在美国空军（US Air Force）工作了24年之后，Lee-Ann Perkins渐渐意识到一件事：她想做一些不同的事情，一些自己选择的、自己喜欢的事情。
“24年以来，我终于明白了自己想要的究竟是什么，”她笑着说。她决定重回校园，申请斯隆学者课程学习机会。
斯隆学者课程（The Sloan Fellows programme），最初是50年前由当时的通用汽车（General Motors）总裁Alfred P Sloan先生创立的，课程主要在三所学校开展：伦敦商学院（London Business School）、麻省理工斯隆商学院（MIT Sloan）和斯坦福大学（Stanford）。这三所学校除了课程之外，有很多共同点——都是专为资深经理人设计的一年全日制课程。当然，他们又各有特色：麻省理工专注于革新；伦敦商学院重视策略；而斯坦福则主打硅谷牌。
但是，可能最显著的差异还是目标人群。伦敦商学院主要针对稍大年龄群体，如现年47岁的Perkins女士，想为自己充充电的。“我们都处在一个人生关键的岔路口。”她这样表示。
而麻省理工和斯坦福的学生，则相对来说较年轻一些。比如麻省理工，斯隆学者课程的学生平均年龄38岁，大约14年的工作经验。项目负责人Stephen Sacca说，斯隆学者课程在这里，“不是改变职业生涯的课程。”但是在企业家中非常受追捧，因为我们为他们的事业添砖加瓦，现在能够做500万美元的企业，还想追求5000万美元的业绩。
传统上，该课程的目标是三四十岁的已获单学位，又想增加一个MBA学位的人群。也就是说，课程为在职经理人提供了在职深造的机会。
业内人士Sacca女士说，今年麻省理工斯隆学者课程的申请者增加了20%。斯坦福也由之前的67人增加到了80人，将80个学生刚好分成2个班，以使得每位学生都能接受更好的教育。
斯坦福大学在考虑是否要将斯隆学者课程的名称与学校挂钩起来，因为目前，很容易使大众同麻省理工的相关课程混淆。
然而，其他的商学院也在考虑进入这个市场。香港大学（Hong Kong University）三年前就与麻省理工商讨开办斯隆学者课程。西北大学凯洛格商学院（The Kellogg school at Northwestern University）也已在过去几十年里开办了一年制学时的相关课程，三年内有望突破170名MBA课程参与者的记录。该学院的学生平均年龄为28周岁。
在欧洲，招收年长学员的一年制MBA学程体系已经建立起来。英国的阿什里奇管理学院（Ashridge），就于去年9月重新开始招收MBA学生，学员平均年龄为36岁。瑞士的瑞士国际管理发展学院（IMD）的一年制MBA学生已注册学员90名，平均年龄为31岁。
受访者Perkins女士略显沮丧的说，“我不当学生好多年了，所以，让自己集中注意力全身心投入学习是一件多么挑战的事情。真的很难，但却是好事。”
她坚信，自己从这课程里学到的东西远比她预想的要多。“在过去的几个月里，我对自己的了解有了飞跃般的提升。文化及社会影响都提高了很多。对我来说，我的社交自信更饱满了。”
After 24 years in the US Air Force, Lee-Ann Perkins knew one thing: she wanted to do something different. And she wanted to do it in a region of the world that she chose herself.
“For 24 years I was told where I had to live,” she laughs. She decided to go back to school and applied to become a Sloan Fellow at London Business School.
The Sloan Fellows programme, inspired and initially funded by Alfred P Sloan, General Motors chief executive, about 50 years ago, is taught at three business schools: London Business School, MIT Sloan and Stanford. These three exclusive programmes have much in common – they are one-year immersion programmes designed for very senior managers to study full-time. They are also distinct: MIT focuses on innovation and LBS on strategy, while Stanford plays its Silicon Valley card. According to Marie Mookini, who manages Stanford’s Sloan programme, “the combination of the university and the valley can’t be beat”
But perhaps the most significant difference is the target student group. LBS admits an older class, such as Ms Perkins, now 47, who wish to reinvent their careers. “We’re all at a key turning point in our lives,” she says.
At MIT and Stanford the participants are younger. At MIT, Sloan Fellows have an average age of 38, with 14 years’ work experience, says Stephen Sacca, director of the programme. Sloan Fellows is “not a career-changer programme”, he says, but it is proving particularly popular with entrepreneurs who have already built their first company. “They may have built a $5m business but now they want to build a $50m one,” he says.
Traditionally, programmes targeted at students in their late 30s and 40s have been non-degree programmes, although increasingly executive MBA programmes for working managers are taking the degree market to more mature students. But the fragmentation of the degree market, with masters and online degrees that give greater choice to managers of all ages, combined with the need to educate more senior managers with longer working lives, has given a fillip to the sector.
“There is very little out there for people in their 40s,” says Linden Selby, senior admissions manager for the Sloan Fellows programme at LBS.
Mr Sacca says applications to MIT’s programme have increased by 20 per cent this year. And Stanford is increasing the size of its programme from 67 to 80, splitting the 80 students into two classes of 40, to give a more intimate experience.
“There will be fewer students, so much more time for debate,” Ms Mookini says. The programme will also run for 12 months in future, not 10.5 as today. Stanford is pondering whether to go one step further and drop the Sloan name altogether, because of the confusion this causes with the MIT Sloan school.
Other business schools are also looking at entering the market. Hong Kong University approached MIT three years ago about running a programme but has not developed the idea. Top US schools are also considering one-year MBA programmes. The Kellogg school at Northwestern University, which has been running a one-year programme for decades, is hoping to have 170 participants on its one-year MBA within three years. One reason is to attract international students, says Betsy Ziegler, associate dean of MBA programmes. The average student is 28.
In Europe, one-year MBAs for older managers are already established. At Ashridge in the UK, which is relaunching its MBA in September, the average age of students is 36. At IMD in Switzerland the one-year MBA programme enrols 90 students a year with an average age of 31.
Martha Maznevski, MBA programme director, says the programme is similar to the Sloan Fellows in that it is a small class in which students form a tight-knit community and learn from each other. “We do not select the 90 best individuals, we create the one best class.”
. . .
As for Ms Perkins, the programme she began in January is proving a little daunting. “I haven’t been a student for many years, so organising myself has been challenging. It’s been hard, but in a good way.”
She believes she has already got more out of the programme than she envisaged. “I have learnt more about myself over the past few months than I ever anticipated. The cultural and social aspects have been amazing. For me, just to have a social life is great.”
