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Noting that women's enrollment at business schools has plateaued at 30%, while the numbers have peaked at 44% in medical and law schools, Catalyst, University of Michigan Business School, and the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan sought to gain insight into the business school environment, career outcomes of MBA graduates, and why more women aren't pursuing MBAs in a study published in 2000.

Both women and men are satisfied with their business school experience (women 95%, men 95%), citing the four most rewarding activities as:

• Interactions with other students/involvement in activities
• Curriculum and class size
• Opportunity for group work; use of case studies
• Acquiring managerial and business skills

African-American women are more likely to:

• Feel excluded in business school, with 45% finding the environment to be overly aggressive and competitive
• Attribute women's low enrollment in business school to a lack of encouragement from employers (59%), compared to 39% of white women
• Suggest increasing overall diversity as a means of recruiting women to business schools (93% vs. 49% of white women)

Male and female graduates offer strategies for increasing women's enrollment in business schools:

• Feature more women business leaders as role models (men: 77%; women: 87%)
• Involve women students and faculty in recruitment (men: 69%; women 71%)
• Hire more women faculty (men 42%; women 63%)
• Increase overall diversity (men 42%; women 57%)
• Evaluate faculty on diversity (men 36%; women 51%)