New York native Thomas Hyland worked at Goldman Sachs for years. But when he decided to get his M.B.A., he didn't even consider the sought-after programs at Columbia University or New York University. “I went to school at 31, a couple of years older than the average M.B.A. student, and I wanted to spend just one year,”

Mr. Hyland says. “And I knew I wanted to be on the ground in an emerging market.”

Last April, Mr. Hyland graduated from the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, which offers a prestigious 12-month program that features professors from top schools in the United States. Now he and his wife are moving to India, where Mr. Hyland is starting a venture capital fund to invest in new businesses in that country.

Of course, studying abroad saved a boatload in tuition costs: Mr. Hyland spent about $40,000 for his M.B.A. in India versus the roughly $120,000 he would have had to spend for a two-year program in the U.S. “I'd be in a very different position right now if I was staring down $120,000 worth of debt,” he says.

Foreign students have long flooded the United States for its M.B.A. programs, but now a growing number of Americans are reciprocating. About 8,000 applicants sent their GMAT scores to schools overseas in 2009, versus 5,000 in 2005, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Many Americans say their decision is in part a result of the recession: Programs abroad are generally cheaper and shorter. What's more, the tight job market has pushed more people back to school, making it harder than ever to get into domestic business schools.

European schools like INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and IESE in Barcelona have long been popular with Americans and are seeing increased applications from the U.S. But a growing number of Americans are enrolling in Asian business schools, looking to gain entrée into today's fastest-growing economies. At the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, for example, 10% of the student body is now American, up from about 2% four years ago. And CEIBS's number of applications from North American candidates has increased a staggering 1,600% in the past 10 years.

Asian schools recruit

To take advantage of this trend, universities in Asia are stepping up recruiting efforts here, even banding together for the first time to do so. On Sept. 25, a group of four M.B.A. programs from schools in China, India, Hong Kong and Singapore came to New York for a joint recruiting event. Dubbed Top Asia B-Schools, the group presented at M.B.A. fairs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto before coming here. Around 100 interested students attended the session in New York, double the number that attended in other cities.

Studying overseas does have its drawbacks. Foreign schools don't have the same name recognition for U.S. recruiters as, say, Wharton or even a lower-caliber American business school like Pace University. That makes it harder to land a job or summer internship.

Patricia Bayley, a photographer who majored in Spanish studies in college, decided to consider schools in Spain after being rejected by Columbia University, her top pick. She ended up attending IESE in Barcelona and graduated in May.

Though Ms. Bayley says going to school in Spain was an amazing life experience, attending a school that is little-known in the U.S. made getting a job hard. “In terms of branding, it sucks,” she says. “You want the school to help sell you, but you have to explain the name to people and tell them it's a good school when you're looking for a job, which is extremely difficult.”

Greg Whalen weighed those concerns when he started looking at business schools. However, he quickly decided that the benefits of going abroad outweighed the risks. Like Mr. Hyland, Mr. Whalen, who started B-school at CEIBS in Shanghai this fall, didn't even apply to U.S. schools.

“It didn't make sense from my perspective to go to an American business school right now,” Mr. Whalen says. “What I wanted most was to be in the middle of one of the greatest business changes in our history. Where there is a lot of development, there is business opportunity.”

In a phone interview from her Shanghai office, Lydia Price, associate dean of CEIBS, credits the recession in part for the growth in interest. “When people see that China's economy continues to grow when other economies are stagnant, then that is an attraction,” she says.

Even Ms. Bayley found a silver lining in her overseas education. Because she had trouble landing a job, Ms. Bayley decided to start her own business.

Inspired by a bike-share program in Barcelona, she and a classmate are bringing the concept to New York with their new company, called NY Cycling. The duo were even finalists in NY Next, a business-plan competition that the city launched for students at international business schools to bring ideas from abroad to New York.