Why B-Schools Struggle to Enroll More Women

Today, women are almost as likely as men to fill the seats of medical school and law school classrooms. Yet the share of women enrolled in MBA programs hasn’t risen above 37.2 percent in the past decade, according to the more than 100 schools providing full-time MBA enrollment figures in surveys by AACSB International, an accrediting organization. “There’s a frustration on the part of a lot of women, and probably men, too, that we haven’t made more progress,” says Amy Hillman, the dean at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

In August the White House convened 150 leaders from top business schools and had them sign a pledge to take steps to boost female enrollment by cultivating potential applicants early on in their education and by offering more financial aid. “When business schools are missing out on a large share of female college graduates, they are missing out on an extremely large share of the top qualified college graduates,” says Betsey Stevenson, a University of Michigan economist who served on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and helped lead the August summit. “If they want to continue to be a relevant part of the training in the 21st century, they are going to have to make changes that will make them more attractive to women.”