Florida needs to graduate to the MBA big leagues

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Hang out, as I have lately, with Florida's economic development leaders and you would think the Sunshine State is becoming the economic center of the universe.

The state is generating new jobs. Its unemployment rate is well below the national average. Tourism continues to scramble steadily back from its post-9/11 lows. And, for better or worse, people continue to pour into the state a lot faster than they are leaving it.

Florida is by no means perfect. But some other big but less fortunate states would drool for such trends.

Don't forget Florida's latest economic bombshell: the decision by California's Scripps Research Institute, the hottest biotech research organization in the nation, to open a major facility in Palm Beach County - with the most generous help of more than $500-million in state and local incentives.

The deal is the sole subject of today's special session in Tallahassee of the state legislature. Landing Scripps here promises immediate international and intellectual prestige to a state known overseas (and probably in many parts of this country) for Mickey Mouse, OJ, beach holidays and hanging chads.

If we only had a nationally recognized graduate business school - or two - to inject some MBA clout into Florida's economic momentum. To enter the business big leagues, the nation's fourth most populated state needs a business school producing MBA-educated managers who can hold their own with anybody, anywhere.

Sure, we have plenty of business schools. Some are dynamic and growing and worthy of our local pride. But none of them are in the Big Leagues of business schools.

Here's why it matters. Florida needs better business schools - just as it needs better education in general - to help anchor the growing effort by the state to build a more sophisticated economy for the 21st century.

Florida can't grow or attract entrepreneurial companies without a stronger core of well-educated MBA grads in the state.

Florida can't compete for better-paying jobs - jobs that could just as easily end up somewhere else - without well-trained MBAs who can handle more complex corporate work.

Florida can't attract more top-of-the-food-chain organizations like Scripps if the state continues to wear a second-class mantle of business training.

I had to chuckle last month when the other newspaper in the Tampa Bay area slapped this headline on a story: University of Florida Ranked Among World's Best for MBA. The story correctly, if too glowingly, pointed out that the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business ranked 35th out of 50 of the year's top business schools in a Wall Street Journal annual survey.

That's not bad. The business school had climbed considerably in the rankings from the previous year. And it had tied for 27th place in a separate survey of business schools conducted by U.S. News & World Report.

The University of Florida is perceived to run the best business school in a state bereft of top-of-the-line MBA programs. But Florida, soon to become the third largest state in the country, needs more competitive business schools. Certainly one in the top dozen. Maybe two in the top 20.

In a nutshell, Florida needs to start raising the educational bar just as it is trying to raise the business bar. The state won't get far doing one without the other.

Not to pick on the University of Florida. It's outperforming Florida's other university-run business schools in any number of recent national surveys.

In the Wall Street Journal rankings, the University of Florida was the state's only business school in the top 50. While most of the top-ranked business schools were in New England, New York or the Chicago area, the Southeast fared surprisingly well. North Carolina boasted three top-50 business schools: Kenan-Flagler at UNC Chapel Hill at No. 10; Duke University's Fuqua school at No. 17; and Wake Forest's Babcock school at No. 27. In Tennessee, Vanderbilt's Owen business school ranked No. 15. In Georgia, Emory's Goizueta school was No. 23.

In other national surveys of business schools within the past year, Florida MBA programs scored a bit better - and worse.

A Forbes magazine ranked three Florida business schools in its top 67: University of Florida at No. 50, Rollins College's Crummer school in Winter Park at No. 54; and the University of Miami's business school at No. 65.

In U.S. News & World Report, the University of Florida's business school tied with Rice University's at No. 27. No other Florida school made the top 50.

And in BusinessWeek magazine, which selects business schools based on their best specialty skills in finance, marketing, management and entrepreneurship, Florida was shut out altogether. Nobody made the cut.

Which brings us to the Tampa Bay area's business schools. It's no great surprise that the University of South Florida College of Business Administration did not rank on any list. But it's time for it to start pushing harder to gain national recognition. The smaller-scaled Sykes School of Business at the University of Tampa is not ready for the national scene. But it needs to keep moving in that direction.

So, too, do the graduate business schools at Florida State University, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University and a host of other MBA programs across the state.

It may seem silly to demand more from MBA schools in a state that suffers such deep problems in its underlying public education system. Florida ranks at or near the bottom of the barrel in its high school graduation rates, regardless of whose statistics are used.

I would argue just the opposite. Improving weak educational standards is a long-term commitment. There's no reason not to push for better quality MBA programs at the same time.

In a state too comfortable with a manana mentality, demanding higher standards can be a terribly disturbing step to take. Grab the MBA bar and raise it.

- Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.

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