Annual AACSB Data Tracks Changes in Business Program Offerings

One of the data points that AACSB International monitors annually is related to the landscape of degree programs offered by field/discipline. By controlling for a set of schools that have participated in specific years of the annual Business School Questionnaire (BSQ), the changing demand for programs in different disciplines can be explored. Over a period of time, this data is tracked to determine if there is an overall shift in the proportion of programs or smaller annual changes in the establishment and removal of specific degrees by discipline. Within the following tables, a controlled set of 277 institutions that participated in the BSQ from 2005–06 to 2008–09 have been used to examine any potential trends.

As individual disciplines are compared to their respective number of programs, it can be observed that there has been growth in some areas while others have declined. The largest decline in the programs offered has been in e-business/e-commerce, with a 40% decrease (30 fewer programs offered by the controlled set of schools in 2008–09 than in 2005– 06). During the same period, there was a 4% increase in the total number of programs offered within the controlled set of schools (from 5,772 to 6,004).

Figure 1. Largest Percent Changes per Discipline of Programs Offered
DataDirect: BSQ Data 2005–06, 2008–09, 277 Institutions

The hotel/restaurant/tourism discipline displayed the largest percentage increase in the number of programs offered between 2005–06 and 2008–09, with a 20% increase from 39 to 47. However, the discipline continues to remain under 1% of the total number of programs offered in 2008–09. Looking at the number of programs, versus percentages, the largest growth has been seen in general business (70 new programs) and management (52 new programs).

Figure 2. Numeric Changes per Discipline
DataDirect: BSQ Data 2005–06, 2008–09, 277 Institutions

While there have been changes in both the number and percentage of programs offered by discipline, the total proportions of programs offered in each discipline as compared to the total number of programs offered has remained consistent during the last four years. Therefore, no discipline has increased its share of total programs at all levels by more than 0.8% and none has lost more than 0.5% overall. However, this does not indicate that there has not been interesting movement in the programs offered, but is a clear sign that each field/discipline is maintaining a solid market share. The most commonly offered degree programs continue to be general business (13%), accounting (12%), management (10%), finance (10%), and marketing (9%).

To learn more about how to access AACSB data, visit DataDirect: www.aacsb.edu/datadirect. The database is available to AACSB members with enhanced access through subscriptions.