Which MBA?

ENGLAND's students are, as I type, running amok outside parliament, protesting at the coalition government's plans make them cough up as much as £9,000 a year towards their university education. Despite anger on the streets, the bill looks likely to pass. Which will please the French. 

At a lecture at Cass Business School this week, Mark Thomas, director for international affairs at the Grenoble Ecole de Management, said that French universities could barely hide their excitement at the present currently being wrapped and shipped across the channel by George Osbourne, Britain's chancellor. The increase in tuition fees, he said, would hand them an instant advantage over their English competition: “High price combined with low differentiation is always a recipe for disaster and increased UK tuition fees puts UK business schools in this position.” 

All of Europe’s business schools crave lucrative foreign students (often their EU students get to attend their programmes at a discounted rate). But at first glance this is an odd argument: many students on business schools’ Master’s courses already pay well in excess of £9,000 a year. But Mr Thomas claims that the Coalition’s pans will be felt in the student pipeline, rather than the pump:

Potential undergraduates should now be thinking hard about whether the UK is the best place to do a degree or whether they might get the same quality of courses in Continental Europe for a similar price.

Perhaps surprisingly, one county where they will get a warm welcome is France. Until a few years ago, French business schools had two major handicaps; too expensive and too French. But changes over the past years within the schools combined with elements that could lower costs mean that the Grande Ecole business schools may provide a real alternative from British students and for European students contemplating their studies in the UK.