we wouldn't be pricing it for the Mexican market," Méndez said. "We would have no students."
ASU and ITAM have bought full-page ads in Mexican newspapers to recruit students. In May, ASU sent down its Nobel Prize-winning economist, Edward Prescott, to help drum up interest.
At an information session recently at ITAM, Zúñiga and other curious executives listened intently as a recruiter described the program.
Thunderbird uses a different system than the other universities. Instead of flying in professors, it employs satellites to beam lectures to Tec de Monterrey and other universities across Latin America, a method that allows bigger classes and saves on travel costs, Valencia said.
Thunderbird's global MBA for Latin American managers costs $34,800, while the equivalent degree at its Glendale campus is more than $60,000, he said.
Like ASU's program, the tuition includes two weeklong trips to Arizona. The graduation ceremony in Glendale is broadcast on the Internet, so family members in Latin America can tune in.
The program started in 1998 and has graduated 716 students, most of them in Mexico, Valencia said. This year, it is expanding to Bogota, Colombia, and San Jose, Costa Rica.
The Thunderbird program is even attracting American expatriates living in Mexico, Valencia said.
"These students are career climbers," Valencia said. "They're looking for a marquee brand name in a school."
The McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas was one of the first schools to found a "fly-in" program in 1996.
UT charges $47,000 for its Executive MBA at the Mexico City campus of Tec de Monterrey, the country's most prestigious college. The same program in Texas costs $59,400 for state residents and $79,400 for non-residents.
The University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business started its program last year at Tec de Monterrey's campus in Guadalajara. The first class had 16 students, and the university is hoping to have 30 this year.
The $39,000 cost includes books, lunches, two trips to South Carolina and a weeklong field trip to Vienna and Bratislava in the Slovak Republic to study European business practices. Class materials are hand-delivered to students' offices.
The University of North Carolina and Texas Christian University also have started double degree programs in the past year, but they are aimed at full-time business students rather than executives.
UNC launched its first MBA class in January at Tec de Monterrey's main campus in northern Mexico, while Texas Christian has started a masters of international management program with the University of the Americas in Puebla, 60 miles east of Mexico City.
The surge in new programs is bringing the dream of a U.S. education to people who could never have one otherwise, Mexican executives say.
"You have your family, your friends and your background here, and if you go to Arizona you would have to rearrange so many things," Fernando Martin Eissa, an actuary at an insurance company, said as he waited to talk to an ITAM recruiter about the ASU program.
"This way, you can stay in Mexico and continue your level of living," he said. "For us, it's a really good investment." |
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