The CEO of a nonprofit that's awarded $180 million in fellowships to women MBA students explains how business school can help chip away at the glass ceiling
- Applications to top business schools are on the decline, but gender parity is going up.
- That's according to Elissa Sangster, the CEO of Forté Foundation, a nonprofit centered on gender parity in business school. To date, Forté has awarded $180 million in fellowships to female MBA students.
- She says that she's "confident" that the foundation will hit its goal of women constituting an average of 40% of the overall gender makeup of business school by 2020.
- Sangster told Business Insider exactly why she thinks the MBA still has value, especially for women.
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Educational tools are proving indispensable to further gender parity - and an MBA in particular can help women chip away at the glass ceiling.
That's according to Elissa Sangster, CEO of Forté Foundation, a nonprofit centered on gender parity in business school. She told Business Insider that only 5% of S&P 500 CEOs are women, and that according to Forté's own research, over 40% of those women have an MBA. Further, while total MBA applications declined in 2019, the gender equity percentage at business schools continues to rise.
To date, Forté has awarded $180 million in fellowships to female MBA students.
Forté's member schools, or partners in the push for gender equity, include 54 of the top business school programs in the US, Europe, and Canada. Of those schools, the ones located in the US reported 38.5% female enrollment, on average, in 2019. This is higher than the average for Forté partners abroad, which rests at 36%.
The goal for Sangster is 40% for US schools, which she's confident will happen in 2020. Schools already reporting women's full-time enrollment at over 40% include Columbia Business School, Yale School of Management, and the McCombs School of Business at UT-Austin.
"When you walk into a classroom, 40% feels pretty good," Sangster said. "You don't feel marginalized, you don't feel all by yourself, you're not going to be assigned to a team where there's only one woman."
Business schools have stepped up their strategies for increasing female enrollment, contributing to the increase of women enrolled in their programs from 32.3% in the fall of 2011 to 38.5% this year. Sangster says partner business schools have tried to make sure that offerings are still relevant, accessible, and interesting for female applicants.
While MBA alternatives have grown, Sangster still thinks that business school remains critical to changing career paths.
"For women, it gives you a credential that you would not have normally had," Sangster said. "It's a credential that is valued in many workplaces."
Why the MBA matters for women
Forté research suggests that an MBA is an "economic mobility engine" for women, raising their salaries by 63% or more. However, women still make less than men pre- and post-MBA, Sangster said.
The two-year MBA experience gets the career exploration started, and allows MBA students to build a network and a community that they can tap into for the rest of their careers.
"That's a critical part of success with your MBA," Sangster said. "That's why we encourage women to evaluate that as part of the process."
Deciding to leave the workforce for two years is a calculated risk, Sangster cautions, but one that could be the right step.
"A lot of people that are coming back [to school] weren't necessarily in an upward moving position," she said.