Online MBA Programs

Selecting a high-quality MBA program is largely a matter of gathering information from third parties that are not directly affiliated with any one university.  The federal government, for example, provides at least two avenues to conducting such research, as do the accreditation organizations that approve these programs.  Both are discussed here.

The U.S. News and World Report, besides ranking traditional business schools, also maintains a database of Online M.B.A. and Business programs.  From here, students can search programs by region, state, tuition (per credit), availability of financial aid, and accreditation.  Once displayed, the website gives information about admission requirements, required technology and software, the type of interface through which classwork is conducted, and so on.

The rankings of traditional MBA programs on the U.S. News and World Report website can be helpful too, depending on the criteria the user selects.  For example, the top program for an Executive MBA, which is intended for businesspeople who are working full time, is the University of Pennsylvania at Wharton, while the top Part-time MBA program, which is for students who may be working any job while pursuing their studies, is a tie between Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.  Both of these options offer some of the flexibility that draws students to online programs.

Otherwise, a ranking of online MBA programs by Denisse Romero of MacQuil.com, who compiles data from sources such as Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. News and World Report, lists the following as the top five for 2010 to 2011:

1. IE Business School in Madrid, Spain
2. Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona
3. Duke University
4. Manchester Business School
5. Warwick Business School in Coventry, United Kingdom

However, with a low average acceptance rate and prohibitive tuition, high-ranked programs may be inaccessible to many.  A student can perform some individual research using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)’s College Navigator, which allows users to filter their search by a number of important criteria, including state, program, miles from a particular zip code, and institution type (private, public, non-profit).  The most critical search criteria for online students should be:

• The presence of advanced degree programs.
• The range of tuition and fees (which change depending on whether or not the student is a state resident).
• The range of test scores (SAT and ACT are available on the NCES site).
• “Extended Learning Opportunities,” including correspondence courses and classes that take place during the evenings or weekends.

Once a program has been located, prospective students should then click on the “Accreditation” tab of each entry and make sure that the school has a source of accreditation and that the “Status” column reads “Accredited.”  A degree that is not from an accredited institution, or whose accreditation has not been renewed, is highly suspect.Another way of finding a quality MBA program is to consult the accreditation organizations themselves.  For MBAs, the main ones are:

• The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, whose list of approved programs can be found here.
• The Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs, whose colleges are listed in an XLSX file on the right hand side of this page.
• The International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education, whose member institutions can be searched here by country, state, alphabet, and status.

These associations also indicate the standards that a university must meet in order to receive accreditation, host conferences that graduate students can attend to build their CVs, and often provide awards for individual achievement among both students and teachers, the latter of which can be indicative of high-quality faculty.