Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 392: On-Campus or Online? Kelley’s Plus-Flex Lets MBA Students Decide

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Episode 392: On-Campus or Online? Kelley’s Plus-Flex Lets MBA Students Decide · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and in this special episode of the podcast, we're going to cover some exciting news from a leading business school that has introduced a new level of flexibility into their MBA program. As some of you may have already heard, the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University has just introduced something called Plus Flex, which allows full time MBA students to complete the second year of their MBA online or on campus. This opens up a world of possibilities from working or traveling while finishing the degree remotely to simply staying put in Bloomington for an in person experience. I should also mention that it's no secret that Kelle is kind of at the forefront of online education. Their online mba, Kelly Direct Online, wins accolades like year in and year out, including the number one ranking from us, U.S. news and others. As such, it's not surprising to me that they've been able to pull this off in terms of offering this +flex. In today's kind of post pandemic world, flexibility seems to be of increasing import, so I suspect that Kelly will invariably be starting a trend here. In light of all of this though, I thought it'd be interesting to hear more from faculty and administration over at Kelley. So today I'm thrilled to welcome two special guests to the show. Let me introduce them and bring them onto the show right now. So first up we have Emily Stern. She is Director of Student Services and Global Programs over at Kelley. Emily has over two decades of experience in higher education administration and is really passionate about student success and creating community. She's been Director of Student Services and Global Programs for the Kelley Full Time and Plusflex since 2019. And before that she was Director of Administration at Indiana University's Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. Welcome to the show, Emily. It's really great to have you.
• 2:06
  Speaker B: Thanks. Nice to meet you, Graham. Thanks for having us.
• 2:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. We're also today joined by John Hill. He is the Faculty Chair of the MBA program. John is a Grant Thornton Scholar in the Department of Operations and Decision Technologies at the Kelley School where He's taught for 12 years in the full time MBA program. He's won several teaching awards at Kelley, including the Innovative Teaching Award, the ISTR Teaching Scholar Award, as well as multiple MBA Teaching Excellence Awards. So in addition to his undergrad, he actually holds a PhD and an MBA as well as a Master's. So John, you're a bit of a degree collector I guess we could say, but welcome to the show. It's great to have you.
• 2:47
  Speaker C: Thank you very much. Graham.
• 2:48
  Speaker A: So what I thought we would do. I really appreciate both of you making time to talk about this. I just, I want to dive in with some questions and I guess I'll start with you, John. I wanted to ask how has Kelly's full time MBA changed with this plus Flex offering?
• 3:02
  Speaker C: Sure, Graham. So the program at its core remains the same. The difference is that at year two, as you mentioned, students can choose one of two paths to finish their MBA post internship, continuing in person in Bloomington or moving online to complete their electives and finish out their major. The first year experience though is the same for all of our students. What we're trying to do here is grow the market. There are applicants who want an in person 2 year MBA experience but aren't sure if they commit 2 years to a particular location. 2 years is a long time in our world right now. If I give a sports analogy, I think we're bringing a one year player option to the traditional two year MBA contract. So students may not use it, but we think there's value in that flexibility. So flexible contracts are always preferable to long term contracts. It applies to cell phones, other service contracts. As we look at it, we think it also applies to an mba. Students still need a two year MBA program with an internship experience to develop those skills that the employment market requires. So a lot of those elements absolutely cannot change. But this is an innovative way to make a highly ranked 2 year MBA program more accessible to students.
• 4:14
  Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me and I think as I said in the introduction today, you all have a lot of experience delivering kind of on time online coursework and things. So makes a lot of sense to me. I guess one follow on is I wondered how does this plus Flex offering reflect your strengths in both in residence and online? Because I feel like you all have a very close knit MBA program. You're noted for that in a great kind of college town community, but you've also have this kind of worldwide reputation for online. So yeah. What is this sort of new offering saying about those two strengths?
• 4:52
  Speaker C: Well, as you mentioned Graham, the community is a big part of what we do and a big part of what we sell to our prospective students. And our in residence program is really focused on the students experience. Which is why it's great to have Emily on the call today from Integrated core, which debuted 30 years ago to me Inc. Helping students with personal branding to academies that explore careers and functional areas through experiential learning. These are the kind of features that historically have pulled students into our in residence program as opposed to being online or maybe going to a competitor school. And they've been differentiators for a long, long time. At the same time, this year is our 25th anniversary of our online MBA. So not only do we have a high quality MBA program online, we've been doing it for a very long time. And I really feel like in that office have they perfected that online MBA experience. It's not the same experience because we learned over 25 years how to structure in person versus online teaching. And there are very different modalities and you have to do instruction very differently in those two arenas. However, the nice thing about Kelley is the same faculty are teaching in both programs, myself included, and the chair of the online program teaches in our program. So we have a lot of crossover there and we understand the students in both of those arenas very, very well. So the content's the same, but it's delivered in a manner, it's effective for that particular teaching modality. So there are going to be trade offs in terms of the second year experience and what that looks like, but quality instruction will continue to be part of the program no matter what a student chooses to do during their second year.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And again, yeah, it sounds like it's playing on some of the strengths that you already have in place. I did want to ask you, who do you think, which students will this appeal to in terms of this second year option to be online?
• 6:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, Graham, that's probably the biggest question. This whole thing, who does it appeal to? And I think about this in two categories. So in the first category, I think about markets where students are drawn to the program now with a specific intention to take the flex option year two. So who might that include in terms of a Persona? One is company sponsored students might be a good fit. So they get to do that in person MBA experience, they get the networking, they build relationships with their classmates for a year, but they can still get back to the company after the first year and finish it out online. And that obviously provides a benefit to the employer as well. So it's a way to kind of grow the pot there. Students who want to network in a very specific geographical region for full time employment. This allows them to be able to select a top 20 program that works for them, that has the experience they want, but still allows them to do that networking wherever they need to do the networking. Students with family situations that make it difficult to relocate for two years. A lot of our students are 30 years old. They have partners, they have kids. There's a lot of complexity in making a decision for a full time MBA program versus undergraduate decisions. So depending on where they live, there may not be a top 20 MBA program option local for them. And the opportunity costs of relocating for 10 months versus two years could make a big difference for that group as well. So those are my thoughts on some students that might choose this because of the flex option specifically and really plan on taking that option. But I think there's also a second group of students that have every intention of completing a two year MBA program on campus. But they have value in the flexibility because they understand that things change in your life mid program. So what if your partner suddenly lands their dream job? So currently what would they have for options? Well, like three sub optimal choices. You could quit the MBA or change programs to move for your partner. That's not great. Partner could turn down the role until you graduated. That's not great. I mean that's going to be awkward around the house for a few months. Right. Or they have to split up geographically and do their own thing for the last half of the program. That's not great either. But that's the only three choices that existed at this point. So now I believe Kelley is the only program offering the optimal solution, which is your partner takes the role, you move with them, you complete your MBA with the same faculty, same degree, still get done in two years and everybody wins. So that's one category there. Another one is we have students every once in a while have a really positive internship experience. Company loves them, they love the company. They don't want to go back and re recruit in the second year. They want to stay put. And in some cases, if it gets lined up early enough in the summer, we now have an opportunity where the employer and the student can connect there, stay put and just still be able to finish up the mba. Really what we're doing is we're lowering the risk and the opportunity costs for any student who's not sure what their situation will be in a year. And that flexibility is valuable for students, even the ones who intend to be there for the full two years coming into the program.
• 9:53
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. And I think now I have some questions for Emily because we're talking a lot about students and how they travel through this program and this potential to be flexible. And so I wondered the first thing that comes to my mind, Emily, is if a student does choose to complete the second year online and let's say they move to another part of the country, as John was saying as possible, how might that affect recruiting for a full time position or even maybe more specifically career coaching that would ordinarily be happening presumably in Bloomington?
• 10:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. On the one hand, it really won't affect them because our students, regardless of the modality that they choose for their second year, will have full access to our highly recognized graduate career services. So the coaches and the programming, much of that is virtual these days anyway. Sometimes even in Bloomington, our students would rather take a meeting from home than come to campus. So we can imagine a world where that could happen from anywhere. But I think, on the other hand, sort of echoing what John said, it could have a positive impact for certain students. So if you're a student who is pursuing investment banking, this might allow you to relocate to New York or Chicago, and it also gives you the flexibility for adjusting time higher that you wouldn't have otherwise. So I think it's a win either way.
• 11:18
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, and I was thinking exactly about that, you know, when, when John was speaking about, you know, going to camp out somewhere that you're in proximity to an industry or, you know, the jobs that you're looking for, that could be a huge advantage. I did want to kind of look at sort of maybe the flip side of all this and ask you about, like, what are the benefits to just staying put and completing the MBA on campus in the more traditional fashion.
• 11:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, so. Well, as you mentioned when you, when you introduced us, I mean, one of the best things about Kelley is our community. And so I think it's beneficial for a lot of people to be here as long as they can in person. And if you're on campus, you can take advantage of a lot of things that you wouldn't be able to otherwise. So we have a couple of second year academies that focus more in depth on life sciences or entrepreneurship. Those are only available on campus. Lots of opportunities for students to develop leadership and soft skills. So if you're on campus, you could get involved in club leadership. You could be a student leader for Globes, which is our amazing global consulting course. Study abroad is only available to students who will be here for the rest of that year. So there's certain program elements that are only available to you if you're here. And also all that Bloomington and IU have to offer, football, basketball, opera, ballet, speakers, all of that sort of stuff, I think adds to the experience. And a little bit echoing what you also talked about at the beginning, I think it's a great opportunity and not one we get very Often as adults, to be able to push pause on your life and really give yourself the time and the space to focus on being a student. It can be truly transformative. And so if, if you are able to do that, I think why wouldn't you?
• 13:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, those are great points. And I, you know, having been to Bloomington myself, like, I get that, you know, it is a beautiful kind of setting for, you know, it's just a great university town. So I understand that. But I think it's nice that you're, you know, just offering this potential for candidates if they want to take advantage of that. I did want to turn back to John and ask, like, do you think this change might affect graduates roi? Like, and also we talked a little bit about how they could camp out and get that dream job or start working earlier, which would have an impact potentially on ROI in one direction. But I wondered, are they still going to be eligible for fellowships and scholarships if they choose to finish online? Does that go away when they leave the campus or is that still on the table?
• 13:49
  Speaker C: That's a great question, Graham. I think it's important to recognize that students are part of the full time MBA plus flex program regardless of which second year option they choose. So a student that chooses the flexible option is not transitioning to another program. They're still part of our program. So, okay, they're going to graduate at the same time as our class peers. They can come back to graduation on campus with their peers after those two years. And so they come into our program with a tuition rate and a scholarship package that they get and they keep that for the two years no matter what they decide to do in year two. So there's absolutely no risk there.
• 14:27
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting. So I guess it's really just upside then in terms of if they were to go and start working earlier, they'd obviously be chipping away at any debt they had and so they could start working sooner, et cetera, which would have a positive impact on roi. But it doesn't sound like there's any negative in terms of losing scholarship or anything like that.
• 14:45
  Speaker C: No, and I think a lot of it just comes down to what the student motivation is. And we're not going to ask the students why.
• 14:52
  Speaker A: Right.
• 14:52
  Speaker C: We're about customer service. So students are our customers and we're trying to provide them a value that they can get out of the program. So they may have a great opportunity to go work. Other students may say, well, it's in my best long term interest to keep just full time networking and full time student on campus and I'm going to hurt myself if I try to also work somewhere.
• 15:11
  Speaker A: Right.
• 15:12
  Speaker C: So these are adults, these are not 18 year old kids trying to navigate their way through university the first time. They're professionals. So we trust them to make the decision for their own ROI and whatever other incentives they feel they have.
• 15:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, that all. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Emily, I want to turn back to you. How flexible is this program? And by that I mean, well, a. Like, when do students have to decide about their second year modality? Like when do they have to say, yeah, I'm going to be online, Is it, you know, yeah, so what's the timing on that? And also, and I. This maybe is a bit of a curveball, but could they, could someone go online for say, the first half of that second year and then come back to campus for the second half? Like, is there any flexibility to dip in and out or is it sort of you make the decision and that's kind of a done deal?
• 15:56
  Speaker B: Those are good questions. So the program is flexible in that there are two ways students can finish their electives after their first year on campus. The students will arrive in August of a year and they will be on campus for 10 months. And by August 1st of that next year, following year, they would need to decide whether they're going to go online or come back or stay here on campus with us. That date is basically because they need to be able to start classes one way or another.
• 16:26
  Speaker A: Right.
• 16:27
  Speaker B: And so, and then to your second question, students actually can't switch back and forth once they've decided. And that's really because the online calendar and the in residence graduate school calendar are different. And so once you've made your decision, you're kind of on a different calendar and it's impossible to kind of switch back and forth.
• 16:47
  Speaker A: Right. And that makes total sense to me. I mean, I could see how that would be incredibly challenging to manage if people were kind of bouncing in and out. So. But it sounds like I'm actually surprised you're giving them a lot of flexibility in terms of, you know, they don't have to decide until August 1st, which is great. You know, it's not like it's something they need to decide in February of their first, you know, academic year or something. So that's really pretty flexible.
• 17:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we've tried to make it as flexible as possible and we've worked really hard to try and make it seamless from the student perspective. You know, all the hard work behind the scenes to get, get Things switched around and everything, so hopefully it'll work out well.
• 17:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. One other question for you that while we're kind of in the weeds on this stuff, I know that Kelley MBAs can typically choose from, what is it, seven majors, and then obviously a lot of different elective coursework that goes hand in hand with that. Will students who finish online have those same opportunities or is it sort of different? When you pick to go online, it.
• 17:45
  Speaker B: Is pretty much the same. Kelley direct has about 90 electives that they offer every year. So the variety of electives is huge, whether you're on campus or online. And in terms of the majors, we share six majors with. So we've charted pathways toward getting a major, making sure that students can finish what they started no matter how they choose to do so. So you can have a business, analytics, finance, entrepreneurship, strategy and leadership, marketing and supply chain majors are all available. Either way, there is one caveat, which is that accounting is not offered online. So if you want to be an accountant, you're going to have to stay here in Bloomington and finish up.
• 18:28
  Speaker A: Uh, you know, you hinted at something earlier. I think both of you have sort of mentioned this. So the, the, the notion that if they pick online, they, you know, for that second year, they're going to stay because the scheduling is a little bit different. Would you be willing to, you know, a little bit of a curveball here, but would you be willing to just speak to that? So if I'm online, are the courses structured so that they're happening at times a day when maybe I could work or, you know, is that why things are a little bit different? Because if I'm, if I'm going to go take a job and finish online, presumably I wouldn't be able to tell my employer that all day long I need to be in classes?
• 19:01
  Speaker C: Right.
• 19:01
  Speaker A: So what's. What are the mechanics of that part?
• 19:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, so. Good point. The mechanics are the online courses are offered at night, so they're offered different timeframes between, I believe, 6 and 10pm Is that right? John, you teach in the. In the program. He's nodding.
• 19:16
  Speaker A: He's nodding.
• 19:18
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, yes, so absolutely. That is a fundamental difference. It's in the evening. And then the other difference that, the sort of calendar difference is that the graduate school at Indiana University is on a semester schedule, but the Kelly Direct online courses are offered on a quarter system. So if you come back here on campus your second year, you'll have a fall semester, August to December, and then you'll have a January to May, spring semester, if you do it online, you'll have three quarters. So you would go be taking your online classes. They would start in August, end in November. November to February, February to May.
• 19:57
  Speaker A: Okay, so different calendar. Okay, so that makes sense. Yeah, I'm really glad that I asked you that because I just was trying to figure out the mechanics and understand how someone can pull this off. So that sounds like you're really making it quite easy for someone, if they do go online, to be able to explore other things during the, you know, during the daytime hours, like a job or setting up a startup or whatever they might be doing. I want to turn back to John and ask, do the online students still benefit from some of Kelly's like hallmark programs like, you know, the Academies or ME Inc. And I don't know if you guys know this, but we actually did. Must be a year ago or more, we did a podcast about ME Inc. Because it's such a unique way to sort of managing an MBA student's career and their career progress. But so do the online students still get to do all that stuff or how does that shake out?
• 20:44
  Speaker C: Yeah, Graham. So I want to push back a little bit on the characterization of the online students. I want to really emphasize that these are two year full time MBA students regardless. Right. And so much of that differentiators, the academies, the M.E.
• 21:00
  Speaker B: Inc.
• 21:00
  Speaker C: The Integrated core, the globe base, those are largely first year experiences. So regardless of what a student chooses to do in the second year, they're still going to participate in that. And there will be no way to tell the difference between a student that's going to ultimately go online second year versus stay in Bloomington. During their first year, they're doing the same classes, same clubs, same enrollment across the board. We have teams in our core, so students work together in groups of four or five students. And a lot of the work and a team will have combinations of these students because they're all going through that same first year experience.
• 21:39
  Speaker A: Okay, so that really clears it up. I wasn't really sure when some of these things took place, but it sounds like it's very much a part of the first year experience, which is terrific because I got to go back and re listen. But I had a really nice time doing that interview for ME Inc. And learning all about that. And it just struck me as a really innovative way to help candidates find their career path. So I'm really glad to hear that's part of this still. Emily, I want to turn to you with a final question, which is about ranking. I know People love to talk about rankings. MBA students obsess on them. Employers probably look look at them too. And so I wondered, will full time plus flex MBA kind of students continue? Is that program still just considered a full time mba? Will it be looked at in a different category because of this? Has it become a hybrid or is it still just kind of full time MBA and we're part of the regular rankings?
• 22:34
  Speaker B: Yes. So no, it has not become a hybrid. And as John said, we are not changing the overall structure of our MBA program. All of our students will take about 2/3 of their credits on campus and a subset of students will finish online. So for us, whether or not a student is taking their second year electives in person or online, they are a full time plus flex MBA student at Kelley and they will have all the same academic career program support that our school is known for.
• 23:04
  Speaker A: Okay, that's terrific. I did, I want to go back to John if I can, with just one kind of follow up. So you mentioned that everyone kind of teaches across Pro, you know, whether it's, you know, in person or online. That's been something that's been happening at the school for quite some time. Are you willing to comment on like what, what are some of the differences there that you've kind of observed over time? And you know, because you mentioned that it's not the same thing, you know, that there are adjustments that need to be made.
• 23:30
  Speaker C: Right. I mean, when I teach my, you know, statistics course in person, there are just things I can do in a physical classroom that I can't do online. And so when you're teaching online, you just have to sort of reimagine what that experience is for the student. For me, what that means is I sort of give up some of the in person, hands on stuff that I would do in person when I'm online. But then I make a lot of use of like breakout rooms and small group activities online to try to build that community artificially in that environment. The other difference is our online program sort of emerged through corporate path providing online to actively working professionals. And so because it came up organically kind of in its own silo historically, we've brought them together here much more closely recently. But that means all the coursework was developed independently of the coursework development that was going on in person. So if I am an operations major and an MBA program or supply chain major, I'm going to get all the same material in each program, each modality. But the way in which the content is split between courses is also not the same. It's not like we have P723 in person and a C724. That's the same course online. There are different classes that were developed differently through the major, you're going to get all the content you need. But that's another reason you can't go back and forth. Because once you start on one track or the other, you've got to finish in that track so that all the content you need to understand and learn about for your career is covered. Otherwise you run the risk of duplicate material or holes in what you've learned. And by making them distinct channels, we avoid those issues.
• 25:22
  Speaker A: Okay. And I love the fact that because the online stuff was developed organically and a little bit in its own silo, it means that it's really made for that environment. So that just to me makes it sort of a selling point in the sense that these programs are kind of online first. They weren't sort of in person stuff that's been trying to be forced into online. So they were really built with that in mind from the beginning, which sounds like the perfect way to do it. Emily, I did want to ask you one more question too, which is one of the things we hear a lot about when it comes to online course offerings is this problem of people not being together and such, or not knowing each other. And one of the things I think is great about this is that everyone's done that first year in campus. Sorry, on campus, in person. So in my mind it makes it so much easier to build community within that kind of second year online because a lot of those bonds are already in place. Is that something that you all have talked about and we're kind of excited about when you put this together?
• 26:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, we are excited about that. And something we're currently talking about with our current first and second year students mostly is also how to continue keeping the students who choose the online modality as part of our larger community and ways that they can continue to be involved. Since, as John said at the beginning, we really have no idea how many students are going to be doing. We're not sure, but we're thinking ahead, different variables on that and just really also trying to keep all those things in mind. And I think it's been exciting for everybody, the students and the program, faculty and staff, to be able to imagine things and reimagine this sort of second year.
• 27:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, as I said at the beginning of the show, I think you guys are. This is novel, it's innovative, but it's also, I think there are going to be programs that follow this lead. I mean, it's such a great option to allow candidates to have this flexibility. So I'm sure you're going to have other programs that look at this and copy as we go forward. But you guys are used to that with online in the first place. But yeah, I did want to say thank you so much, both Emily and John, for taking time to join me today because you did a much better job speaking of this than I ever could have. And I'd also like to give a shout out to Chandra over at Kelly, who helped us make this all happen and put us together and help me get in touch with you guys. But really appreciate your time. Thanks so much to both of you for doing this.
• 27:56
  Speaker B: Thank you.
• 27:57
  Speaker C: Thank you, Graham.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: So that's going to be a wrap on this special episode of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. Please stay tuned for our weekly episodes each and every Monday, as well as special shows like this from time to time. And thanks for rating and reviewing this show. Wherever you listen.