Freeman launches new MFIN program in China

The Freeman School has partnered with the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one of the premier academic institutions in China, to establish a new international master’s program for finance professionals.

The Tulane-GSCASS Professional Master of Finance program is an 18-month 34-credit post-experience master’s program targeted at individuals in government, banking, finance, insurance and other industries. Unlike the Freeman School’s New Orleans Master of Finance program, a one-year pre-experience program, the Tulane-GSCASS Professional MFIN is aimed at working professionals in Beijing.

“It’s a different market altogether,” says John M. Trapani III, Martin F. Schmidt Chair of International Business and executive director of the Goldring Institute of International Business. “We’re training people who are already in financial market positions, so the curriculum has been tweaked to reflect that.”

The program is taught jointly by faculty from the Freeman School and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government institution dedicated to research and public policy that Foreign Policy magazine called the top think tank in Asia. Freeman School faculty will travel to Beijing this summer to teach four courses at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and  students in the program will travel to New Orleans in December to take two classes at the Freeman School. The rest of the program will be taught in China by GSCASS faculty. The inaugural class features 27 students, but Trapani says the program will grow to accommodate up to 40 students per cohort.

“We are delighted that, in the future, many likely finance leaders in China will have earned a Tulane degree,” says Ira Solomon, dean of the Freeman School.

In establishing the program, the Freeman School becomes one of just a handful of U.S. business schools to offer degree programs approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

“This is a big deal,” says Trapani. “To offer a degree in China from an American university, you have to get Ministry of Education approval. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is so powerful and so influential in government, they were able to help us get approval very quickly. Most schools in the U.S. would do almost anything to have a Ministry of Education-approved program. I think this is going to be a great program for the school.”

The Tulane-GSCASS Professional MFIN is the Freeman School's third international Master of Finance program. In addition to the Tulane-GSCASS  program, Freeman also offers dual-degree international MFIN programs in partnership with Guatemala’s Universidad Francisco Marroquin and Panama’s IESA Panama.