The University of Wisconsin School of Business has launched a first of its kind Global Real Estate Management Program that will bring together top business students from around the world, converging at UW.

Melissa Anderson, senior relations specialist at the School of Business, said GREM would bring students from three top-ranked international business schools to Madison starting in the spring semester of 2011.

Students from Paris, Hong Kong and Costa Rica will have the opportunity to apply for the semester-long program at UW.

According to Anderson, there are three tracks the students can take.

After one semester at a partner university, the students can study at UW for a semester. Another option would be for a student to come to UW after three semesters in a Master’s of Business Administration program at a partner school.

In both of these cases, Anderson pointed out the students would either be in a graduate program or would be applying to one at a partner school prior to their semester at UW.

The third option is for students who have recently graduated with an MBA or master’s degree from a partner university. They would take an online class for one semester before attending UW.

In each case, the costs of the program rest solely on the student’s tuition, which Francois Ortalo-Magne, Real Estate Department chair at the School of Business, said is expensive, but “is sufficient to cover the costs.”

According to the GREM website, tuition and fees for 2010-11 will be $14,000. This does not include room and board or books.

Despite the cost, both Anderson and Ortalo-Magne said the program is unique and will provide students from the international schools, as well as UW, with a valuable classroom experience.

One major advantage for the UW Business School will be a larger pool of alumni in other countries, which Anderson sees as significant, because it extends the school’s global network.

Ortalo-Magne said the major benefit for international students is coming to one of the top business schools in the world.

“The big advantage for them is that they’re going to get the Wisconsin-quality real estate education,” he said.

Both Anderson and Ortalo-Magne thought students at UW would benefit from the partnership due to increased diversity in the classroom.

“They’re going to profit … from a very dynamic and robust classroom environment that now includes students from all over the world,” Anderson said.

The program has been in development for five years, which Ortalo-Magne said was a way for the Real Estate Department to “internationalize” their program.

Ortalo-Magne sees the program as fresh and innovative due to students from four world-renown business schools studying in the same classroom — something none of the partners could accomplish alone.

“Rather than thinking of our own expansion, … we reached out to the best business schools around the world to think in terms of how can we each provide what we are each best at, … to offer something that not any one of us could have individually offered to our students,” he said.