The Increased Presence of Foreign Students in Business School

There has been a rise in the number of foreign students who have applied and have been admitted into American Business Schools. According to Graduate Management Admission Council, more than half of prospective MBA students from around the world want to study outside of their home country. The United States is the top country having 66% of foreign student applicants hoping to gain admission to an American institution.58% of the applicant pool at full-time MBA programs in the U.S. were foreign students. The U.S News reported that in the top ranked10 business school, an average of 63% of MBA-seekers are from other countries with an average of 33% among all 126 ranked schools.The University of Rochester has recruited in more than a dozen countries last year, holding events in Buenos Aires, Cairo, Taipei, and Istanbul, among other cities.
Nunzio Quacquarelli, chief executive officer of Quacquarelli Symonds in London, which helps business schools recruit abroad, says international students make up more than 35 % of the class at over 50 Business schools in the United States. He added that foreign students are providing vital tuition revenue and compensating for any decline in domestic revenue.
According to a survey of 265 B-schools by AACSB International (an accrediting group), enrollment in U.S. MBA programs is down 11%. Tom Robinson, AACSB's president and CEO says that this is due to the fact that most individuals are shifting from MBAs to specialty masters in areas such as marketing and nonprofit management. Roger Martin, former leader of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management for 15 years, predicts that half of business schools in the U.S may not be operating in 10 to 15 years. This problem can be countered with the increase in foreign students.
Most of these foreign students however would prefer working in the United States as their degree is worth the salary in the United States as compared to a developing country. However, Fabio Bergamo, a Brazilian who graduated from Columbia Business School, says that getting permission to work in the U.S. has been a "disappointing" struggle. This is mainly due to the H-1B Visa Cap which reduces your chances of getting working visa in the U.S.
The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) stated that 28% of the employers who plan to hire MBAs in the U.S expect to hire international candidates and 25% say they have no objections to foreign hires. However, 47% of companies hiring MBA graduates flatly said that they cannot hire foreign graduates.
Prodigy Finance, the London-based lender that financed Bergamo's degree, says international MBA seekers in the United States have become a very important part of its business. As expanded into the U.S. in 2014, pilot-testing loans at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and Columbia Business School, it loaned about $100 million in total of which half was to foreign students at about 45 top-ranked U.S. business schools. He also stated that there has been a huge growth in the U.S as International students are critical to MBA programs.