Two-thirds of European business schools saw application volume drop last year after rising steadily for years, according to the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT entrance exam used by most schools.

An article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal highlighted GMAC application trend data, noting that some European schools saw the number of applicants fall by more than 10 percent even before the latest round of economic challenges hit the region. Even schools in more economically stable countries like Switzerland and the United Kingdom have been affected, in part because their tuitions have been rendered increasingly steep by falling currencies in neighboring countries.

According to the Journal article, European students who can afford it have been looking to programs overseas – either at U.S. schools or at the overseas campuses of European schools – as a means of setting themselves up for better post-graduate employment options. Spain’s IESE Business School in Barcelona saw its application volume drop 5 percent this year as locals, deterred by the country’s 22.9 percent unemployment rate, have applied overseas instead, the Journal reports.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, IMD Business School is having a harder time convincing European students that its program is worth the investment, especially as the euro’s value has dropped against the Swiss franc. Applications from students from Western Europe, which account for 20 percent of the Swiss school’s class, dropped 10 percent. IMD has increased financial aid by a third, delayed payment deadlines and encouraged students to apply for more loans in an effort to counteract the drop in applicants, the Journal reports.

Likewise, Italy’s SDA Bocconi School of Management is now extending merit-based tuition waivers, one for 50 percent of tuition costs and another for 70 percent, to students from countries other than Italy in Western Europe.

Other European schools with campuses in different regions of the world have seen European students favor those locations instead, the Journal article added. For example, the Shanghai campus of France’s Grenoble Graduate School of Business has had an uptick in European students over the past two years.

Telio Gourdon, a master’s student in international business at Grenoble’s Singapore campus, says he was motivated to leave his native France by the prospect of greater international exposure and better post-graduation employment options. “Singapore is a good place to be for a businessman,” he told the Journal.

For the complete Wall Street Journal article, click here.

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