Women worldwide face financial hurdles to study MBA

Women worldwide fail to pursue MBA dreams due to financial constraints: Study

On the academic floor, the MBA programme has always been supreme, attracting more men than women. But little is known about the skewed sex ratio in this course that allows learners a chance to pick the crucial tools of management.
A white paper from US based Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which conducts GMAT, has revealed that one in every three women around the world does not choose MBA due to financial constraints.

The bleak observation came on International Women's Day . “Women have made phenomenal progress in attaining business master's de grees, yet they have not caught up with men in the share of MBAs earned,“ said Sangeet Chowfla, president and CEO, GMAC.

“Our extensive global segmentation research and market intelligence looked at several important underlying factors that contribute to this growing participation of women in business master's and lack of parity in MBAs, with financial concerns being the number one issue cited by female applicants.“

Seeking scholarships and financial aid are on top of women's mind.

Little wonder then than the MBA programme sees more men in classrooms around the world. Men (33%) cited that they were waiting for an offer from additional schools as their reason for delaying acceptance. The greatest gender difference on this issue was seen in the US. More than a third (38%) of women survey respondents cited financial issues as their number one reason for not accepting admissions offer compared to 20% of male respondents.

Yet, obtaining funds to pay for schools is a bigger challenge for men than for women in both India (8% women vs 14% men) and China (9% vs 11%), according to the study . Indian are the likeliest to rely on funding from their parents to pay for their degree; 53% of Indian men and 48% of Indian women stated that they intend to rely on their parents to pay for their degree.In the US, on the other hand, only 25% of women and 33% of men intend to use funding from their parents.

Globally , women represent a greater share of the applicant pool than men in many of the business master's programmes.

Sangeet Chowfla said, “The insights (from the study) clearly reveal that women are distinct from men in what they are seeking from their business education experience, and their behaviors differ between countries and behavior types.“