MBA高薪神话：穿越数据迷雾

    专业学校一度风光无限。但面临残酷的就业市场，毕业即失业的学生们终于忍无可忍，有人甚至起诉他们的母校，称学校承诺毕业生可以找到稳定的工作，六位数的薪水更是手到擒来，他们信以为真，结果欠下了巨额债务。

    而商学院的承诺更是受到严厉的谴责，因为商学院毕业生本希望既能接受良好的教育，又能快速获得经济回报。商学院采用的就业统计数据申报标准非常严格，甚至有会计人员的参与（部分法学院也正在考虑采用该机制），这是理想的商学院风格。但即便如此严格的就业统计数据也会存在瑕疵。有意攻读MBA的学生可得注意：学校就业报告里给出的六位数薪水，并不能保证在毕业时就一定能兑现。

    商学院当前实行的机制开始于1994年。当时，MBA就业服务委员会（MBA Career Services Council）开始制定一系列报告标准，目的是统一一流学校的就业报告一。该委员会是针对MBA就业服务专业人员与招聘人员的专业组织。

    麻省理工大学斯隆商学院（MIT's Sloan School of Business）就业服务中心主任杰基•威尔伯当时就在MBA就业服务委员会的标准委员会担任联合主席，她说：“我们聚在一起，进行了长时间的讨论。”这些标准在1999年被MBA就业服务委员会正式采用。2006年，委员会一致通过了一系列审计流程。最终形成了一套广泛的、可行的统一规定。

    威尔伯称，关于就业报告标准，商学院在许多方面都走在前列。她希望其他类型的学校也能以商学院为榜样，实行更加严格的报告标准。

    威尔伯表示：“鉴于教育成本不断攀升，所有教育机构都应该采取更加严格的标准。学生家长要求掌握更准确的信息，来衡量他们的投资回报。”当然，其中也包括本科生教育。

    然而今年夏天美国佛罗里达大学（University of Florida）爆出的丑闻则显示，即便一些商学院也必须自我检点。佛罗里达州的《甘斯维尔太阳报》（Gainsville Sun）报道称，对佛罗里达大学进行的一次校内调查发现，学校在2009年向《美国新闻与世界报道》（US News and World Report）提供的就业数据并不准确（当年，学校并未向MBA就业服务委员会提交其就业记录，但威尔伯称，如果进行审计，应该能发现其中的出入）。报道称，部分正在求职的学生被作为已就业学生，另外还有一些尚在求职的学生则干脆被全部删除，无法在就业数据中得以体现。不过学校对该则报道的结论予以强烈否认。

    学校伪造数据的理由

    范德堡大学欧文管理学院（Vanderbilt University's Owen School of Management）就业服务中心执行主任里德•麦克纳马拉认为，学校有强烈的动机，提供“更体面”的就业报告。因为，即使统计数据出现些微变化，也有可能导致学校排名的大幅波动，而这将会直接影响学校的申请人数和资金支持。

    MBA就业服务委员会联合主席兼范德堡大学就业服务中心高级副主任艾米丽•安德森称，每年，约有100所学校自愿接受随机审计核查，其中，每年约有25所学校被选中，这意味着每所学校每四年便会接受一次随机审计核查。大部分就业服务中心主任均认为，审计非常必要。

    面临种种诱惑（暂且不论充足的生源），学校在报告时可能有选择地只统计获得高薪职位的毕业生，尽管威尔伯表示MBA就业服务委员会要求每所学校在编制报告时，要统计每个班级85%的学生的就业情况。部分会员学校甚至要求将该标准提高到最低95%。

    但部分学校也可能在统计中额外塞进一些学生。例如，某所学校招收了一名职业运动员，因此试图将他的巨额薪酬分摊到统计数据中。报告中仅包括“MBA级”工作岗位（体育甚至专业运动员都不属于MBA级工作岗位），但对“MBA级”的定义却模棱两可。如果该定义被错误解读，也可能会产生相反的结果，使低薪酬工作被视为不属于MBA级别，进而在统计时被排除在外。威尔伯称，关于上面提到的运动员的案例，审计过程应该可以发现类似的错误。

    Professional schools have had better years. Facing a brutal job market, underemployed graduates have begun to speak up, some even suing their former institutions, claiming they were duped into acquiring massive debt loads based on the promise of a secure, six-figure-salary job.

    That promise is particularly critical at business schools, where graduates expect a quick financial payoff as well as an education. At these programs, the standards for reporting employment statistics, in true B-school fashion, are rigorous and involve accountants (a system some law schools are considering). But even those career statistics can have their flaws. Prospective students take heed: The six-figure school-reported numbers are not a guarantee of a sweet paycheck come graduation day.

    The current system has its roots in 1994, when the MBA Career Services Council (CSC), the professional association for MBA career services professionals and recruiters, started developing a set of reporting standards to allow for uniform career reporting across the top schools.

    "We all sat around in a room and we hashed it out," says Jackie Wilbur, career services director at MIT's Sloan School of Business who was co-chair of the MBA Career Services Council's standards committee at the time. Those standards were officially adopted by the CSC in 1999. In 2006, it established a set of agreed upon procedures to allow for auditing. The result was a uniform set of extensive, enforceable rules.

    In many ways, B-schools have led the charge in employment reporting standards, Wilbur says. She expects other types of programs will likely follow suit and double down on reporting standards.

    "Given the rising cost of education, every piece of the equation of the educational offering is going to have to go more and more this way," Wilbur says -- including undergrad programs. "Parents are going to demand better information about return on investment."

    But a scandal this summer at the University of Florida revealed that even some B-schools still have to clean up their act. Florida's Gainsville Sun reported that an internal university investigation found the school had provided US News and World Report with inaccurate employment data in 2009 (it did not submit its records to the CSC that year, though Wilbur says an audit would have picked up the discrepancies). The school vehemently denied the conclusions of the report, which found that several students were listed as employed when they were seeking employment, and that other students seeking employment were omitted from the data altogether.

    A host of reasons to fudge the data

    Schools have a strong incentive to deliver good employment reports, says Read McNamara, executive director of career services at the Vanderbilt University's Owen School of Management, as even tiny changes in the stats can lead to big changes in a school's ranking, which, in turn, can directly affect application numbers and funding.

    Emily Anderson, co-chair of the CSC and Vanderbilt's senior associate director of career services, says that each year about 100 schools volunteer for random auditing checks. Of those, about 25 are selected each year, meaning schools can expect to be audited about once every four years. Most career services directors agree that the audits are necessary.

    Among the chief temptations: not including enough students -- schools may selectively include only graduates with high-paying jobs, though Wilbur says the CSC requires a school to report responses from 85% of each class for each report. Some member schools are requesting that the standard be raised to a minimum of 95%.

    A school may also include too many students. One program, which had enrolled a professional athlete, attempted to report his outsize salary in their average. Only "MBA-level" jobs are included in the report (sports aren't considered MBA level, even the pros), but that can be a tricky definition. Misreading of that definition can also run the other way, and can result in some lower paying jobs being deemed as not MBA level and discarded from the stats. Wilbur notes that, as in the case of the athlete, the auditing process should catch these types of errors.