As an upshot of the U.S.-China trade war and the increasingly obsolete nature of MBA programs, applications to elite business schools in the U.S. have dwindled significantly.

Down 9.1% from the same cycle last year, U.S. business schools received 135,096 applications for offered programs including masters of business association, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Among affected schools, Dartmouth, Yale, Northwestern and Duke have been hit worst, falling 23%, 16%, 15.8% and 14% respectively.

The report surveyed 1,145 MBA programs from 336 business schools across 40 countries. In the US, 48% of the surveyed institutions reported a drop in international applications. 23% reported significant declines.

A huge part of the problem is the fact that Trump is overhauling the visa system, which typically doles out 85,000 H-1B visas a year. More international petitions are being denied, particularly from China due to rising trade tensions.

"There's perception, which we absolutely pick up in our data, that the U.S. is not a welcoming environment," said Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC data's chief executive. "It's not happening in a vacuum: It's happening at a time when these global alternatives in other parts of the world are also emerging."

As a result of this, applicants are turning to alternatives, particularly, business schools in China itself. In fact, applications to local business schools rose by 5.2%.

Stanford's applications have also fallen by 6%, which could also be the result of less people in general returning to school and taking up job offers instead. This is plausible especially as we head into a recession, and people try to lap up jobs right now while they can.

The worst part is that some deans have closed their MBA programs entirely because of low applicant streams, including Iowa's Tippie School of Business, which closed down in 2017.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more closures," Paul Oyer, Stanford's dean of MBA programmes, said. "They cannot get the numbers," Mr Oyer said.

All of this makes one also question the true utility of an MBA in today's world, especially given that lots of consulting and financial firms pay for associates and analysts MBA education once they reach a certain level within the company's hierarchy.

Is it worth it to travel abroad for an MBA, especially when institutions worldwide are starting to offer the same quality of education? Perhaps not. This, coupled with the crippling debt going to business school often endows on people in the U.S., provides a huge disincentive at least to international applicants in the future.