Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/80527
tracks them on a "Global Debt Clock" (see www.economist.com/ content/global_debt_clock). These include the United States, Canada, South Korea, France, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, and Israel. Of GMAT's top ten countries, only China and India are considered to have low debt levels. If business schools want to keep tuition levels high during this time of widespread indebtedness and shrinking third-party financing, they will have to create innovative financing schemes. At the same time, they will have to compete with more affordable forms of manage- ment education, such as the myriads of online offerings that have sprung up in the past decade. Therefore, business schools will need to devote considerable time to thinking about how—and how much—students will pay for a business education in the coming years. Emerging Markets A defining feature of the early 21st century is the progressive shift of economic power from North to South and from West to East, and the global financial crisis has vastly accelerated the trend. Emerging markets generally have weathered the recent storms much better, and their young and expanding popula- tions ensure that their weight in the world economy will only grow. These nations already have made remarkable gains. The Economist estimates that develop- ing countries and emerging mar- kets, which until 1999 accounted for barely more than 30 percent of world imports, now surpass developed countries in this cat- egory (www.economist.com/blogs/ dailychart/2011/12/world-trade). China, which is the world's second largest economy, will become No. 1 before the end of the decade, and India is expected to relegate the U.S. to third place by 2050. By 2030, when today's MBA graduates should reach the zenith of their influence, the combined GDP of Brazil, Russia, India, and China will be greater than that of the G-7. That club of rich Western econo- mies plus Japan has dominated the global economy since the great-great grandparents of our current students graduated—but that will change. Most business schools remain ill-prepared for this tectonic shift. Few of our classrooms adequately reflect the growing economic clout of emerging markets. Sure, in many U.S. and European schools, Chi- nese and Indian students are well represented—but they are heav- ily outnumbered by their Western counterparts. And few Western classrooms are acclimated for the participation of students from other dynamic markets such as Ghana, Turkey, Vietnam, and Colombia. But Western schools aren't the only ones needing to adapt. While there are outstanding business schools in Mexico, Brazil, India, and China, most have failed to attract students from around the world. As more students from emerg- ing economies enroll in business courses, schools will have to respond with three key strategies: More alliances. Collaboration among schools is the best way to ensure students from developed and emerging nations are exposed to each others' economies. For instance, the Global Network for Advanced Management (advancedmanage ment.net), which was initiated by the Yale School of Management, brings together 21 leading business schools from developed and emerg- ing markets. Similarly, the Global Business School Network (www. gbsnonline.org) creates networking and capacity-building opportunities for member schools in Western and developing nations. Shorter and more part-time pro- grams. The two-year full-time MBA model is rapidly losing appeal, as Rebecca Knight observes in a Feb- BizEd September/October 2012 21