MBA Program Enrollment Trends Across USG State Universities

Enrollment in the Turner College's MBA program has been a concern among the organization's faculty for some time. There has even been some discussion in recent years about dropping the program. Turner Business recently visited the USG webpages to collect enrollment data across the MBA programs in the USG's State Universities category. The data that were found are presented in the figure below. Note there that two of the nine State Universities, Fort Valley State and Middle Georgia State, do not currently offer an MBA degree. 

As indicated above, CSU's Turner College and Georgia College have the lowest MBA program enrollments and are the only institutions where MBA program enrollments are lower in Fall 2024 than in Fall 2020. The relatively low MBA program enrollment at these institutions is partly due to their participation in the Georgia WebMBA program. Georgia College is also Georgia's only public liberal arts university and is located in the small town of Milledgeville (populations in brackets). The Turner College is located in the largest market across the seven institutions. The other five institutions have been experiencing growth in MBA program enrollment since at least Fall 2023. North Georgia has seen growth since at least Fall 2022, while Albany State has seen steady growth since Fall 2021. Georgia Southwestern has experienced the most impressive surge in enrollment, having risen from 109 students in Fall 2020 to 232 students in Fall 2024. These latter two institutions, Albany State (87.1 miles from CSU) and Georgia Southwestern (60.2 miles from CSU), are closest in proximity to the Turner College, and both are situated in substantially smaller markets, particularly the latter. Lastly, after experiencing a sharp decline in MBA program enrollment from Fall 2020 to Fall 2022, Clayton State has turned things around with a recent increase in enrollment from 218 students in Fall 2023 to 245 students in Fall 2024. Despite residing in the smallest market, it maintained its position at the top in terms of enrollment over the entire time frame referenced above.