The share of women studying at the world’s leading business schools has reached 50%

Data from the non-profit Forte Foundation shows that at five top business schools, including MBA programs at Oxford University, Penn State University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania, the proportion of women is now at least 50%. This is the result of recent years, during which business schools in the United States, Europe and Canada have tried to recruit more women than men into MBA programs, The Wall Street Journal reports (WSJ).

The Forte Foundation currently has 58 business schools as partners. The percentage of women currently enrolled in MBA programs at these schools is 42.1%. Ten years ago this share was 33%. As the Forte Foundation notes, in the United States since the 1980s, women have received a bachelor’s degree more often than men. However, the situation with business schools was different, although there are still more women studying in law and medical faculties. The first business school in the US to enroll more women than men was the MBA program at the University of Southern California in 2018. In 2021, the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania was the first among elite schools to also achieve this result. The highest proportion of women studying in MBA programs is now at George Washington University – 65%.

Alena Miklashevskaya