B-school aspirants prioritise skills, AI curriculum, study destinations: GMAC Report 2026

B-school aspirants are redefining their choices for graduate management education (GME), including where they want to study, learn, upskill, and how they evaluate return on investment (ROI), according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) student survey report 2026.

GMAC student survey report 2026, which includes responses from 4,253 individuals across 145 countries, of whom 46% were women, reveals that candidates are less motivated than before to pursue GME to change their career trajectory and focus more on skills and ROI.

Notably, students are choosing Western Europe over the United States as their preferred study destination – particularly those from Central and South Asia and Latin America. Throughout 2025, policies and practices of the current US government increasingly discouraged non-US citizens from pursuing GME in the United States.

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GME: Motivations, barriers among students

As per the GMAC report , aspirants at earlier stages of their graduate business school journey are more concerned about cost, potential career disruption, and time commitments than those planning to apply within the next year.

Compared to the pre-pandemic levels, students are more likely to pursue GME due to “social influences” and because they lack skills for a specific career or job preference. Younger candidates are more likely to pursue GME to boost their income, improve their status, and pursue opportunities abroad compared to those who are further along in their careers

Students visualise how B-school can fit into their careers and daily lives when they see examples such as career paths and stories from students or alumni that show how they managed their studies, work, and personal life.

Leading study destinations

“Students are also reconsidering not just what and how they want to study, but where.”

Where B-school aspirants choose to study depends largely on opportunity, risk, affordability, career access, and broader social and political context, rather than just academic preference. As students' mobility becomes more dynamic, changes in preference locations can affect application trends and competition across regions.

For the academic year of 2025-2026, international applications moved away from traditional English-speaking hubs of GME – especially Canada, and to a lesser extent the UK and the US – and toward programmes in the rest of Europe and Asia.

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MBA, Business Master’s: Preferred degrees

MBA aspirants in the age group 25-30 have consistently preferred full-time MBA programmes since 2019. Meanwhile, students aged 22 and younger, who typically form the main pool for business master’s degrees, showed a stronger preference for non-MBA master’s programmes in 2025 compared to pre-pandemic levels

Global candidates’ preference for full-time, in-person study remained steady in 2025, following an increase from 2023 to 2024. Similarly, preference in hybrid and flexible learning learning held steady in 2025 after declining between 2023 and 2024.

The widest gap of 12 points was observed in 2025, among global candidates' preference to study full-time and in person, since 2019.

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Skills and AI as core expectation

As per the student’s survey report, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a common curricular expectation across most degree types, joining popular subjects like strategy and business analytics in widespread appeal to candidates seeking different GME courses.

Both employers and students continue to agree that strategic thinking and problem-solving are top skills to develop in B-schools. However, employers focus more on human skills like initiative, coachability, and emotional intelligence.