Eli Broad College of Business enrollment is separate from The Graduate School’s enrollment numbers.

The nationwide spike in graduate program enrollment could be attributed to rising employee expectations, said Karen Klomparens, dean of the Graduate School, in an e-mail.

“Graduate education, especially at the master’s level, is becoming a minimum requirement for many areas in order to get an entry-level job or for advancing a job,” Klomparens said.

The Educational Testing Service, or ETS, owns the Graduate Record Examination, or GRE, and began a campaign in August to get more undergraduate students to take the test, said Dawn Piacentino, the GRE program manager at ETS.

Students who expect to attend graduate school can take the GRE in two forms: the general test or one of eight subject tests.

A shaky economy and job uncertainty brings many students back to business school despite time spent gaining working experience, said Jeff McNish, admissions director for the Eli Broad College of Business full-time MBA program.

“People don’t go back to business schools when the economy is very healthy and job outlook or prospects look very good,” McNish said. “When the economy is struggling like ours is, people see this as an opportunity.”

Unlike graduate school programs, MSU’s MBA program requires potential students to have at least two years of post-graduate work experience.

MSU’s program is receiving more interest because of economic changes and McNish said the first indication of the program’s growing interest came last year after the admissions office received more than 200 applications in the first of four application rounds — more than a 100 percent increase compared to the previous year.

The program accepts between 105-110 students each year.

Although the remaining application rounds saw a significant drop, the number of applications received in 2007-08 increased about 13 percent from 2006-07 and McNish expected similar numbers for this year.