In an assessment of student outcomes in more than two dozen subjects from accounting and finance to business ethics and marketing, WNMU School of Business graduates demonstrate that this open enrollment, Hispanic-Serving Institution serving a largely first-generation population gives students the highest quality business education.
Before graduation, business students at institutions accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business must take a major exit exam, measuring senior students’ knowledge at the end of their programs.
WNMU students’ exit exam results are compared to student outcomes from like institutions also accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs. But the results are also compared to institutions accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, which includes most states’ flagship campuses and also institutions like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford.
WNMU seniors consistently outperform the national averages. Statistically, WNMU graduates’ outcomes are significantly more positive — 33.6% higher — than student outcomes from other universities nationwide but especially when compared with more selective and prestigious business programs.
“The exit exam is not something you can study and prepare for,” said WNMU Associate Professor of Marketing and MBA Program Director Dr. Gordon Flanders. “You go in for the exam, and either you know the answers or you do not.”
WNMU students, most of the time, do. Their outcomes were 40.9% higher in marketing and 38.7% higher in strategic management.
“There is something special going on here,” Dr. Flanders said. “We are taking generally underprepared students, and after four years they are graduating head and shoulders above their peers at the so-called ‘best’ schools in the country.”