CHINESE CHALLENGE ROCKS RATINGS 
 
When the Financial Times published its first global rankings in 1999 there was uproar in the popular American online MBA forums that a European business school – London Business School – ranked at number eight.

Among abuse posted was the suggestion the editor of Business Education was “a coke-head”.

Three years later, comments were more tempered.

In 2001 two European schools – London Business School and Insead – were in the top 10, but that no longer bothered the aspiring US MBA population. “So what?” noted one forum participant. “Everybody knows that.”

This rapid change of view among American MBA students bore out their growing realisation that a handful of world-class business schools in Europe could compete with the big brand-name US schools.

But these days European schools are facing a similar challenge from business schools in other regions.

The 1999 Financial Times rankings of 50 global business schools included 31 schools from the US and 16 from Europe. In this years ranking just 57 of the top 100 schools are still in the US but, more significantly, only 28 are in Europe.

While schools such as LBS and Insead have retained their star ratings, lesser European schools have fallen victim to a growing number of ever-improving Asian, South American and Australian schools.

This year sees three Chinese schools and one Indian one in the rankings.

Last year when Ceibs, the China-European business school based in Shanghai, jumped 10 places to number 11, the outrage sounded similar to that expressed by those US students back in the early days of FT rankings.

The main complaint was that a school with such a short history could not possibly be so highly ranked.

But this year, the top 20 schools include four programmes that barely existed, if at all, a decade ago.

These are the one-year MBAs at the University of Cambridges Judge Business School and the Sa?d school at the University of Oxford, and Ceibs and the Indian School of Business, in Hyderabad. This year Ceibs consolidated its number 11 position.

This suggests that with appropriate support and branding, the time it takes to set up a world-class business school is not the decades many academics would like to believe.

It also proves you need one of two things to to make it to the top.

The first is a strong university brand such as Oxford or Cambridge. Two other elite universities hoping to pull off the same trick are Hong Kong University – which has barely started its MBA programme but already has alliances with London Business School and Columbia in New York – and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, which boasts a world-famous medical school.

The second is a strong programme in a region of the world where there is a shortage of highly-trained managers, such as China or India.

Ceibs, for example, graduates close to 200 full-time MBA students a year, almost all of whom are fluent in both English and Chinese.

For corporations, banks and consultancies hoping to do business in China, this is a winning package – hence the high salaries they are prepared to pay to recruit and retain these talented individuals.

The Skolkovo school in Moscow will be hoping for similar recognition.

Perhaps the other most significant trend to emerge over the past decade relates is the regional variation in the salaries paid to alumni three years after graduation.

In 1999, the highest salaries were commanded by alumni from the top US schools, with Harvard topping the list.

The difference between the top US salary – Harvard at more than $170,000 – and the top European salary – IMD with just under $130,000 – was 30 per cent.

Today the top US salaries are earned by Stanford graduates, with more than $175,000.

This is just 19 per cent more than the top European salaries earned by graduates from Insead and IMD.

Moreover, alumni surveyed from the six European schools ranked in the top 20 in both 1999 and 2008, earn 28.5 per cent more on average than their peers who responded for the 1999 ranking.

Comparing the data for the nine US schools who, again, appeared in all 10 years of rankings, shows that alumni there had seen a comparative increase of just 13.7 per cent.

Moreover, Harvard alumni have seen a decrease in salaries. Those who graduated in 1995 (and responded to the FT 1999 survey) earned an average $170,346 three years after graduation, but those responding today earn just $163,493 three years after graduation. Harvard is the only top 20 school to see this decrease.

It is also notable that the salary premium an MBA graduate can attract is dropping.

In 1999, alumni from three of the top 20 schools reported their salaries three years after graduation were more than three times what they had earned before the programme.

Alumni of only five of the top 20 schools 10 years ago reported salary increases less than 158 per cent – the highest salary increase reported in the 2008 report.

And that was reported by a European school.

中国挑战全球商学院排名 
 
1999年，英国《金融时报》公布了其首份全球商学院排名，引起了美国热门MBA在线论坛的一片哗然：一家欧洲的商学院——伦敦商学院(LBS)，居然名列第八。

在一片谩骂声中，还有人提出，“商学院”栏目的编辑“吸过粉（可卡因）”。

三年之后，各方的评价温和多了。

2001年，前10名当中有两所欧洲学院：伦敦商学院和欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)，不过这已经不会让那些满怀抱负的美国MBA人士感到烦心了。一位论坛参与者提到：“那又怎么样？谁不知道啊。”

美国MBA学生观点的急速变化，表明他们日益意识到，欧洲有一些世界一流的商学院，它们可以与美国的大牌美国商学院一争长短 。

但现在，欧洲的商学院正同样面临来自世界其他地区的挑战。

1999年，在英国《金融时报》排名前50位的全球商学院中，有31所美国学院和16所欧洲学院。在今年排名前100位的商学院中，只有57家仍位于美国。但更为引人注目的是，只有28家在欧洲。

虽然伦敦商学院和欧洲工商管理学院等再次获得星级排名，但面对亚洲、南美洲和澳大利亚的商学院水平日益提高、数量不断增加，实力较弱的欧洲商学院已沦为牺牲品。

今年还有3家中国商学院和1家印度商学院进入了排行榜。

去年，当总部位于上海的中欧国际工商学院(Ceibs)往前跃进10名到第11位时，所引起的激愤听起来就像英国《金融时报》排行榜刚推出时美国学生的反应一样。

人们的主要抱怨是：一家历史如此之短的学院不可能排名这么高。

但是今年，在排名前20位的商学院中，有4门课程在10年几乎根本就不存在。

它们是剑桥大学(University of Cambridge)佳奇管理学院(Judge Business School)、牛津大学(University of Oxford)萨伊德商学院(Sa?d Business School)、中欧国际工商学院和位于海得拉巴的印度商学院(Indian School of Business)设立的一年期MBA课程。中欧国际工商学院今年巩固了第11位的排名。

这意味着，有了适当的支持和品牌效应，建立一家世界级商学院，也并不像许多学院派人士认为的那样，需要花费数十年的时间。

这件事还证明，要名列榜首，你需要以下两样东西中的至少一样。

第一样，是一块赫赫有名的大学品牌，例如牛津或剑桥。另外两家可能起到同样效果的精英大学是香港大学(Hong Kong University)和马里兰州的约翰斯-霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins University)。香港大学的MBA课程刚设立不久，但已经与伦敦商学院和纽约的哥伦比亚大学(Columbia)结盟。约翰斯-霍普金斯大学的医学院享誉世界。

第二样，是在中国和印度等缺乏训练有素的经理人的地区，设立高品质课程。

例如，中欧国际工商学院每年有近200名全日制MBA学员毕业，他们几乎所有人都能熟练运用英语和汉语。

对于希望到中国做生意的公司、银行和咨询机构，这批人才的综合能力很吸引人——因此，它们准备支付高薪，招募或是留住这些商业才俊。

莫斯科的斯科尔科沃(Skolkovo)管理学院也希望获得同样的认可。

过去10年出现的另一个最重要趋势也许是，学生毕业三年后所得薪酬的地区差别。

1999年，最高薪酬由美国顶级商学院的校友获得，哈佛(Harvard)商学院高居榜首。

当时，美国与欧洲最高薪酬的差别为30%——哈佛校友的年薪超过17万美元；瑞士洛桑国际管理发展学院(IMD)校友的年薪略低于13万美元。

如今，美国的最高薪酬由斯坦福(Standford)毕业生获得，数额超过17.5万美元。

这只比欧洲工商管理学院和瑞士洛桑国际管理发展学院毕业生获得的欧洲最高薪酬多出19% 。

此外，对1999年和2008年都排在前20位的6家欧洲商学院毕业生的调查显示，他们的收入比接受采访的1999年同校毕业生平均高出28.5%。

将该数据与10年里一直上榜的9家美国商学院相比可以看出，美国校友薪酬的相对增幅只有13.7%。

不仅如此，哈佛校友的薪酬还有所降低。1995年的毕业生（并且接受了英国《金融时报》1999年的调查）毕业三年后的平均收入为170346美元，但如今的受访者毕业三年的收入仅为163493美元。哈佛是排名前20位商学院里唯一薪酬下跌的学校。

同样值得注意的是，MBA毕业生所能获得的薪酬升水也在下降。

1999年时，前20名商学院中有3家学校的校友宣称，自己毕业三年后的薪酬是学习MBA课程前的3倍多。

10年前，在前20名商学院中，仅有5家商学院的校友称其加薪幅度低于158%——这是2008年报告中的最高加薪幅度，而这个数字来自一家欧洲商学院。（编辑：HD）