Although leading US business schools appear to have weathered the recession, there are real question marks about the sustainability of less prestigious US institutions, particularly those that are state-funded.
Most leading business schools saw the value of their endowment funds fall sharply during the stock market decline in 2008. Among US schools that have featured in the Financial Times Global MBA rankings since 2008*, endowment funds – savings held in perpetuity which are invested to gain returns – fell by an average of 24 per cent between 2008 and 2010.
For wealthy schools that depend upon endowment returns to cover a large share of their spending, this has come as a shock.