????專業學校一度風光無限。但面臨殘酷的就業市場，畢業即失業的學生們終于忍無可忍，有人甚至起訴他們的母校，稱學校承諾畢業生可以找到穩定的工作，六位數的薪水更是手到擒來，他們信以為真，結果欠下了巨額債務。

????而商學院的承諾更是受到嚴厲的譴責，因為商學院畢業生本希望既能接受良好的教育，又能快速獲得經濟回報。商學院采用的就業統計數據申報標準非常嚴格，甚至有會計人員的參與（部分法學院也正在考慮采用該機制），這是理想的商學院風格。但即便如此嚴格的就業統計數據也會存在瑕疵。有意攻讀MBA的學生可得注意：學校就業報告里給出的六位數薪水，并不能保證在畢業時就一定能兌現。

????商學院當前實行的機制開始于1994年。當時，MBA就業服務委員會（MBA Career Services Council）開始制定一系列報告標準，目的是統一一流學校的就業報告一。該委員會是針對MBA就業服務專業人員與招聘人員的專業組織。

????麻省理工大學斯隆商學院（MIT's Sloan School of Business）就業服務中心主任杰基?威爾伯當時就在MBA就業服務委員會的標準委員會擔任聯合主席，她說：“我們聚在一起，進行了長時間的討論。”這些標準在1999年被MBA就業服務委員會正式采用。2006年，委員會一致通過了一系列審計流程。最終形成了一套廣泛的、可行的統一規定。

????威爾伯稱，關于就業報告標準，商學院在許多方面都走在前列。她希望其他類型的學校也能以商學院為榜樣，實行更加嚴格的報告標準。

????威爾伯表示：“鑒于教育成本不斷攀升，所有教育機構都應該采取更加嚴格的標準。學生家長要求掌握更準確的信息，來衡量他們的投資回報。”當然，其中也包括本科生教育。

????然而今年夏天美國佛羅里達大學（University of Florida）爆出的丑聞則顯示，即便一些商學院也必須自我檢點。佛羅里達州的《甘斯維爾太陽報》（Gainsville Sun）報道稱，對佛羅里達大學進行的一次校內調查發現，學校在2009年向《美國新聞與世界報道》（US News and World Report）提供的就業數據并不準確（當年，學校并未向MBA就業服務委員會提交其就業記錄，但威爾伯稱，如果進行審計，應該能發現其中的出入）。報道稱，部分正在求職的學生被作為已就業學生，另外還有一些尚在求職的學生則干脆被全部刪除，無法在就業數據中得以體現。不過學校對該則報道的結論予以強烈否認。

????學校偽造數據的理由

????范德堡大學歐文管理學院（Vanderbilt University's Owen School of Management）就業服務中心執行主任里德?麥克納馬拉認為，學校有強烈的動機，提供“更體面”的就業報告。因為，即使統計數據出現些微變化，也有可能導致學校排名的大幅波動，而這將會直接影響學校的申請人數和資金支持。

????MBA就業服務委員會聯合主席兼范德堡大學就業服務中心高級副主任艾米麗?安德森稱，每年，約有100所學校自愿接受隨機審計核查，其中，每年約有25所學校被選中，這意味著每所學校每四年便會接受一次隨機審計核查。大部分就業服務中心主任均認為，審計非常必要。

????面臨種種誘惑（暫且不論充足的生源），學校在報告時可能有選擇地只統計獲得高薪職位的畢業生，盡管威爾伯表示MBA就業服務委員會要求每所學校在編制報告時，要統計每個班級85%的學生的就業情況。部分會員學校甚至要求將該標準提高到最低95%。

????但部分學校也可能在統計中額外塞進一些學生。例如，某所學校招收了一名職業運動員，因此試圖將他的巨額薪酬分攤到統計數據中。報告中僅包括“MBA級”工作崗位（體育甚至專業運動員都不屬于MBA級工作崗位），但對“MBA級”的定義卻模棱兩可。如果該定義被錯誤解讀，也可能會產生相反的結果，使低薪酬工作被視為不屬于MBA級別，進而在統計時被排除在外。威爾伯稱，關于上面提到的運動員的案例，審計過程應該可以發現類似的錯誤。

????Professional schools have had better years. Facing a brutal job market, underemployed graduates have begun to speak up, some even suing their former institutions, claiming they were duped into acquiring massive debt loads based on the promise of a secure, six-figure-salary job.

????That promise is particularly critical at business schools, where graduates expect a quick financial payoff as well as an education. At these programs, the standards for reporting employment statistics, in true B-school fashion, are rigorous and involve accountants (a system some law schools are considering). But even those career statistics can have their flaws. Prospective students take heed: The six-figure school-reported numbers are not a guarantee of a sweet paycheck come graduation day.

????The current system has its roots in 1994, when the MBA Career Services Council (CSC), the professional association for MBA career services professionals and recruiters, started developing a set of reporting standards to allow for uniform career reporting across the top schools.

????"We all sat around in a room and we hashed it out," says Jackie Wilbur, career services director at MIT's Sloan School of Business who was co-chair of the MBA Career Services Council's standards committee at the time. Those standards were officially adopted by the CSC in 1999. In 2006, it established a set of agreed upon procedures to allow for auditing. The result was a uniform set of extensive, enforceable rules.

????In many ways, B-schools have led the charge in employment reporting standards, Wilbur says. She expects other types of programs will likely follow suit and double down on reporting standards.

????"Given the rising cost of education, every piece of the equation of the educational offering is going to have to go more and more this way," Wilbur says -- including undergrad programs. "Parents are going to demand better information about return on investment."

????But a scandal this summer at the University of Florida revealed that even some B-schools still have to clean up their act. Florida's Gainsville Sun reported that an internal university investigation found the school had provided US News and World Report with inaccurate employment data in 2009 (it did not submit its records to the CSC that year, though Wilbur says an audit would have picked up the discrepancies). The school vehemently denied the conclusions of the report, which found that several students were listed as employed when they were seeking employment, and that other students seeking employment were omitted from the data altogether.

????A host of reasons to fudge the data

????Schools have a strong incentive to deliver good employment reports, says Read McNamara, executive director of career services at the Vanderbilt University's Owen School of Management, as even tiny changes in the stats can lead to big changes in a school's ranking, which, in turn, can directly affect application numbers and funding.

????Emily Anderson, co-chair of the CSC and Vanderbilt's senior associate director of career services, says that each year about 100 schools volunteer for random auditing checks. Of those, about 25 are selected each year, meaning schools can expect to be audited about once every four years. Most career services directors agree that the audits are necessary.

????Among the chief temptations: not including enough students -- schools may selectively include only graduates with high-paying jobs, though Wilbur says the CSC requires a school to report responses from 85% of each class for each report. Some member schools are requesting that the standard be raised to a minimum of 95%.

????A school may also include too many students. One program, which had enrolled a professional athlete, attempted to report his outsize salary in their average. Only "MBA-level" jobs are included in the report (sports aren't considered MBA level, even the pros), but that can be a tricky definition. Misreading of that definition can also run the other way, and can result in some lower paying jobs being deemed as not MBA level and discarded from the stats. Wilbur notes that, as in the case of the athlete, the auditing process should catch these types of errors.