????雖然拉馬斯瓦米是雷鳥薪酬最高的員工，但這所學(xué)校的政府備案顯示，領(lǐng)取高薪的教授并不是只有他一個(gè)人。同一年中，另一位全球戰(zhàn)略教授安德魯`英克彭獲得了565,457萬美元的薪酬。會(huì)計(jì)學(xué)副教授格雷厄姆?蘭金的薪酬為492,908美元。另外還有3位教授的年薪也突破了40萬美元。他們是全球創(chuàng)業(yè)教授羅伯特?西斯里奇、運(yùn)營管理副教授威廉?揚(yáng)達(dá)爾和研究院院長曼蘇爾?賈維丹。

????為世界一流的教授支付這樣的高薪并不算稀罕事，但領(lǐng)取最高薪的商學(xué)院教授往往是聲譽(yù)顯赫的公眾人物，而且通常供職于能雇得起他們的大學(xué)，而不是一所深陷困境，正在為生存做長期斗爭的學(xué)校。

一所持續(xù)衰退的商學(xué)院

????多年來，雷鳥全球管理學(xué)院的全日制MBA學(xué)生注冊人數(shù)一直在穩(wěn)步下降，從1990年的逾1,500名跌至區(qū)區(qū)380名。去年秋天，新生班的學(xué)生總數(shù)僅為140人。與此同時(shí)，去年畢業(yè)班的就業(yè)率位居全美商學(xué)院最差之列——2012屆學(xué)生中，大約76%的人在畢業(yè)時(shí)還沒有簽到工作。

????事實(shí)上，在彭利看來，與桂冠教育公司合作有助于改善這所商學(xué)院滯后的就業(yè)率指標(biāo)。“這次結(jié)盟的原因之一跟他們非常成功的畢業(yè)生就業(yè)率有關(guān)系，”他說。“桂冠教育公司擁有一個(gè)全球性的就業(yè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)。它給了我們一個(gè)進(jìn)入這個(gè)雇員網(wǎng)絡(luò)、改善畢業(yè)生安置率的絕好機(jī)會(huì)。”

????彭利指出，桂冠教育公司馬德里分校的學(xué)生在畢業(yè)后6個(gè)月內(nèi)的就業(yè)率高達(dá)60%。要知道，西班牙年輕人目前的失業(yè)率為59%，而在其他同類院校，往往僅有不到一半的學(xué)生能夠在畢業(yè)6個(gè)月后找到工作。此外，不同于嚴(yán)重依賴國家助學(xué)貸款的其他營利性教育機(jī)構(gòu)，源自此類貸款的收入在桂冠教育公司的總收入中僅占17%。

????雷鳥的名稱源自它的校址——鳳凰城外一個(gè)停用的陸軍航空訓(xùn)練基地。當(dāng)初雷鳥開始為商學(xué)院教育提供一個(gè)全球性視角的時(shí)候，大多數(shù)商學(xué)院院長并沒有預(yù)想到國際管理教育的重要性。這所學(xué)校是由巴頓?凱爾?揚(yáng)特中將于1946年創(chuàng)建的，旨在幫助美國人進(jìn)入新興的國際商業(yè)環(huán)境。此后約30年中，雷鳥一直是美國唯一一所提供國際管理教育項(xiàng)目的商學(xué)院，同時(shí)也是唯一一所要求畢業(yè)生至少要精通兩種語言的商學(xué)院。

????結(jié)果：所謂的T鳥（T-Birds，意指雷鳥全球管理學(xué)院的校友）成為一群名副其實(shí)的國際精英。大約4萬名校友遍布147個(gè)國家，其中不乏一些杰出的高管，比如英國石油公司（BP）首席執(zhí)行官羅伯特?達(dá)德利和摩根士丹利國際公司（Morgan Stanley International ）前董事長瓦利德?查馬哈。

????但直至上世紀(jì)80年代中后期，這所學(xué)校才真正迎來全盛時(shí)期。用前校長羅伊?赫伯格（任職于1989年至2004年）的話說，雷鳥全球管理學(xué)院獲得了“全球化的禮物”。隨著蘇聯(lián)于1986年啟動(dòng)經(jīng)濟(jì)改革（Perestroika）、柏林墻倒塌等歷史性事件，通往一個(gè)新的全球經(jīng)濟(jì)的大門打開了。面對公眾對全球管理教育日益濃厚的興趣，與同樣側(cè)重于國際管理教育的南卡羅來納大學(xué)（the University of South Carolina）一樣，雷鳥全球管理學(xué)院擁有其他商學(xué)院所不具備的教學(xué)優(yōu)勢。

????While Ramaswany is the highest paid employee at Thunderbird, according to the school's government filings, he is hardly alone. Andrew Inkpen, another global strategy professor, was paid $565,457 with benefits the same year. Graham Rankine, an associate professor of accounting, was paid $492,908. The compensation for three other faculty members -- Robert Hisrich, a professor of global entrepreneurship; William Youngdahl, associate professor of operations management, and Mansour Javidan, dean of research -- all topped $400,000 a year.

????It's not unusual for world class faculty to be paid so generously, but the highest paid business school professors tend to be widely known and publicly visible figures at universities that can afford them, not at a troubled school that has been in a long-term fight for survival.

A B-school in perpetual decline

????The school's full-time MBA enrollment has been steadily declining for years, falling to just 380 from more than 1,500 in 1990. Last fall, its entering class totaled only 140 students. The placement stats for last year's graduating class, meantime, were among the worst reported by any business school in the U.S. Some 76% of Thunderbird's class of 2012 were without jobs at commencement.

????Indeed, Penley sees the agreement with Laureate as a way to fix the school's lagging placement record. "One of the reasons for the alliance has to do with their very successful employment record for graduates," he said. "Laureate has an employment network that is global. It gives us the opportunity to tap into that employee network and improve our placement record."

????Laureate's campus in Madrid boasts a 60% employment rate for students within six months of graduation, noted Penley. This is in the midst of a 59% unemployment rate for youth in Spain, where competitor schools place under 50% of graduates after six months. Laureate also distinguishes itself from other for-profits that heavily rely on government-sponsored student loans, with a mere 17% of its income coming from such loans.

????Thunderbird, which takes its name from its location on a deactivated Army Air Training base just outside Phoenix, was offering a global slant to business education when most deans didn't think international business was important. The school was founded by Lt. General Barton Kyle Yount in 1946 to help Americans enter the emerging international business environment. For some 30 years, Thunderbird could boast the only international business program in the U.S. and the only one in which graduates had to be proficient in at least two languages.

????The upshot: T-Birds, as the school's alumni are known, are an extraordinarily global lot: some 40,000 alums spread across 147 countries. They include such prominent executives like BP (BP) CEO Robert Dudley and former Morgan Stanley (MS) International Chairman Walid Chammath.

????But it wasn't until the mid-to-late 1980s that the school truly came into its own. Thunderbird had been given, in the words of former Roy Herberger, who was president of the school from 1989 to 2004, "the gift of globalization." Amid Perestroika in the Soviet Union in 1986, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the doors to a new global economy opened. Other than the University of South Carolina, whose business school also focused on international business, Thunderbird was in a singular position to capitalize on the growing interest in global management.