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Once considered a subset of other fields, categorized and taught as part of a business or finance degree, CRE is now viewed as a legitimate course of study in its own right, and centers for real estate are growing more popular in universities throughout the country. In order to pinpoint how university CRE programs have evolved over the years, Real Estate Forum spoke with heads and faculty at several prominent college-level CRE curricula and got their viewpoints on what has changed, whether the curricula shifts with the economy and what they see as most essential in the programs being offered today.

Robert Wulff, director of George Mason University's M.S. in Real Estate Development program in Fairfax, VA, tells Forum that early on, many CRE programs were not independent, but imbedded in MBA programs. “Students graduated with an MBA and a concentration in real estate. More recent programs are independent academic programs from which students earn an M.A. or M.S. in real estate.”

Most business schools still have real estate “stuck” in the finance department, Margaret McFarland, JD, clinical professor and director of the Colvin Institute of Real Estate Development at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD, tells Forum, “although DePaul and Baruch are fine examples of strong full-fledged real estate departments inside of strong business schools.”

Shawn D. Howton, Ph.D., faculty director for the Daniel M. DiLella Center for Real Estate and associate professor of finance at Villanova University in Villanova, PA, says CRE programs have become more numerous in recent years as schools realize the size and scope of the real estate industry. “Real estate as a discipline is evolving, and there is a more standardized set of learning outcomes across programs, though the scope is so large the focus differs by program. Real estate education continues to evolve into a more cross-disciplinary focus where the entire life cycle of CRE assets and their impact on their communities and broader environment come into focus.”

The University of Denver's real estate program started in 1938 and is one of the oldest—if not the oldest—programs in the country, according to Jeff Engelstad, CCIM, clinical professor at the Burns School of Real Estate & Construction Management at Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. He tells Forum, “Wisconsin may have had a real estate program prior to that, but they were very few in number up until recently. Real estate was typically housed as a subset of finance, urban planning or architecture; in a lot of ways real estate was a redheaded stepchild for many years. It was probably not until the mid-1970s or '80s that you really started to see legitimate, standalone real estate programs. It is absolutely an essential business discipline that should be a core discipline.”

Surprisingly, despite the fact that there are many universities starting real estate programs, there is almost no innovation in curriculum or industry involvement and very little relevant research coming out of most research centers, relates Morris A. Davis, academic director and Paul V. Profeta Chair of the Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School in Newark, NJ. “The historic model has been that the academic real estate center organizes activities for the real estate industry as well as for the students. For the industry, typically hosting a conference or guest speakers would suffice. For students, planning class trips, training in real estate software called ARGUS and case-study competitions is all they get. A real estate center might also help place students with employers, and occasionally it advertises research targeted to other academics being done by its faculty.”

Davis says he still believes those activities are important; however, he also believes in a different mindset for the Rutgers Business School Center for Real Estate and for such programs going forward. “A center should be viewed as a hub for all real estate activity in the area and a driving force for enhanced productivity in the real estate industry. This is what we are creating at Rutgers. And we are making that happen, having recruited the best and most-admired professionals in New Jersey real estate to help us to design the programs; to teach classes, lecture and mentor students; and to provide professional guidance and hands-on experience.”

The number of programs addressing real estate comprehensively—from acquisition and entitlements (sometimes referred to as development) to finance, design, construction and asset/property management (a la the ULI Hines competition)—has grown from five programs in 2005 to now more than 20 such programs based outside, either entirely or partially, of a business school, according to McFarland. “Often these are offered in combination with planning and architecture schools, and several—as is the case of the University of Maryland—offered entirely as a standalone specialty master's degree covering all the aspects of real estate based in a school of planning and design,” McFarland says. “As you might not know, the University of Maryland team has won the prestigious $50,000 prize with its student teams at the ULI Hines both in 2014 and 2015, as well as reaching the final four two other times since 2008.”

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There are also a few, but a growing number, of programs that offer some or most of their courses online, such as Auburn or Alabama, says McFarland. “Most academics remain skeptical of online-only programs, but offerings of individual courses synchronously in the class and to those joining online synchronously or asynchronously are growing in interest at Maryland and several other schools.”

Undergraduate minors in real estate are also growing, she adds. “Cornell started one just three or four years back, and University of Maryland will start one this fall.” Property management is also getting more attention, both as part of master's programs, but most particularly at Virginia Tech, which has an undergrad major and now has a full undergraduate degree that is cross-disciplinary in real estate, she says McFarland.

“The most interesting new program is in Bucharest, Romania—all taught in English—with emphasis on urban infill and redevelopment, with a planning and real estate finance focus,” says McFarland. “ASURED is done in several weeks, with breaks in between so it can service students from all over Europe as well as the US. It's a very nice price point in a beautiful city.”

Engelstad says real estate programs tend to have four different themes, or flavors. “I always say to students that you have to look at what flavor a program has before deciding on it. Some are pretty heady and academic land-economics programs. Others are very capital-markets focused, looking at things like pension plans, REITs and Wall Street. Others are very development focused, and still others are focused on public-policy issues. If you want to be an entrepreneurial real estate developer, and you go through a program where the emphasis is on public policy, you won't get what you want, and vice versa.”

But some schools do offer all of the above or combinations thereof. Albert Saiz, director and Dan Rose Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate at MIT Center for Real Estate in Cambridge, MA, says there seems to have been a shift more recently to the twofold approach that MIT's program offers. There's “not just a focus on design/development or finance/economics, but rather on all of these aspects of the industry. Even within MIT's Master of Science in Real Estate Development program, we're seeing and responding to a shift in student and market interests—namely, a greater focus on global issues and green and innovative spaces.”

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The focus of university real estate programs does change somewhat with shifts in the economy and advancements in the industry. For example, Rosemary Scanlon, divisional dean at NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate in New York, tells Forum in the past five years her school introduced a new MSRED program, whereas in prior years real estate development was a concentration in the Master of Science in Real Estate program. “We have seen enrollment in this new master's program grow significantly, in line with the rapid recovery in New York City's economy and the resumption of major new development projects worldwide. In the MSRED program, we feature a concentration in sustainable development and another concentration in global real estate development.”

Scanlon says NYU is emphasizing the importance of global because of the rapid growth in cities around the world and the significant roles that New York firms in architecture, engineering and law play in overseas development. “We feature Study Away Trips in our “Three Continents” program, where each year during spring break, we give our students the opportunity to witness up close the aspects of the global environment by traveling abroad.”

Sustainability, resilience and community engagement are now widespread in new projects, led by the deep interest of architects as well as builders, Scanlon adds. “We supplement our coursework with an annual conference on the sustainable built environment. Increasingly, we are featuring the importance of resiliency as well as sustainability.”

In NYU's MSRE, the school is emphasizing the importance of achieving skills in financial modeling using financial tools, especially new technologies and data sources. “We also have introduced several of our elective courses in a half-three-credit format to increase the range of electives that our graduate students can take,” says Scanlon. “As a rule of thumb, we encourage our real estate finance and investment students to take more of their electives in development and our development students to bolster their curriculum with electives in finance.”

Other opportunities at NYU include an M.S. in Construction Management for graduate students, who can visit construction sites in New York City as well as other cities in order to widen their perspective on project development across the US. “We are also emphasizing understanding of new technology systems and software for the construction process,” says Scanlon.

NYU also introduced a new B.S. in Real Estate degree in September 2013, which features education in the core arts-and-sciences curriculum that the school offers as well as a foundation in basic real estate courses and an array of electives in real estate finance, development and urban issues. “The program is growing steadily, and we eagerly away our first graduates in May 2017,” says Scanlon.

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Some educators agree that real estate course offerings and/or curricula can shift as the economy shifts and real estate moves into a different part of the cycle. “There are several courses that have changed depending on where we are in the business cycle,” says Scanlon. “For example, as the US economy was emerging from the Great Recession, some students focused on our Strategic Asset Management finance concentration, and our elective course, 'Real Estate Investing in a Distressed Environment' was fully subscribed each semester. We have not offered that course for the past four semesters; instead, we have introduced specific electives in private-equity investment and in CMBS. We are also offering new electives in advanced finance for development and construction and in new technologies for the construction industry. Green building and sustainability, affordable housing and finance remain popular, as does our course in urban economics as current trends in the economy attract this knowledge and techniques.”

Saiz says curriculum development at any institution is very much a dynamic object. “Course content changes every year in order to reflect changes in the industry and new knowledge. In the past several years, there has been not only an increase in the number of students with an interest in finance/economics/investment, but also a rising interest in global markets, innovative and green technology. To respond to this interest, MIT's MSRED program in particular has added a lab on big data in real estate and a module on 'innovative products and space' as well as enhanced the capstone development studio course to identify and value innovative products for urban development.”

New courses in finance—securitization and advanced forecasting methods—have also been added to MIT's MSRED program to further expand upon and dovetail into the already existing real estate finance and investment curriculum, adds Saiz. “Additionally, a course addressing real estate law has been expanded to a sequence that underscores skill and the art of negotiation in commercial real estate development.”

But what doesn't change is the curricula's essence, nor does the need to provide a comprehensive education about the industry in all of its cycles. “Course offerings change slightly with short-term trends and change gradually over time to fit the long-term paradigm, but I don't think most university programs are chasing whatever's trendy and hanging their hat on it in terms of market cycles, because a university program should prepare students for all phases of the market cycle,” says Engelstad. “We're in a great phase of recovery right now, but we don't just want to teach our students how to react to recovery; we want to teach them how to react when we're in a recession mode as well.” Wulff adds, “It would be impossible to 'time' the market with specific courses—and unnecessary if the program curriculum is properly designed.”

Agrees Howton, “We are constantly updating our offerings, but we tend to take a long view. If our program provides a broad background across the real estate spectrum, our students will be ready to tackle whatever jobs are out there with respect to the cycle. The cyclical nature of real estate is one of the most difficult aspects of real estate education. The broader and deeper the knowledge base we provide, the more adaptive our students will be in what we know is a challenging, cyclical industry.”

Another shift is in the experience of the faculty hired to teach these programs. Wulff says, “Most of the early real estate programs were directed by Ph.D.s—usually in economics or finance. They hired faculty in their image: academics hired for their publication record more than their experience in real estate. The current trend is to add faculty who are successful real estate practitioners with strong real-world experience rather than a strong publication record.”