The Kansas University School of Business will unveil a revamped part-time Master of Business Administration program Friday that will allow students to earn their degrees more quickly and provide more opportunities for specialization.

The school will make a presentation on the new program, designed for working professionals and based at the Edwards Campus in Overland Park, at the KU men’s basketball game at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., on Friday night.

Part-time MBA students will now need to complete 42 credit hours, down from 48 in the current program, according to Catherine Shenoy, director of MBA programs for the Business School.

For a student taking classes two nights per week, that will make it possible to earn an MBA in two-and-a-half years. Under the current format it takes three years, Shenoy said.

The program will also feature a restructured curriculum. It’s the first major update for the program in about 10 years. “That’s quite a long time in MBA time,” Shenoy said.

Under the new structure, after students finish 24 credit hours’ worth of core courses, they’ll take eight hours of more advanced courses focusing one of three areas: marketing, management or finance.

Then they can fill 10 hours with elective courses, which they can use to earn a a graduate certificate in one of a number of specialized areas, including human resources, investments or international business management.

Those newly available certificates, Shenoy said, will also be available for graduates of the MBA program who’d like to go back to study a specialty, or for professionals with bachelor’s degrees who don’t want to go through the entire MBA program.

The new program will go into effect next fall, and current students in the part-time program at the Edwards Campus will have the option to switch to the new track, Shenoy said. Also in fall 2013, the school will introduce a redesign of its full-time MBA program based in Lawrence.

More information on the new part-time program is available at realMBAkc.ku.edu.