Obama wins but U.S. deeply divided

President Obama thanked his supporters

Fresh from a decisive re-election win, President Barack Obama returns from the campaign trail on Wednesday with little time to savor victory, facing urgent economic challenges, a looming fiscal showdown and a still-divided Congress able to block his every move.

Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney on Tuesday night in a grueling presidential race and used his acceptance speech in front of a huge cheering crowd in Chicago to strike a conciliatory note toward his political opponents.

But in the cold light of the 2012 election's morning-after, it was clear that even though voters have endorsed a second Obama term, the president will have a hard time translating that into a mandate to push forward with his agenda.

Americans chose to preserve the status quo of divided government in Washington. Obama's fellow Democrats retained control of the Senate and Republicans kept their majority in the House of Representatives, giving them power to curb the president's legislative ambitions on everything from taxes to immigration reform.

This is the political reality that Obama - who won a far narrower victory over Romney than his historic election as the country's first black president in 2008 - faces when he returns to Washington later on Wednesday.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke of a dual mandate. "If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs," he said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had a more harsh assessment.

"The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," McConnell said. "They have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together" with a balanced Congress.

Obama's more narrow victory was nothing like the jubilant celebration in 2008, when his hope-and-change election as the nation's first black president captivated the world. This time, Obama ground it out with a stay-the-course pitch that essentially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Congress will be more accommodating than in the past.

The most pressing challenges immediately ahead for the 44th president are all too familiar: an economy still baby-stepping its way toward full health; 23 million people out of work or in search of better jobs; civil war in Syria; a menacing standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

Sharp differences with Republicans in Congress on taxes, spending, deficit reduction, immigration and more await. While Republicans control the House, Democrats have at least 52 votes in the Senate and Republicans 45. One newly elected independent isn't saying which party he'll side with, and races in Montana and North Dakota were not yet called.

Votes also were being counted Wednesday in the Montana and Washington gubernatorial races.

Obama's list of promises to keep includes many holdovers he was unable to deliver on in his first term, such as rolling back tax cuts for upper-income people, overhauling immigration policy and reducing federal deficits. Six in 10 voters said in exit polls that taxes should be increased, and nearly half of voters said taxes should be increased on incomes over $250,000, as Obama has called for.

"It's very clear from the exit polling that a majority of Americans recognize that we need to share responsibility for reducing the deficit," Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told CNN. "That means asking higher-income earners to contribute more to reducing the deficit."

Even before Obama gets to his second inaugural on Jan. 20, he must deal with the threatened "fiscal cliff." A combination of a $600 billion package automatic of tax increases and steep across-the-board spending cuts are set to take effect in January if Washington doesn't quickly reach a budget deal. Experts have warned that the economy could tip back into recession without an agreement.

Newly elected Democrats signaled they want compromise the avoid the fiscal cliff.

Sen.-elect Tim Kaine, a former Virginia governor who defeated Republican George Allen, said on NBC's "Today" show that voters sent a message they want "cooperative government." But he also says the election results show that the public doesn't want "all the levers in one party's hands" on Capitol Hill.

From Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren said on "CBS This Morning" that those who voted for her opponent, Republican Sen. Scott Brown, expressed a desire for lawmakers to work together. She says: "I heard that loud and clear."

December surprise?

Investors have had a tendency to downplay problems emanating from Washington only to find themselves surprised when lawmakers cannot get together on critical issues.

The market reacted harshly to Washington gridlock after failed legislation to backstop the banks in 2008 and again during protracted talks to raise the U.S. debt ceiling in 2011. Strategists said a re-elected Obama would be keen to avoid another bruising repeat.

Quinnipiac University: Master of Science in Information Technology

Accelerate Your IT Career

The MSIT is a business degree for people who manage information technology systems and staff, or who aspire to be IT managers. Quinnipiac University began the Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) program in 2001 directly in response to a growing industry need for leaders in IT management.

The Leading Edge

Unlike other programs taught in engineering departments, the QU MSIT is taught in Quinnipiac’s School of Business. It combines in-depth grounding in current IT technologies and a practical, hands-on business format. This is the leading edge where there are very few competing programs.

Rigorous and Fast Paced

This rigorous, fast-paced, and demanding curriculum appeals strongly to working IT professionals preparing to move into management. The program may also be appropriate for people in fields with intensive IT support experience or for recent undergraduates with IT degrees who wish to enter the job market with a competitive edge.

Meets the Demands of Working Professionals

Originally taught on campus, the MSIT moved to a completely online curriculum in 2010, in response to requests from working professionals asking for a more flexible schedule. Coursework remains cutting edge, team based, and collaborative.

Highly Supportive

With a cohort of experienced IT professionals from around the country, a highly collaborative environment, and a current student-to-faculty ratio of only 10:1, student support is a hallmark of Quinnipiac’s MSIT program. Students connect and learn from each other and from the individual attention of our distinguished professors.

Master of Business Administration

The Master of Business Administration (MBA or M.B.A.) is a master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out scientific approaches to management. The core courses in the MBA program are designed to introduce students to the various areas of business such as accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, operations management, etc. Students in MBA programs have the option of taking general business courses throughout the program or can select an area of concentration and focus approximately one-fourth of their studies in this subject.

Accreditation bodies exist specifically for MBA programs to ensure consistency and quality of graduate business education. Business schools in many countries offer MBA programs tailored to full-time, part-time, executive, and distance learning students, with specialized concentrations.

History

The first graduate school of business in the United States was the Tuck School of Business, part of Dartmouth College Founded in 1900, it was the first institution conferring advanced degrees (masters) in the commercial sciences, specifically, a Master of Science in Commerce degree, the forebear of the modern MBA degree.
In 1908, the Graduate School of Business Administration (GSBA) at Harvard University was established; it offered the world's first MBA program, with a faculty of 15 plus 33 regular students and 47 special students.
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business first offered working professionals the Executive MBA (EMBA) program in 1943, first available in permanent campus in three continents (Chicago, London and Singapore) and this type of program is offered by most business schools today.
In 1946, Thunderbird School of Global Management was the first school to offer an MBA program focused on global management.
In 1950, the first MBA degrees awarded outside the United States were by the Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario in Canada, followed in 1951 with the degree awarded by the University of Pretoria in South Africa. In 1955, the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi was established under the University of Karachi in Pakistan, in collaboration with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and became the first Asian business school to offer an MBA program under the US MBA model. In 1957, INSEAD became the first European business school to offer an MBA program. In 1986, the Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College (Florida) was the first MBA program to require every student to have a laptop computer in the classroom. Initially, professors wheeled a cart of laptops into the classroom.
The MBA degree has been adopted by universities worldwide, and has been adopted and adapted by both developed and developing countries.

Program content

Most top MBA programs cover similar subjects within their core required courses. For information about the typical content of an MBA program's core curriculum, see the overview at the Wikiversity MBA topic page. MBA programs expose students to a variety of subjects, which students may choose to specialize in a particular area. Students traditionally study a wide breadth of courses in the program's first year, then pursue a specialized curriculum in the second year. Full-time students typically seek an internship during the interim. Typical specializations include: accounting, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, international business, management science, marketing, operations management, organizational behavior, project management, real estate, and strategy, among others.
Many individuals choosing a specialized field of study, such as real estate or accounting, are well-suited for their respective industries through pursuing a Master of Real Estate Development or Master of Science in Accounting degree, for example. Other specialized programs include Master of Science in Finance, Master of Science in Information Systems, Master of Science in Supply Chain Management.

MBA degree and current financial crisis

The Financial crisis of 2007–2010 has raised new challenges and questions regarding the MBA degree. Graduates of MBA programs have a reported tendency to go into Finance shortly after receiving the degree. As the field of Finance is tightly linked to the global economic downturn, anecdotal evidence suggests new graduates are stepping onto alternate paths.

Deans at top business schools have acknowledged media and public perception of the MBA has shown some shifts as a result of the financial crisis.
Articles about public perception related to the crisis range from schools' acknowledgment of issues related to the training students receive to criticisms of the MBA's role in society.