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well, you know it's something to Student Statistics Analysis of hundreds of student satisfaction surveys yields an interesting array of facts about today's business school students, their study habits in school, and their salaries after graduation. Some of the latest numbers from another survey from AACSB International and Educational Benchmarking Inc. indicate that: ■ In undergraduate business programs, 50 percent of men and 42 percent of women study ten or fewer hours per week. investigate." undergraduate programs, the school made three other key changes. It replaced half its faculty as professors retired or took positions elsewhere; introduced systems to help adjuncts achieve greater consistency in teaching multiple-section courses; and placed more emphasis on research, while main- taining the teaching emphasis of the university. Steadily rising student satisfaction scores have been among the results of these changes. Says Gore, "The scores are not what set us on the road to change. But the scores confirmed that we were going in the right direction." Similarly, Dennis Hanno, director of undergraduate stu- ■ Forty-five percent of those who do not work an outside job study fewer than ten hours per week. That figure rises to 52 percent for students who work more than 40 hours a week. ■ Nineteen percent of accounting majors study more than 20 hours per week. Only 11 percent of marketing majors study for that many hours. ■ Twenty-three percent of those with a GPA of 3.75 or higher study more than 20 hours per week. Of students with a GPA of 2.25 or lower, only eight percent study more than 20 hours per week. ■ Sixteen percent of undergraduate business alumni earn more than $70,000 per year. Seven percent earn more than $90,000. ■ Sixty-three percent of alumni from part-time programs report earning more than $70,000 per year. Thirty-nine percent report earning more than $90,000. ■ Sixty-six percent of full-time MBA alumni report earning more than $70,000 per year. Forty-three percent earn more than $90,000. ■ Fifty-six percent of first-year full-time MBA students expect to receive $80,000 per year or more upon graduation. In fact, only 35 percent of MBA graduates in 2001 actually did receive $80,000 or more per year upon graduation. ■ Eleven percent of alumni who were undergraduates report that they donate annually to their business school. Twelve percent of alumni who were part-time MBA students and 23 percent of alumni who were full- time MBA students report that they donate annually to their business school. dents at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, observes, "Student satisfaction is not the only measure. But it can cer- tainly tell us where to look." If the feedback from the survey reflects problems with one area of instruction, for example, UMA administrators can look into the teaching in a course or discipline. "When your students are rating the instruction in one discipline low relative to the instruction in other disci- plines at your college, low in comparison to other schools you are benchmarking against, and low in comparison to all schools participating in a survey—well, you know it's some- thing to investigate." Once they corrected such a problem, student satisfaction and learning improved. "We also use student feedback to monitor the delivery of student services," says Hanno. "Although our student satis- faction with placement was acceptable across the college, in one area the levels were significantly lower. We investigated that further, and brainstormed solutions. Now we offer addi- tional internship opportunities to students in that major. Our scores have improved, along with student field experiences." Point of Reference The trend toward studying satisfaction is clearly growing, and this is true not only in management education programs, but in other professional programs such as engineering, nurs- ing, and education. Furthermore, with each year, schools become more confident in using the information they receive as a way to help manage change and strive for con- tinuous improvement. Knowledge is power; and power can be used to improve z and to strengthen a program's position, in itself and vis-à-vis its competition. Like any business, business schools need to deliver value. One measure of that value is the feedback from a major stakeholder group—students. ■ Scott Buechler is Management Education Project Manager for Educational Benchmarking Inc. Darlena Jones is head of Research and Development at Educational Benchmarking Inc. BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 55