Part-Time MBAs: Los Angeles
Whoever said you needed to spend money to make money likely never had to pay their rent with money earned from blood transfusions.
It’s no joke that business school is a serious investment of time and funds. What good is a business school degree if you’re so deep in the hole your intern will retire before you do?
More and more budding Bud Foxes are taking the scenic part-time business school route so they can keep their dayjobs and stay afloat. Flexibility is the name of the game here. When it comes to part-time MBAs, Los Angeles is an embarrassment of riches. Here are six part-time degrees in the Los Angeles area worth investigating.
UCLA’s Anderson School of Management
Ranked fourth overall by U.S. News, students at Anderson’s part-time FEMBA program benefit from “the exact same faculty, diploma, alumni network and student clubs found in the full-time program.” FEMBA students experience a salary increase of 137 percent 6-to-8 years after graduation. FEMBA students can choose one of three schedules for their first year:
1) All Day Saturdays
2) Tuesday & Thursday Evenings
3) The FEMBA Flex, which allows students to do mostly online study, coupled with one in-person weekend per month. Students in FEMBA class of 2019 averaged seven years of work experience and came primarily from the financial services, high tech, entertainment and healthcare industries.
USC’s Marshall School of Business
Ranked 15th by U.S. News, Marshall’s three-year part-time MBA program helps students garner the skills and knowledge necessary to develop the ability to navigate complex decision-making environments with a distinctly global business perspective. First-year Marshall students have the option to attend class Monday, Wednesday or Saturday in Los Angeles or Tuesday or Thursday in Irvine. First-year coursework includes “Strategic Formulations for Competitive Advantage, Financial Accounting, Communications, Microeconomics, Statistics, Org Behavior, Info Systems, Corporate Finance, Marketing, Macroeconomics, Strategy, Managerial Accounting and Operations Management.” The second year consists of PM.GLOBE, a “semester-long macroeconomics course” buttressed by a “10-day overseas trip.” Nearly 43 percent of Marshall part-time MBA students arrive with undergraduate degrees in the humanities.
UC Irvine’s Merage School of Business
Ranked 36th by U.S. News, Merage’s 24-33 month fully-employed part-time MBA is intended for “mid-level managers, team leaders, analysts or engineers seeking to advance or re-direct their careers.” The FEMBA “combines the expansive curriculum of the full-time MBA program with the unique off-site residentials of the Executive MBA Program.” The program emphasizes “four key drivers of business growth” in order to build competitive foundations for students in “strategic innovation, information technology, analytic decision-making and collaborative execution.” For their first semester, Merage FEMBA students can choose between Tuesday/Thursday evening classes at Merage’s Orange County location or a FLEX online plus four Saturdays per quarter “hybrid learning program.”
Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business
Ranked 37th by U.S. News, Leavey’s 70-unit part-time MBA is designed for students with bachelor’s degrees and three or more years of work experience. Leavey as a whole is in many ways aimed at part-timers, with about 1,000 part-timers in attendance compared to its 150 full-time students. First-years usually arrive with around 7 years of work experience and have been employed at Linkedin, Google, Apple, Amazon and Adobe, among others.
Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business & Management
Ranked 48th by U.S. News, Graziadio’s 52-unit part-time Flexible MBA offers concentrations in the following 12 areas: “Digital Innovation, Information Systems, Dispute Resolution, Entrepreneurship, Finance, General Management, Global Business, Leadership and Managing Organizational Change and Marketing.” Students have the option to take part in multiple study abroad options led by global partner schools. Part-time MBA students can choose evening or weekend classes at any of Pepperdine’s six Southern California locations in Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Encino, Irvine, Westlake Village and West Los Angeles. Over half of students arrive with some kind of experience in management.
Loyola Marymount University
Ranked 55th by U.S. News, Loyola Marymount’s 24-36 month part-time MBA offers students a “foundational business knowledge” in Managing People and Organizations, Operations, Markets, Financial Resources, Information Systems, Strategy, International Business, Financial and Managerial Accounting; Data, Models, and Decisions; and Global Economic Structures and Systems. This foundation helps students excel in one of six concentrations: Entrepreneurship, Finance, Organizational Behavior, Information Technology, International Business or Marketing. LMU’s Playa Vista location is situated mere miles from LA’s startup hub Silicon Beach, home to Hulu, Yahoo, SnapChat and Google, among 1,000 companies and VC firms.
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
