Prospective Students
A Message from Dean Connelly: The Ageno Value Proposition |
 Dean Terry Connelly |  | Higher Education: The Most Attractive Return on Investment
I came to the Ageno School of Business from the world of investments and financial assets. My experience tells me the most valuable long-term investment anyone can make is not stocks or bonds or real estate, but higher education -- which has always been the key to America's distinctive record of economic opportunity and social mobility.The level of education attained is the single best predictor of an individual's lifetime earnings. And the greatest difference in income is between those who only start university and those who actually graduate.The steadily growing income disparity among Americans threatens our social fabric. The top five percent of US family incomes are up 50 percent over the past twenty years, while the bottom 20 percent are down 20 percent. Education could and should be the great leveler, but three-out-of-four Americans over 25 years of age still have not completed college. The rising cost of higher education, as we all know, is making it ever harder to do so. Nor is the situation any easier for our international students.In short, it has never been more important -- or more expensive -- to earn a university diploma. Just as stocks are bought on margin and houses with mortgages, students must now take on more debt to get their degrees. And increasing numbers are being priced-out or shut-out of admission to college and professional education. Many more of those who do get in must continue -- or start -- to work while they study to pay tuition and expenses that are increasing (even at taxpayer-funded institutions) much faster than the inflation rate or real wages.
Golden Gate University: Advancing Professional Careers Since 1901
The vast, unfulfilled demand for accessible, affordable education has created a market where all types of academic institutions are vying for a presence. Golden Gate University was here early: For more than 100 years, our innovative leadership in the field of education for working people has created a value proposition that commands respect for its results on behalf of career-minded professionals of all ages and backgrounds.This university believes at its core that education is a necessity, but not a commodity. We have always advanced the proposition that capacity to pay "up-front" has literally nothing to do with ability to learn or to lead, and our 60,000 alumni worldwide have proved it in their private and public sector careers. Since 1901, Golden Gate University has been providing high-quality, practice-based professional education, and it shows. I have worked and taught in the field of strategy, and I know "distinctive competence" when I see it. Golden Gate University continues to be a bridge across the education income gap for students of all ages, and its schools are truly a model that others can emulate as "best practice."
The Ageno Advantage: A Powerful Blend of Theory, Practice and Convenience
The Ageno School combines traditional academic quality, based on a commitment to faculty governance and rigorous scholarship, with the real-world insight of practitioners and the most innovative technologies and formats. We are awarding over 700 degrees annually, including BA, BS, MBA, EMBA, EMPA, MA, MS and our distinctive doctorate of business administration, which enriches our entire program.We have fully integrated our fast-growing CyberCampus with our classroom offerings, using Internet technology not as an end unto itself, but to materially enhance the quality and flexibility of the learning experience. Our mix of locations, class times, modalities and custom study options is attuned to the "24/7" reality of both business and personal life.At the Ageno School, we are in essence professionals educating professionals; we teach what we practice, and we practice what we teach.Thus there are very good reasons why so many graduates of the Ageno School have succeeded in leadership positions. And our alumni recognize that the value of their own degrees is being enhanced by their continuing contributions that strengthen our current program and give our students a competitive edge.
We Value Our Students -- and So Do Employers
The Ageno School of Business attracts serious, focused, committed individuals who support each others' learning, and our faculty and administrators are equally committed to them.We have long recognized the need for sector-specific, problem-solving business know-how and peer-to-peer leadership skills that others are now coming to see as critical. For example, a very recent critique of contemporary business education, published in Strategy and Business and based on the research of three Booz Allen Hamilton executives, reached the following conclusions:"Companies today demand good collaborative thinkers who cooperate to solve problems. Too often, schools deliver good analysts who compete to apply business school formulas. Furthermore, companies demand specialized knowledge useful to particular professions. Schools, however are more likely to deliver generalists who have trouble digging into special fields that can distinguish them and their employers. Companies demand leaders who can powerfully articulate ideas, orally and in writing, to motivate and guide their people. But schools tend to train people simply to assert their ideas; they don't sensitize them to the critical value of being an excellent communicator."At the Ageno School, we are already aligned in many aspects with the Booz Allen recommendations, and we are getting even better through our intense focus on educational outcomes for both students and employers.Our approach focuses on the practical application of theory, including innovative, career-focused concentrations in our MBA programs and specialized MS programs in distinct functional areas. Our course offerings have recently been enhanced to emphasize managerial communications, team dynamics, group problem solving and management of innovation, along with our traditional emphasis on global relevance and our strategic capstone team projects.
The Added Value of Diversity
The San Francisco Bay Area's cosmopolitan character and the extraordinary diversity of its population -- as well as that of our own faculty and professional advisory panels -- makes the Ageno School of Business an ideal place to learn the skills needed to manage today's highly diverse workforces in the global economy.We welcome your application to study and learn more about our reality-based academic programs. We look forward to helping you shape your studies to fulfill your career aspirations, and to build your equity in your future achievements.Terry Connelly Dean, Edward S. Ageno School of Business Golden Gate University tconnelly@ggu.edu |
