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• Interest in a healthcare career among business school students has been rising in recent years.
• In response, business schools around the world have created new healthcare-focused MBA programs.
• We examine the reasons behind this increased interest—and whether it can be sustained.

Tech layoffs. Consulting hire freezes. Economic sluggishness. A range of factors have made the current MBA job market the most challenging in years. But one industry is going against the grain and steadily emerging as one of the most popular post-MBA career routes: healthcare.

The numbers spell it out clearly. In 2018, just 7 percent of prospective business students were interested in a career in healthcare. By 2023, that figure had in the U.S. and 15 percent worldwide. Tellingly, that initial interest is being sustained through graduation.

According to the 2024 MBA employment report at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, 14 percent of the school’s most recent MBA cohort are now working in healthcare. That figure is also high at several other top-ranking U.S. schools: 13.8 percent at Indiana’s Kelley School, 11 percent at Kenan-Flagler in North Carolina, and 9.2 percent at Michigan Ross. In the Stanford MBA class of 2024, healthcare became the third-biggest sector for the first time ever.

So what’s driving this increased interest, is it sustainable, and will healthcare eventually become one of the major industries for b-school graduates?

Michael Darden is the program director of the MS in Health Care Management at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. He has definitely noticed an increase in healthcare interest among MBA students in recent years.

In 2018, just 7 percent of prospective business students were interested in a career in healthcare. By 2023, that figure had reached 15 percent worldwide.

“We do see quite a bit of interest in healthcare,” he explains. “And I think you see a lot of business schools moving in this direction. I think the demand effect of students can explain, for example, why the business school at Georgetown just started a .”

Given Johns Hopkins’ reputation for excellence in healthcare, it only seems natural that their business school would look to build on that prestige. Darden reveals that around five years ago, Carey made the strategic decision to try to become “the number one business of health business school.” As part of that strategy, the school has started to add new healthcare-focused programs to its portfolio.

One of those is a new joint program being launched in the fall, which will combine an MBA with an MS in healthcare management. “Essentially our MBA students in their second year will complete the MS healthcare management one-year program,” Darden explains. “And that I think that speaks to what you’re talking about with the demand for these courses—that we do have some people who are very committed to doing a career in health.”

Yet the movement between an MBA and healthcare isn’t just going in one direction. Stephanie Chamberlain is the associate head of Sheffield Business School at Sheffield Hallam University. The school has also recently introduced a new program: an. Unlike some healthcare business programs, Chamberlain explains that this new qualification is targeted at students already working in the healthcare sector.

 “What I can say is that there’s interest from people in the healthcare management profession who are looking to do a business qualification,” she explains. “They really want a business qualification to help give them credibility in that sort of sphere. We’ve had people on our course who may be cardiac surgeons, for example, but are also responsible for a department and have to manage it from a business perspective.”

As the industry grows, so too does the need for more business skills to drive efficiency.

Chamberlain goes on to explain how the online program is appealing to “time-poor” professionals in the healthcare industry. “They want that flexibility to be able to study as and when they can,” she says. “It’s early days for us, but the program has already proven to be really popular.”

Although student profiles differ on each side of the Atlantic, the same factors appear to be driving this increased interest in healthcare. First, there’s the very simple fact that healthcare is a globally. And as the industry grows, so too does the need for more business skills to drive efficiency and ensure companies are spending their budgets as effectively as possible.

This notion is backed by business school graduates currently working in healthcare. Mara Hillyer is the manager of a healthcare consulting practice at Plante Moran in Detroit, Michigan, but studied business and then accountancy at the University of Dayton. She explained to °®Âþµº last year how her financial acumen is proving invaluable in an industry grappling with complex problems.

“We’re seeing that a lot of providers are struggling, especially because operational costs are much higher these days,” she says. “On top of all that, you’re looking at a business but also providing care to patients. So it’s about balancing profitability while providing the best care possible.”

Because of the growth of the industry as a whole, there is now a far greater range of jobs in the industry than ever before. Darden explains some of the potential career paths that his business school graduates have taken.

The desire to make a genuine impact in the world has been rising steadily among business school students for years.

“We have a lot of people that go into hospital and health system management. We have a lot of people who go into health-related consulting, either litigation consulting or management consulting or something like that. And then a variety of categories like medical device companies or pharmaceutical companies. We also had AstraZeneca here about a month ago, and they’ve hired a couple of our MBA students.”

Though interest in a career in healthcare is growing, that doesn’t mean MBA students should see it as a straightforward path. Clinical operations manager Denise Thrush told °®Âþµº last year that it’s still vital for students to first gain experience “at the clinical level.”

“You don’t want to be that person sitting five layers above everybody, telling them what’s going to happen without understanding the impact at the ground level,” she adds. Perhaps more so than any other industry, it’s vital that business school students gain hands-on experience in healthcare before trying to enter the field.

In these uncertain times, perhaps many students are also looking for that most valuable of commodities: stability. “I think it’s increasingly clear that these are stable and high-paying jobs that offer the ability to move up within an organization and have real impact,” says Darden.

Maybe it is that blend of stability, salary, and impact that best explains the rise of healthcare. Salary remains a prime motivator for prospective students, but the desire to make a genuine impact in the world has been rising steadily among business school students for years. In healthcare, they may just find what they’re looking for.