Schools with top MBA programs are flocking to offer more affordable, online versions -- and the University of Illinois recently launched one of the cheapest yet. It costs students less than $22,000 total. That's about one-third of the price for the university's traditional, on-campus program. (CNN Money)

The world's largest economy grew at an annual rate of 2.9% in the three months to September, the Commerce Department said. Analysts had predicted growth of just 2.5%. The stronger-than-forecast rate could increase expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates before the end of the year. (BBC News)

Days after agreeing to acquire media giant Time Warner, AT&T has revealed that its upcoming internet television service, DirecTV Now, will offer 100-plus channels for a mere $35 a month. (Wired)

Visa Inc. is putting a bitcoin-style network to work as it aims to take on a new market, the large and complex cross-border payments made between businesses. (The Wall Street Journal)

Before you jump ship, try truly taking advantage of your situation and seeing if you can improve it—and, no, I’m not talking about cutting out early on Fridays or taking two-hour lunches every day. Take your boredom and turn it into an opportunity. In fact, you could and should use your down time to make your situation better—both in the office now and when you do eventually start job searching (even if that doesn’t end up being for a long time). (The Muse)

Improving diversity in tech must happen outside of the Silicon Valley bubble in order for the industry to progress. (CNN Money)

David Burton has been a commercial leasing broker for 17 years, most recently at Handler Real Estate Services. Over that time, even as other industries like law, finance and medicine have become more diverse, the bulk of high-earning, senior-level executives in the city's multibillion-dollar commercial real estate business remain middle-aged, male and, above all, white. And while homogeneousness in other sectors such as advertising has recently come under scrutiny by major clients insisting on more diversity, few forces threaten to spur changes in real estate. (Crain's New York Business)

Prominent diversity consultant Michael Welp took an unorthodox path when he co-founded his firm, White Men As Full Diversity Partners (WMFDP). Working with Fortune 500 companies over the last two decades, Welp and his partner, Bill Proudman, have set themselves apart by focusing on white male leaders and avoiding the "shame and blame" approach to diversity and inclusion. (Press Release Rocket)

The workforce is waking up to the reality that talented women can contribute just as much as men in the organization. In turn, we’re seeing a greater emphasis on hiring diverse. But I can’t shake the feeling that the business world has fallen into a habit of checking off the diversity quota, and calling it a job well done. (Forbes)

Venezuela is edging closer every day to its breaking point. A massive nationwide protest against President Nicolas Maduro is expected Wednesday. His critics are declaring that Venezuela's democracy is nearing collapse after Maduro quashed a referendum vote seeking to remove him from office. (CNN Money)

Investors craving some Latin American exposure would do well to train their eyes on Peru. The Lima Stock Exchange’s main index is up 9 percent following the June election of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a Wall Street veteran and former finance minister, as president. Less than three months into his term, Mr Kuczynski has persuaded the opposition-controlled Parliament to back his economic platform, travelled to China to drum up interest in a $70 billion portfolio of infrastructure projects, and pulled off Peru’s biggest-ever sale of local currency bonds in the global market. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Blacks owe nearly twice as much student debt as whites four years after graduating college—and they are three times more likely to default. Those findings, contained in a new paper from the Brookings Institution, suggest the past decade’s surge in student debt is affecting blacks far more than any other racial group. (The Wall Street Journal)

Microsoft is trying to rekindle a rivalry with Apple, introducing two new computers on Wednesday that are aimed squarely at the creative set of customers whom Apple has long claimed as its own. (The Washington Post)

The brave, new digital world of commerce is here to stay—and forward-thinking, growth-focused entrepreneurs must fully embrace it. (Black Enterprise)

The National Basketball Association is trying something new this season for customers of League Pass, its out-of-market live game subscription service. It will announce today that subscribers who use smartphones or tablets will have a "mobile view" option starting with Tuesday’s season opener. Mobile view will get in closer to the action than the standard TV feed can. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

s Angeles’ newest food event is aimed at shining a spotlight on what founder Aisha Hollans calls this city’s black entrepreneurs and "urban chefs." The Urban Block Gastronomy Experience takes place Nov. 5 at the Millennium Sneaker Boutique in Inglewood. "Urban chefs are like underground hip-hop artists of the food scene," said Hollans. "Their food is authentic, real, respected, cultured, loved and incomparable." (Los Angeles Times)

From the White House’s Tech Inclusion Pledge to Apple’s and Google’s annual diversity reports, players across the tech world have been expressing concern about the industry’s infamous diversity problem. According to CB Insights research in 2010, only one percent of venture capital-­funded startup founders were black. Although there have been only minor pockets of progress thus far, several organizations have emerged as leaders in the effort to help minority entrepreneurs start companies, build businesses, secure funding and eventually achieve success. (Entrepreneur)

Neil Grimmer's new startup, called Habit, aims to help others achieve their goals, whether it's to lose weight or sleep more soundly. The company, which is launching in January, offers a $299 blood test to screen for 60 biomarkers, including amino acids, vitamin levels, and blood sugar, as well as some genetic variants that may play a role in how an individual responds to diet. The company is also attempting to test a users' metabolic rate through a "challenge," which involves drinking a milkshake-like beverage to understand how they respond to fats, carbs and sugars. (Fast Company)

As unemployment continues to hover around 5% this year, nearly half of all U.S. employers are struggling with talent shortages. According to a recent survey of 42,300 employers around the world by The Manpower Group, a Milwaukee-based human resource consulting firm, 46% of American employers are having difficulty filling jobs, surpassing global averages. This is the highest percentage in the U.S. since 2012. (Fast Company)

A recent Forbes Insights and Cox Business survey, which captured the perspective of 300 executives at U.S. small businesses comprising 5 to 15 employees, found that 31 percent of respondents identified changing technological needs — particularly knowing what products and services to use — as one of their biggest growth challenges. Twenty percent cited finding reliable and ongoing IT support as the major hurdle. (Forbes)

Is your financial mindset one of prosperity—or lack? This is an important question, particularly as we rapidly approach the threshold of a brand new year, because how you manage your finances is a function of how you think and feel about your relationship with money and wealth. I say it often here on my blog for Black Enterprise and I’ll keep saying it: If you can’t change your mind, you won’t change your money. (Black Enterprise)

Applying for a home loan? You may want to consider paying off your credit card bill first.Thanks to a recent change by major credit rating agencies, mortgage lenders can now look at whether you pay off your bill every month or keep a balance. That means home buyers who pay off their credit cards may earn an advantage when looking for a mortgage. (Journal Pioneer)

It doesn't seem like much to ask for — a 5% return. But the odds of making even that on traditional investments in the next 10 years are slim, according to a new report from investment advisory firm Research Affiliates. (Investment News)

Grocers are struggling to lure e-commerce-loving millennials into their aisles amid what experts say is a permanent shift in shopping patterns among consumers. (The Wall Street Journal)

New businesses are essential to creating more jobs. Forty percent of the net new jobs created in the last two decades were due to hiring by new businesses, according to a 2015 report by the Brookings Institute. Small businesses created almost 2 million of the 3 million private-sector jobs generated in 2014. (Triple Pundit)

Wells Fargo launched a new advertising campaign this week to address the company's ongoing sales practices scandal and what it is doing to make things right for its customers. (Crain's New York)

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday he’ll introduce legislation next year to curtail employers’ growing use of non-compete agreements that limit worker mobility and depress wages as the White House called on all states to take similar steps. (USA TODAY)

About to enter its fourth year, Obamacare is contending with skyrocketing price increases, insurer defections and anemic enrollment growth, particularly among younger, healthier Americans. This coming sign-up period will prove critical to the president's signature health reform law's future. Still, Obamacare is now firmly embedded in America's health care landscape. It's not about to collapse, and it can't be eliminated with the simple stroke of the next president's pen. (CNN Money)

An entrepreneurial society needs an entrepreneurial state, one that through visionary and strategic public investments, distributed across the innovation chain, can create animal spirits in private businesses. Entrepreneurs then see growth opportunities, and business investment follows. (Harvard Business Review)

Throughout our careers, we are taught to conform — to the status quo, to the opinions and behaviors of others, and to information that supports our views. The pressure only grows as we climb the organizational ladder. By the time we reach high-level positions, conformity has been so hammered into us that we perpetuate it in our enterprises. In a recent survey I conducted of more than 2,000 employees across a wide range of industries, nearly half the respondents reported working in organizations where they regularly feel the need to conform, and more than half said that people in their organizations do not question the status quo. (Harvard Business Review)