The telephone in Reshma Shah's office at Emory University's Goizueta Business School is ringing constantly. Prof Shah, who runs the student consulting practice at the school, says she is inundated with calls from companies wanting to hire Goizueta's MBA students to work on their internal projects, rather than going to a name-brand professional firm.

"We've had more requests than ever before," says Prof Shah, head of the Goizueta Marketing Strategy Consultancy. "In a typical week, I hear from five companies, whereas two years ago, I'd get one request every two weeks. The demand is there."