The value of an MBA offers a range of opportunities for women.
At the Goizueta Business School, one recent alumna is working in Shanghai while being groomed for an executive role with a Fortune 50 company and her husband serves as a stay-at-home father.
Another showed her value to a prospective employer as a consultant to the point she could stay in Atlanta instead of moving to New York. That company’s offer kept her from moving away from her spouse’s job location.
“The MBA empowers women in ways that hardly any other degree can and does,” said Julie Barefoot, director of MBA admissions at the Goizueta. “It empowers you in a way that you can ask for and receive accommodation. That will help you achieve balance.”
Attracting women to business schools has been an issue for decades, Barefoot said. When the Forte Foundation — a nonprofit group — was founded nearly 14 years ago, women made up about 25 percent of full-time students at business schools. Those numbers were approximately half of those in schools of law and medicine.