Ninety percent of all students who earned an MBA in 2013 are employed, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council. Even more telling: 74 percent say they could not have gotten their current jobs without an MBA degree.
To make that possible for more working adults, Penn State’s online iMBA program, which is administered by Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is now offering merit-based scholarships. Ten students will receive funding this year. Each will get between $4,000 and $10,000 per semester.
“iMBA scholarships will allow us to attract and retain highly qualified applicants,” said Ashutosh Deshmukh, iMBA program chair and professor of accounting and management information systems at Penn State Behrend. “These scholarships make us more competitive and broaden the appeal of the iMBA program.”
The iMBA is a collaboration of Penn State Behrend, Penn State Harrisburg, the Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies and the Smeal College of Business. Those units and Penn State’s World Campus, which delivers the course material, are pooling funds to provide the scholarships.
iMBA students will be selected for scholarships based on the strength of their application portfolio by the iMBA program office and the Academic Steering Committee, which Deshmukh leads.
Most iMBA students are mid-level managers working in business. Groups of students proceed through the two-year program together; they participate as a group in a company residency, where students prepare a deep analysis that is made available to the company at no cost. They also attend a large-scale business simulation at Penn State’s University Park campus.
The iMBA is AACSB accredited and highly ranked among U.S. online MBA programs. Nearly 700 students have completed the program since it opened in 2002.
