LinkedIn joins CarringtonCrisp as Research Partner for study into the future of lifelong and executive education

15 January 2021

For many years business schools have derived the vast majority of their income from students taking undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Some have had Executive Education offers, but even at a business school with the reputation of London Business School, income from executive education was £48 million compared to degree programme income of £79 million in its most recently published accounts. In the year that the accounts cover, the school graduated 1300 students from degree programmes, but had 10,000 pass through executive education.

It seems likely that executive education and, increasingly, lifelong learning, is set to grow in importance for business schools, both in terms of income and numbers. Competition for students taking degree programmes is ever more intense with high quality schools developing around the world. The annual Financial Times ranking of MBA degrees demonstrate the rise of Asian schools in recent years.

There is also a growing interest among employees for just-in-time learning; short courses, often delivered digitally that meet an urgent skills or knowledge need that help keep a career on track or advance it. In a study last year for the Executive MBA Council, titled ‘New Ways of Working and Learning’, 53% of employees definitely agreed that they expect to learn new skills to advance their career in the future. The same study found that 86% of employers thought that future employees will need to be prepared to upskill and reskill throughout their lives to remain in employment. One employer commented, “We notice people no longer see jobs as careers - they’ll stay for shorter periods of time than the previous generation did. Their desire for learning goes beyond the role they’re in, it’s about the long-term view of what they’re interested in.”

On three occasions in the past decade, CarringtonCrisp has run the Executive Education Futures study and in 2021 we will run the research again, but with a wider remit. The Future of Lifelong and Executive Education study will seek to help business schools understand these emerging and increasingly important markets, and we are delighted to welcome LinkedIn as our ‘Research Partner’ for this important project.

If you would like to discover more about the project and how your business school can take part, get in touch at info@carringtoncrisp.com