The Kellogg School of Management — located at the center of the Evanston campus — isn’t on the academic map for undergraduates.
The powerhouse has outranked every other business school in the country in BusinessWeek’s rankings five times since the survey began in 1988. But undergraduates in the economics or Business Institutions programs can only watch Kellogg’s success from a distance and wonder why a business degree is off-limits to them.
Some administrators argue it’s for their own good. Future business professionals are better off studying liberal arts disciplines at the undergraduate level, they say, and leaving business education for graduate school.
The industry debate about the effectiveness of an undergraduate business education was heightened by the University of Michigan’s recent move to expand their undergraduate business degree. Despite the interest in business at Northwestern, University President Henry Bienen said an undergraduate business degree is unlikely here. Besides, NU already tried having an undergraduate business major — for 61 years.
Undergraduate Interest
The impetus for discontinuing the undergraduate business major in 1969 was a Carnegie and Ford Foundation report on higher education. It concluded the best way to prepare for a business career was to pursue liberal arts as an undergraduate.
Kellogg also decided to refocus efforts to build one of the best graduate schools of management.
Now that Kellogg has positioned itself among the business elites, there is the question of whether resurrecting the undergraduate program would benefit NU.
Despite the educational philosophy of studying liberal arts as an undergraduate, students are still expressing a burgeoning interest in business at the undergraduate level.
There are more than 400 students enrolled in the Business Institutions Program, which is offered as a minor. More than 15 percent of Weinberg students are economics majors, with 663 students declared.
Several organizations exist to promote business at the undergraduate level, such as the Nugget Group, with 600 people on its mailing list.
Nugget president Derek Moeller said NU needs to offer more to students interested in business.
“There is a huge demand here for business,” said Moeller, a Weinberg junior studying economics. “Most economics majors would rather be business majors … they came to NU because they knew it was a good school, but would rather study marketing or finance.”
Some students said the BIP minor didn’t satisfy their thirst for learning about business.
“We don’t take a lot of practical classes that are business-related,” said Tiffanie Wong, a Weinberg sophomore in BIP. “There are some marketing classes, but that is it.”
Moeller said a Kellogg undergraduate program would help NU recruit high school students.
About 10 percent of students taking the PSAT reported an interest in majoring in business and management, according to the College Board’s Summary Report of this year’s high school juniors. Only health sciences and services registered greater interest, at about 17 percent.
At Kellogg, about one in five students has an undergraduate business degree. That’s the second most popular degree, behind engineering and science majors — 44 percent of the class.
“There aren’t many top-tier undergrad programs out there,” Moeller said. “If NU would make the investment, I think it would do the same thing for NU that Wharton has done for (the University of Pennsylvania). In the long term, the school would stand to benefit from the decision.”
Students are trying to find outlets for their business interests through programs that capitalize on Kellogg’s proximity. Nugget will hold its first Undergraduate Business Conference May 14 to address corporate strategy and outsourcing.
Could it Work at NU?
“If the business school wants to entertain a high-quality undergraduate program, in principle, it would be a good thing for Northwestern,” said Ronald Braeutigam, associate dean for undergraduate studies in Weinberg who headed the BIP program for nine years.
Braeutigam said many business programs at top private colleges are not selective and serve a broader market. Hardly any top graduate business programs offer a major at the undergraduate level. He added that NU students have become more interested in learning about business over time, but a highly selective program would not satisfy the mass market demand.
Creating a strong business major would require students to take a rigidly structured curriculum, mostly devoid of a broad liberal arts education, he said.
Students receive a liberal arts-based business education with some business-specific courses such as marketing through BIP, the economics department and some engineering courses.
The Nugget Group successfully lobbied for a financial investments class currently taught by NU Chief Investment Officer William McLean.
Prof. Mark Witte, BIP director, said a broad liberal arts-based curriculum is the best way to prepare for business.
“We would not be serving (students) well by teaching them business,” Witte said. “At (the) undergrad level we are better off teaching broad business skills, such as finance and accounting, things we think are essential for the world. We are trying to make people better thinkers. That was our strategic decision.”
Creating an undergraduate business program would pose many technical difficulties. Witte said Kellogg doesn’t have the capacity to take on undergraduates — it would require additional hiring of business professors, one of the highest-paid fields in higher education. The expensive undertaking, Witte said, would divert money from current programs and hurt both undergraduates and graduates.
Allowing undergraduates to take Kellogg classes would also dilute the Kellogg name in the job market, Witte said.
Bob Korajczyk, senior associate dean for curriculum and teaching at Kellogg, said Kellogg is working to expand the business program internationally, as well as collaborating with other NU schools such as the Feinberg School of Medicine and Medill School of Journalism.
He added that Kellogg professors staff many BIP and economics classes.
President Bienen said he would like Kellogg and other graduate school faculty to teach more undergraduate classes, providing NU students additional resources not available at other schools.
“The advantage of coming to this place rather than a Swarthmore or a Haverford is that you work with research faculty and you also work with professional school faculty that liberal arts colleges don’t have,” Bienen said. “So I’m actually very enthusiastic about having law school and business school and medical school faculty teach undergraduates.”
Business Models
Most top-ranked business schools do not provide undergraduate business programs. According to U.S. News and World Report, other top-10 business schools that do not have undergraduate business programs are Harvard University, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University and the University of Chicago.
Freshman and sophomore undergraduates at the University of Michigan fulfill a general requirement in economics, calculus and writing. They then apply to the business school and take more intensive and specific business courses as upperclassmen.
Starting next year, Michigan will begin admitting undergraduate applications into their business school for the first time in history.
According to Michigan’s admission Web site, “a small group of highly attractive” students will be accepted into the university’s new three-year program that begins their sophomore year. College freshmen also are able to apply to the business school.
Michigan’s move reflects attempts by universities to lure strong students directly into its professional schools, said Witte, the BIP chairman.
Rob Koonce, an academic adviser to undergraduate business students at Michigan, said the move
to a three-year program is an effort to better compete with other undergraduate business schools that admit high school seniors directly. He said the change will help Michigan recruit students who may have opted for Wharton at U. Penn.
What is it good for?
Gina Fechheimer, a first-year Kellogg student who earned her undergraduate degree at Wharton, said she doesn’t think her business education put her ahead of any students studying economics at other top-tier schools.
She said work experience plays a more important role in graduate school admissions and a small difference in undergraduate degrees isn’t the tipping point for MBA acceptance.
“Graduate school is about applying experiences,” said the 27-year-old Fechheimer. “They become more important.”
Mike McNerney is a first-year Kellogg student who graduated from NU in 1999 with a history degree and BIP minor.
He said some undergraduate business majors do well in Kellogg classes because they already have experience in finance and accounting — just as students who took AP statistics are more prepared for the college course. But he said having a broad liberal arts education gave him more advantages in the real world.
“(Studying liberal arts) gave me more flexibility,” said McNerney, 29.
BIP would better prepare students for business if it gave students the chance to pick up more quantitative skills by offering more accounting and finance classes, McNerney said .
Students considering business school should study what they are passionate about before graduate school, But McNerney said students should be sure they can prove to an admissions committee that they can handle the quantitative aspect of business, either by taking economics or statistic classes, or by performing well on the GMAT.
Reach Robert Stein at [email protected].
