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What’s Stopping Progress in Higher Education?
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Let’s explore how Full Fabric can help you and your institution.
Something interesting happened in 2025. Graduate business education applications grew by 7% globally, which sounds straightforward enough. But when you look beneath that headline number, you'll find a much more revealing story about where candidates actually want to study, how they want to learn, and what they're really looking for from business schools.
If you're leading admissions, recruitment, or programme strategy, these patterns matter. They tell you where your institution fits in a rapidly shifting landscape and what prospective students now expect from you.
The development and maintenance of an in-house system is a complex and time-consuming task. Full Fabric lets you turn your full attention to maximizing growth and performance.
Remember all those conversations about the "new normal" of hybrid learning? The predictions that flexible, online formats would permanently reshape higher education? Well, 2025's data tells a different story.
Full-time, two-year MBA programmes saw the strongest growth, with 59% reporting application increases. Meanwhile, flexible, online, and executive MBA formats declined.
And honestly, this makes sense. As organisations have pulled people back into offices and re-established expectations around in-person collaboration, prospective students have followed. They want immersive campus experiences, networking opportunities that happen over coffee rather than Zoom, and the kind of serendipitous connections that only happen when you're physically in the same space.
Does this mean flexible programmes are finished? No. But it does mean you need to be clear about what makes each format in your portfolio genuinely valuable. The candidates who choose online or part-time options aren't settling. They're making a deliberate choice, and they expect these programmes to deliver just as much impact as full-time ones.
Here's where things get particularly revealing. Programmes in Canada, the UK, and the US all saw international applications decline, even whilst domestic applications grew. Meanwhile, programmes in Asia and the rest of Europe? International applications surged.
Visa policies and economic uncertainty appear to be driving this shift. When traditional destinations tighten immigration pathways or introduce uncertainty, prospective students don't just sit around waiting. They find alternatives. And frankly, they're finding excellent ones.
India, for instance, saw both domestic and international application growth. Programmes across Europe (excluding the UK) experienced strong increases across the board.
If you're in Canada, the UK, or the US, you can't rely on the same international recruitment playbook that's worked for decades. The patterns have fundamentally changed. You need a dual strategy:
If you're in an emerging market, this is an opportunity. As international talent redistributes, you have a genuine chance to capture students who might have previously defaulted to traditional hubs. But you'll need infrastructure, support systems, and communication that matches their expectations.
Whilst MBA applications grew modestly (2%), business master's programmes saw stronger momentum with 9% growth. Master of Accounting, Master of Finance, and Master of Marketing programmes all reported healthy increases.
The multi-year growth in Master of Accounting applications is especially notable, particularly as Master of Business Analytics programmes have struggled over the same period. These programmes may be competing for similar candidates, and any changes to professional certification requirements (such as US CPA rules) could intensify that competition further.
What does this mean if you're considering launching a new master's degree? Pay attention to market saturation. Business analytics degrees boomed in the 2010s, but candidate interest has plateaued. Meanwhile, traditional specialisations like accounting and finance continue attracting strong demand, likely because they offer clear career pathways and professional credentials.
Applications from women to MBA programmes grew 6%, outpacing men's 1% growth. That's encouraging. But women still represent just 41% of applicants to full-time, two-year MBA programmes. Roughly where representation has hovered for a decade.
Business master's programmes perform slightly better, with women making up closer to half of applicants, though representation has declined for accounting and finance programmes over the past decade.
Because diverse cohorts produce better learning outcomes, stronger networks, and more innovative thinking. If your applicant pool skews heavily male, you're not just missing talented candidates. You're limiting the quality of education you can provide to everyone in the classroom.
Improving gender diversity requires more than updating marketing materials. You need to examine every stage of the candidate journey, from initial awareness through to enrolment, and identify where women are dropping out. Then you need to fix those friction points.
A few questions to consider:
These aren't rhetorical. They're the operational details that determine whether your diversity goals actually happen or just sound good in strategy documents.
Among programmes that track this data, first-generation students now represent roughly 28% of applicants, up from 13% just two years ago. That's substantial progress.
Though a caveat: fewer schools are reporting this data each year, and those that do tend to be more selective institutions already committed to access and inclusion. So it's possible the increase reflects a change in who's responding to the survey rather than a genuine shift in the broader population.
Still, the trend is encouraging. Business schools have a real opportunity to expand access to candidates whose parents never earned a bachelor's degree. These students bring different perspectives, different networks, and different lived experiences that enrich the learning environment for everyone.
If attracting first-generation candidates matters to you, your messaging needs to address their specific concerns:
84% of programmes now integrate AI into their students' learning experience in some form, with the most common approaches focusing on decision-making, strategy development, and hands-on applications.
This aligns well with what candidates and employers actually want. They're not interested in AI for its own sake. They want to understand how to use it as a tool for solving business problems and developing competitive strategies.
However, more than half of programmes still have no policy about the use of AI in admissions. This is problematic. Candidates need clarity about what's acceptable. And admissions teams need guidelines to evaluate applications consistently.
The most common approach among schools with policies? "It depends." Schools allow AI for inspiration but not writing, require citations of AI usage, or permit its use for specific application components only.
If your school hasn't established a clear policy yet, you probably should. Ambiguity creates anxiety for applicants and inconsistency in evaluation. Be transparent about your expectations, and communicate them clearly throughout the application process.
63% of candidates globally say sustainability integration is important or very important to their academic experience, with roughly one-third saying they would rule out a school that doesn't support it.
Yet just 75% of programmes globally have incorporated sustainability into their academic offerings in some way. And the US lags significantly behind other regions.
The data reveals significant variation in how different regions have integrated sustainability into their core curriculum:
If you're a US business school competing for internationally minded candidates, this is a competitive disadvantage. You're signalling that an issue many prospective students care deeply about isn't a priority for your institution.
Incorporating sustainability doesn't require launching an entirely new degree programme. You can integrate it into existing courses, create elective options, design experiential learning opportunities, or build co-curricular activities. The key is making it visible and meaningful, not performative.
80% of business schools now offer some form of non-degree credential, most commonly executive education and professional certificates.
Why? Because 76% of schools say these programmes help them address emerging skills and industry needs, whilst 74% say they strengthen corporate partnerships.
This reflects a broader shift in how business schools define their mission. You're no longer just preparing early and mid-career professionals for their next role. You're becoming providers of lifelong learning, serving alumni, corporate partners, and community members throughout their careers.
For schools still hesitant to expand beyond traditional degrees, consider what non-degree credentials provide:
Application trends don't just tell you what happened last year. They reveal what candidates value, where competition is intensifying, and which strategies are working.
Geography matters more than ever. If you're in a country that has introduced restrictive visa policies or economic uncertainty, you cannot afford to rely solely on international recruitment. You need to cultivate your domestic pipeline whilst simultaneously making a more compelling case to international candidates about why your programme is worth the complexity. If you're in a market experiencing growth, invest in infrastructure and support systems that can accommodate rising demand.
Format clarity matters. The success of full-time, in-person programmes in 2025 doesn't invalidate flexible and online options. But it does mean you need to articulate a clear and distinct value proposition for each format in your portfolio. Why should a candidate choose your online MBA over a full-time programme? What makes your evening MBA the right choice for working professionals? If you can't answer these questions clearly, your candidates won't be able to either.
Relevance requires responsiveness. The schools that thrived in 2025 were the ones that adapted to changing candidate and employer expectations. They integrated AI in meaningful ways. They addressed sustainability. They launched non-degree credentials to meet industry needs. They diversified their portfolios to serve multiple audiences. The schools that struggled were the ones that assumed the old playbook would continue working.
The 2025 Application Trends Survey presents a clear picture: demand for graduate business education remains strong, but it's unevenly distributed across geographies, programme types, and student characteristics.
For business schools, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. You can respond to these shifts proactively, or you can wait until declining applications force your hand.
If you're looking to modernise your admissions and enrolment processes to better serve today's candidates, Full Fabric's commerce platform can help. We work with business schools worldwide to streamline applications, payments, and student journeys, so you can focus on attracting and enrolling the right students for your programmes.
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