Far From a Threat, MOOCs Could Help Solve the B-School Diversity Problem

By Cory Weinberg. Business schools worrying that massive open online courses will cut into enrollment and revenue are missing a chance to diversify their schools, new research shows.
A study written by three University of Pennsylvania researchers and published on Tuesday in the Harvard Business Review analyzed the demographics of the more than 875,000 students enrolled in nine business courses that Penn’s Wharton School offered for free online. International students and underrepresented minorities account for a disproportionate number of those enrolled in Wharton’s MOOCs, unlike traditional MBA programs, the researchers found. This suggests that those populations have an interest in business education that traditional programs are not tapping. More...