The first M.B.A. graduating students from Mount St. Mary’s College completed their classes last week. Unfortunately, job seekers are facing the toughest hiring climate in decades. But Janet Robinson, director of the fledgling program at the downtown L.A. Catholic school, believes her students have several advantages over most newly minted biz school grads.

First, the program – with a tuition of about $31,000 – emphasizes ethics in business, a selling point for many companies that now face new government oversight and a tarnished public image.

“The values come from the Catholic tradition, but also from the real need in business today to define ethics,” Robinson said. “That is what a lot of M.B.A.s are missing right now.”

Second, the program doesn’t emphasize finance, so the grads won’t be looking for jobs at investment houses.

“This program wouldn’t send someone to Wall Street, and that’s working for us right now,” Robinson said.

Finally, some of the students already have jobs – the program was designed for working executives and classes were on weekends. Having two to three years of professional experience is a prerequisite, and many are already ensconced at places such as the Walt Disney Co., Mattel Inc., Southern California Edison, Abraxis BioScience Inc. and the Los Angeles County government.

For many of the students, just looking for a job could violate their training in ethics because their employers paid for their M.B.A. degrees.

“The employers would be very unhappy if they got an education and then took off,” Robinson joked.