在线MBA项目日趋成熟

    如今的在线课堂上，学生经常是以一种玩《好莱坞广场》（Hollywood Squares）游戏般专注的神情凝视着电脑屏幕，看着“小框”里的同学们通过耳麦和话筒与教授一起展开讨论。通常，学员还可以通过点击一个按钮来代替举手，然后在电脑屏幕上的一个对话框内输入文字，以这种方式提出问题或回答问题。当然，新技术支持下的在线课堂远不止这些。

    譬如，过去的六个月内，凯南-弗拉格勒商学院尝试了学院历史上第一个由一群在线学员和一名教师顾问组成的实时咨询项目，这名教师顾问是一名已退休的麦肯锡集团合伙人。凯茨说：“他们将会提交一份与我们全日制MBA学员同样的咨询计划。”

    卡耐基梅隆大学八月份即将招收第一期在线MBA学习班，在线学员将通过研习班、研讨会和一对一指导的形式参加与全日制在校学生同样深度的领导力实践课。这种领导力实践课对这所校全日制在校学生来说也是最新的一种创新尝试。

看得见的结果：薪水骤增、职位提升

    越来越多具有多年在线教育经验的商学院正在公布它们毕业生获得的积极回报。凯莱商学院允许网络学员报名参加其面向全日制学员的招聘面试课程，它的毕业生通过学习得到的回报是薪水的增加和职位的提升。鲍威尔说，凯莱商学院凯莱直通MBA项目2012年6月毕业的学生入学之前的平均年薪是76,750美元，而他们毕业时年薪已增加到104,160美元，加薪幅度为36%。不仅如此，截止到毕业时，有66%的学员获得了升职。

    据巴布森学院透露，截止到取得在线MBA学位时，其2010届快车道MBA项目学员平均加薪30%。“尽管毕业时经济不景气，但他们的薪水还是得到了大幅提升，”快车道MBA项目主任迈克尔•康明斯说。

    在凯南•弗拉格勒商学院，有30%的在线项目学员在学习一年后即实现了升职、内部职位调动或跳槽。

    In class sessions online, students often peer at computer screens with a Hollywood Squares-look, seeing fellow students in tiny boxes with a professor orchestrating a discussion via an audio feed. Students can tap on a button to "raise their hands," generally by typing in a question or a response into a window on the screen. But there's much more to it than that.

    In the past six months, for example, Kenan-Flagler piloted its first live consulting project with a team of online students and a faculty advisor, a retired McKinsey & Co. partner. "They will be delivering the same kind of consulting project that our full-time MBAs would do," says Cates.

    At Carnegie Mellon, which will enroll its first online MBA class in August, online students will partake in the same intensive leadership experiences -- with workshops, seminars, and one-on-one coaching — that were recently part of an update of the school's full-time, on-campus MBA curriculum.

Tangible results: Salary bumps and promotions

    Increasingly, schools that have been in the online space for several years are now reporting positive outcomes for their graduates. At Kelley, which allows online MBA students to sign up for the on-campus recruiter interview schedules available to its full-time students, the rewards have come in higher pay and upward mobility. Powell says Kelley Direct students who graduated in June 2012 began the program with average salaries of $76,750. When they graduated, their pay was $104,160, an increase of 36%. Moreover, 66% of the students also earned a promotion by commencement.

    Babson College says students who graduated in 2010 from its Fast Track MBA program averaged a 30% increase in pay by the time they left with their online degrees. "They certainly didn't graduate during the flush years of the economy, yet they were getting substantial increases in pay," says Michael Cummings, faculty director of Fast Track.

    At Kenan-Flagler, 30% of students in the online program for more than a year have gotten a promotion or had a job change internally or externally.