Following the lead of the Harvard Business School (HBS), the pioneer in offering a master’s degree in business administration, universities worldwide developed the traditional two-year MBA program, requiring three to four years of prior work experience.

When I returned in 1964 from my doctoral studies in economics at Harvard University, I accepted the offer from De La Salle University to become the Head of the Economics Department and Dean of the nascent Graduate School of Business. This was in the late 1960s when some of the leading universities began to emulate HBS and other U.S. business schools by offering full-time or part-time graduate programs leading to a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA).

A significant project at the time was the Ford Foundation initiative that contracted HBS to help Ateneo University and De La Salle University cooperatively establish a joint business school. This school would offer an MBA program to professionals who had worked for four or more years in business or allied fields. This joint venture between the two leading private universities led to the creation of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). The first Dean of AIM was the late Stephen H. Fuller of HBS, who had a special affection for the Philippines.

AIM offered its first MBA program in 1968 (a year after I joined Dr. Jesus Estanislao and other foreign-trained economists to establish the Center for Research and Communication—CRC, which eventually metamorphosed into the University of Asia and the Pacific, UA&P, in 1995). The AIM MBA program was patterned after HBS’s: a two-year, full-time program that accepted only professionals who, after obtaining a college degree, had at least four years of work experience.

Soon, other universities began offering their own MBA programs (either full-time or part-time). These programs all required similar work experience, averaging four or more years. Thus, the average age of a starting MBA student was 25 to 27 years. The justification for requiring those years of work experience was that fresh college graduates would not have the professional maturity to fully understand the so-called "business cases" that are at the core of preparing future top managers and executives for leadership in fields like marketing, finance, production, human resource management, and eventually as CEOs. This model is still followed by leading business schools worldwide, especially in North America and Europe.

The September 2025 issue of the Financial Times (FT) Business Education magazine contains a report on the status of Master in Management (MiM) programs, which are open to recent college graduates with no requirement for previous work experience. MiM programs, typically lasting from one to two years and designed for students without prior professional experience, were established in Europe. They have since been launched by schools in other countries—including the U.S. and across Asia (e.g., China, Singapore, India, and Taiwan)—seeking to diversify their course offerings. Demand for MiMs continues to rise in many regions, while business schools such as INSEAD (France), the IESE Business School (Spain), and the London Business School have been relatively new entrants in Europe.

As reported by the Financial Times, faced with stiffening competition, more college graduates are choosing to go straight to business school to buy time and gain an edge in the eyes of prospective employers. In 2024, nearly 70 percent of MiM courses worldwide reported application growth, an outstanding performance compared to a flat demand across the traditional "pre-experience" business masters pioneered by HBS. In the U.S., recent college graduates aged 22 to 27 are facing higher unemployment than the national average for workers of that age group. The picture is also uncertain in parts of Asia, where some students are opting to delay their entry into the workforce.

For Filipino young professionals planning to take a Master in Management program, I would recommend the following top business schools in Europe, as ranked by the Financial Times: University of St. Gallen in Switzerland; HEC Paris, France; INSEAD, France; Stockholm School of Business, Sweden; London Business School, U.K.; SDA Bocconi, Italy; IESE Business School, Spain; Prague University of Economics and Business, Czech Republic; WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; and IE Business School, Spain.

In Asia, the following are among the top 50 business schools offering an MiM: Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, China; Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Economics and Management, China; Tongji University School of Economics and Management, China; Indian Institute of Management, India; and India Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India.

To the millennials in the Philippines, a major reason for them to consider a shorter route to a Master in Management is the way the task of management is being affected by the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0. Such rapidly evolving technologies as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotization, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Data Analytics make it necessary for the typical manager of today to constantly engage in upskilling, reskilling, and retooling himself through short programs and microcredentials throughout his entire professional career.

Since he will be going back to school many more times after he obtains his or her masteral degree in management, it may be advisable that he or she get grounded on the basic principles of management (in marketing, finance, production, human resource, and general management) as early as possible in professional life—immediately after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in one field or another. This is especially true for those whose specialization in the undergraduate years had nothing to do with business management (e.g., engineering, physical sciences, law, social sciences, philosophy, etc.). If it is already clear in his or her mind that management will be the endgame of his or her career, then spending one more year after obtaining a bachelor’s degree to study the principles of management in a one-year Master in Management program may make a lot of sense.

A global pioneer in offering a pre-experience Master of Science in Management (MScM) is the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) in Manila. Much before European universities saw the need for what is now called a Master in Management program, UA&P launched in 1997 a unique straight bachelor-master’s program. This program equips students with the knowledge, attributes, skills, and experiences (KASE) to strategically apply the core competencies of a master in science management leader and a good and innovative researcher who can drive meaningful advancements in his field. The program arms students with strong analytical and communication skills, ethical sensitivity, and soft skills, making them dynamic and flexible in meeting the ever-changing demands of the business environment.

Graduates from the MScM program have found employment as management consultants, project managers, start-up founders, financial analysts, marketing managers, risk analysts, corporate trainers, health care administrators, e-commerce managers, compliance officers, and brand managers, among other middle management officers.

As the FT report indicated, MiM graduates often go into "consulting, strategy, marketing, and business development." The graduates admit, as do those who finish the MScM degree of UA&P, that they are not the most knowledgeable on a topic when surrounded by experts. However, their degree allows them to know which questions to ask in order to get the necessary information.

The pay-off of this pre-experience approach to obtaining a master in management is not only financial but also about accelerated progress and global opportunity. The experience of the UA&P alumni from the MScM program has not been different from the MiM graduates of European business schools: they often reach their first managerial title two years before peers without an MiM.

And more importantly for those who assign the highest priority to starting a family, they don’t have to postpone marriage till they are already in their thirties, or even forties. One of the major reasons for the alarming decline in fertility in Europe and Asian countries like South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan is the increasingly later ages at which couples get married, if at all! We should avoid the catastrophic decline of populations being experienced by practically all the developed countries around us in Asia and in Europe.