In an unexpectedly generous move the Australian government decided to lift most restrictions on the issuing of student visas to overseas students applying for a place at university. The hope is to create a new flood of new applications from China, India and other Asian countries. Australia’s 39 universities are preparing for 2012 when the government lifts not only the quotas on the number of local students, but also the restrictions to recruit as many foreigners as they wish as a result of a new fast-track visa system.

Business schools team up with companies on programs in which students play the role of consultants – often at little or no cost to the organization.
Management consulting is a very popular career choice for graduates. The “Management Consulting Club” of Harvard Business School, for example, is one of the largest professional clubs on campus. It aims at providing face-time with consulting companies. Monthly cocktails with senior consultants in an informal setting allow for extensive networking opportunities.

This year two-year, full-time MBA programmes received less applications compared to 2010. About two-thirds reported a decline in a new survey from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).

IMD’s professor of finance and governance, Didier Cossin feels that financial education has misled a whole generation of managers, “encouraging them to behave badly under the pretext of pseudoscientific principles”.

Asia is developing into a strong market for business schools and Insead has been active on the continent for several years, teaching from its own campus in Singapore and forging ties with universities in China. In 2007 Insead started the so called TIEMBA programme (Tsinghua Insead Executive MBA) that enables students to finish a dual-degree Executive MBA with Insead and the Chinese Tsinghua University.

Academic business research has economic value: MBA students from schools where teachers frequently publish in high-level academic journals tend to earn more after graduation. That is the result of a study published in Booz & Company’s publication “Strategy and Business”. MBA students who go to schools where the research level is high get paid more than peers who went to other schools - as much as 21 percent more after three years in the real world.

August was the month of rankings. Rather than picking one particular ranking, we have looked at different ones and tried to compile some sort of comparison for you. The most prominent ranking on the market was the one from Forbes magazine.

Western students are now finding jobs in China more easily, reports China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Its 184 members of the 2011 graduating class received 1,500 job offers from 480 companies.

Companies like Facebook made headlines in the past looking only for top talent. A wrong approach says a bestselling American author who claims “great people are overrated”. Good teams are much more valuable than single stars, says William C. Taylor.

One-year MBA programmes have risen in demand and new offers reflect the new trend. In 2010, 48 per cent of students preferred a one-year programme compared to 38 per cent that voted for a two-year programme, when questioned for the QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey.

LinkedIn has created a new web button that allows users to apply for a job, automatically, using their LinkedIn profile. The button, a blue rectangle, reads “Apply with LinkedIn” and is said to make it easy for users to submit their profile for any job application on the internet with one simple click.

Many of the best jobs in companies are never advertised. Head hunters go out and look for suitable candidates, but how can you be visible enough for a head hunter to become aware of you?

The Economist Intelligence Unit expects a sub-Saharan banking boom, with banks addressing the many Africans who do not have accounts. The Unit’s new report estimates that banking in 16 African economies will boost assets by 178 percent to 980 billion US dollars by 2020.

A new report from financial services firm UBS names the most expensive cities in the world. Oslo, Zurich and Geneva grabbed the top three spots, followed by Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tokyo, Sydney, Helsinki, Toronto and Singapore.

To get into business school you need application essays, letters of recommendation, academic credentials, work experience and an entrance interview. Washington Post interviewed the admission officers of some of the top schools. We have compiled the top tips for you.

“You won’t have one career your whole life,” says Sydney based career coach Pauline Müller. “So manage your career at all times!” Pauline Müller, an Australian with Indian heritage who is married to a German journalist, has done exactly that her own life long. She has been in the work force for 30 years now and has had careers that span across four completely different areas: from being a lawyer with the public prosecutions office to managing the administration of a court and other government agencies to being a consultant to heading the compliance department for two of Australia’s major banks. She has seen it all and at the peak of her career decided to live her life again and leave her all consuming work. After a year of readjusting her life, she started from scratch, following what she enjoyed doing and became a career management consultant. Today, she helps executives find their right career paths – something she has done so many times herself.
MBA Channel spoke to her about the secrets of being successful in different careers.

The recent news that the TiasNimbasBusiness School will close its MBA programme in Germany came as a surprise to staff, students and the general public. It has now been confirmed that the Duke-Goethe Executive MBA programme will also be discontinued in 2012. Both institutions have offered their programmes as premium part-time MBA programmes and both cite a lack of demand and market conditions as the key reasons for discontinuing the programme. This begs the question: Is the market for part-time MBA programmes trending downward in Germany?

Unaccredited universities in the US often promote themselves as helping students getting a visa into the country. A group of schools—including San Jose’s ITU, Sunnyvale’s Herguan University and until recently Pleasanton’s now-closed Tri-Valley University – have attracted a student body that consists entirely of student-visa holders – most of them from India. But are they genuine universities and their MBA programmes proper courses?