AI and Diversity Are Important to Prospective Business Master’s Students: Survey

Prospective business master’s students largely want to see content covering diversity and equality in their curriculum, reflecting a broader trend across graduate business education.

The 2024 Tomorrow’s Masters report from the United Kingdom-based consulting firm CarringtonCrisp found that content covering diversity is critical for many prospective master’s students.

A vast majority of prospective students indicated that content covering diversity and equality was important, according to the report. A plurality, 46%, even indicated it was “extremely important.”

CarringtonCrisp surveyed a wide range of prospective students as part of the report: 1,596 people responded from 28 countries. Most respondents were between the ages of 19 and 25, with 46% identifying as male and 53% identifying as female.

The finding that prospective business students consider diversity a core topic in their graduate education mirrors other recent reports.

A Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) report from earlier this year found that prospective students were interested in diversity content, and many wouldn’t consider attending a program that didn’t feature instruction in that area.

CarringtonCrisp also found a high interest in diversity in its 2024 Tomorrow’s MBA report. That report focuses entirely on prospective master of business administration (MBA) students, and 82% of respondents to the 2024 edition said they were interested in embedded diversity, equity, and inclusion content within an MBA program.

“There is an element of employer demand here,” CarringtonCrisp co-founder Andrew Crisp told BestColleges in a previous interview.

“Employers are reacting to these issues in society and say: If we’re going to maintain the strong customer relationships we have, we have to understand our customers and where they are and the issues that are important to them. And, therefore, we need people who can come into our business with an understanding of these issues.”

Another broader trend in graduate business education is reflected in the Tomorrow’s Masters report: A rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) instruction.

Business schools have overwhelmingly adopted AI into their curricula in recent months.

The American University Kogod School of Business announced it would infuse AI throughout its curriculum. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania launched major investments to boost AI instruction and research. Arizona State University rolled out several graduate and undergraduate AI business degrees.

That embrace of AI reflects student demand. The 2024 GMAC Prospective Students Survey found that candidate demand for AI grew 38% year over year.

Six out of 10 respondents in the new CarringtonCrisp Tomorrow’s Masters report agreed that they expect AI-generated content to be used in their degree, and 59% expect to use AI tools like ChatGPT to finish projects.

AI is also changing student expectations about their study.

Sixty-two percent said they think AI is making exams redundant and new forms of assessment should be developed. And 61% said that using AI in their studies shouldn’t be considered cheating, but rather reflects its use in the business world.

That embrace of AI also reflects BestColleges’ previous findings. A 2023 BestColleges survey of 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students found that a majority said they had used AI, although many also considered its use to be cheating.

AI took the top spot for student interest in both the 2023 and 2024 CarringtonCrisp Tomorrow’s MBA reports.

A growing number of business schools are adopting online MBAs and other graduate business degrees — but many students still want to learn in person.

In-person learning remains the top priority for students: A plurality of surveyed prospective students, 44%, said they want full-time, on-campus learning. A further 20% said they wanted part-time, on-campus learning.

Those numbers are down slightly: 47% of prospective students said in last year’s report that they want full-time, on-campus learning, and 24% said they wanted part-time, in-person learning.

Twenty-three percent said they want a mix of face-to-face and remote study. That’s up from 15% in last year’s report. And just 10% in this year’s survey wanted full online learning.

“The focus on flexibility can also be seen in programme choice,” the report reads.

“In specific master’s projects for individual business schools, CarringtonCrisp has seen a growing interest among students in studying more than one subject in their degree. Interest in studying business or management and another subject is being driven by students who are keen not to curtail their career options.”

The continued demand for in-person learning again reflects a broader trend in graduate business education: The GMAC Prospective Students Survey found that, while demand for hybrid degrees is on the rise, many prospective students who want an online degree don’t think it will be as valuable as an in-person program.

Students who want hybrid learning still prefer a significant portion of their program to be spent in a classroom.

“Most hybrid candidates want to spend half or more of their class time in person and the rest online,” the GMAC report reads. “Among different degree types, hybrid professional MBA and business master’s candidates are more open to online delivery compared to hybrid full-time MBA candidates.”

In-person learning fell from 70% of prospective students’ preference in 2019 to 60% in 2024 in the U.S. alone, according to the GMAC survey.