Go West: European schools start campuses in U.S.A.

“For European students America is a dream,” says Alice Guilhon, the school's Dean. “And it is a dream for us to be known in the U.S.”

SKEMA's decision to build its own campus in the United States is an unusual one. Most programs are partnerships or collaborations, reports “USA Today”. But recently at least three other major European business schools have taken steps to go beyond partnerships. After three years of planning, Spain's IESE Business School has just opened a North American facility just a block from Broadway in New York.  Luis Cabral, the Center's Academic Director and an economics professor says that expansion into the United States was a logical step in IESE's efforts to become known worldwide. For at least the next few years, though, the New York Center will be an outpost of the main school in Barcelona and will offer executive education but not actual MBA degrees.

Another Spanish school beginning its foray into the United States is IE Business School, which has campuses in Madrid and Segovia. In March, IE launched a joint program with Brown University, one of the few elite U.S. universities that doesn't have its own business school — to offer an executive MBA program that aims to infuse the humanities and social sciences into the typical business curriculum. “We're expecting to attract Americans,” says David Bach, Dean of Programs. “A European MBA is increasingly attractive to U.S. employers who want to know they're hiring people who understand the world, but not everybody can come to Europe for a year.”

SKEMA — created last year by the merger of ESC Lille School of Management and CERAM Business School — is hoping to build its global reputation by situating its new campuses near hubs of the technology industry. “To be well-known in America is leverage for the visibility of the school in the world,” Guilhon says. Beginning next January, SKEMA will be offering classes in English to about 300 of its own students on the Raleigh campus of North Carolina State University. The school hopes to have its own 40,000 square foot building open by 2013.

Another French business school hoping to cultivate a presence in the United States is Insead. The school established a strategic alliance with Wharton in 2001 to exchange students and faculty, but saw the need to do more to build its brand in the Americas.  INSEAD always had individuals who flew in from the main campuses to work with companies in the United States, but now the school wants to make a commitment to the Americas by being there physically. The school has a full-time Director of Development based in the United States, as well as a few U.S.-based executive education faculties.

So far, INSEAD's only academic offerings in the U.S. are executive education programs, offered through companies like the New York Stock Exchange and Pfizer, but rising application numbers from American citizens do suggest potential for expansion. In the last five years, applications from U.S. citizens to INSEAD's campuses in France, Abu Dhabi and Singapore have nearly doubled. To maintain diversity, American enrolment has been capped at 10 per cent of the student body. But that doesn't mean an American INSEAD campus is coming any time soon. “We're looking to expand the campuses we already have,” says Mary Lee Rieley, executive director of INSEAD North America. “We're going to focus on building more strategic partnerships with corporations and other schools.”

• IE Business School
  Full-Time MBA, Executive MBA, Distance MBA
• IESE Business School
  Full-Time MBA, Executive MBA
• INSEAD
  Full-Time MBA
• Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
  Full-Time MBA, Executive MBA