Why do Asian students study at Emmanuel Métais’s business school? They need only to look out the window of Edhec’s Cote d’Azur campus on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, says Mr Métais, the school’s dean. “They will see palm trees and the Mediterranean Sea.”
He is joking, of course. Edhec Business School has consistently been near the top of the pre-experience masters in finance ranking for its quality of teaching and research, not its location. But high-ranked and well-located schools know they face greater competition for the lucrative Asian student market.
About a quarter of students on Edhec’s MSc in finance are Asian, but at other schools in Europe and the US the proportion is much higher. Asians account for two-thirds of newly enrolled students at schools in the 2018 pre-experience masters in management ranking. Meanwhile, US and European schools are acutely aware of the rapid rise of competitors in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and India.