IE Business School in Spain has been ranked the best online MBA institute in the world after it overtook the United Kingdom’s Warwick Business School as the leading provider of online MBA.
According to the 10th annual Financial Times (FT) assessment of the business degree report, IE Business School’s online MBA performed strongly on measures including salary increase after graduation.
Warwick and Imperial College uphold strong positions in the list of ten ranked institutions, ahead of two other UK schools; Durham and the University of Liverpool.
In the United States of America (USA), Carnegie Mellon and the University of Massachusetts Amherst performed well, as well as the University of North Carolina and the University of Florida: Warrington both longstanding participants also had good scores.
The FT ranking comes at a time of growing interest in online learning, which intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic as many business schools; alongside other higher education institutions, began offering a wider range of hybrid, synchronous and asynchronous options for students.
The overall demand for MBAs in North America and Europe has eased, partly in response to a tight labour market, with employers seeking to retain existing staff with additional incentives, rather than lose them to full-time education.
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As a result, the traditional division of online and in-person courses has shifted. Even a number of the leading business schools are now offering online teaching, typically supplemented by some in-person gatherings, to allow more part-time study and less need for travel to a campus.
Participation in the FT ranking is voluntary and requires cooperation and provision of data by both the business schools and their alumni three years after completing their programmes. Some schools were excluded because of the high standard required for eligibility and, of the 23 that entered, a number could not be ranked because too few alumni responded to questions.
The ranking considers factors such as salary, salary increase, and value for money after taking into account the costs of tuition.
IE alumni reported the second-highest average salaries adjusted for purchasing power parity, three years after completion, at nearly $206,000. This was just below the average for the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Isenberg Online MBA, which was $233,000.
IE graduates also reported the second-highest increase in salary as a result of the degree, and the shortest overall average completion time at just 1.5 years, compared with as long as 4.5 years at the University of Liverpool Management School.
The FT online MBA 2023 ranking top ten are; IE Business School from Spain in the first position, followed by the Warwick Business School, the Imperial College Business School both from the UK in second and third position respectively.
Carnegie Mellon, Tepper from the USA in the fourth position, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Isenberg, the University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler, and the University of Florida, Warrington all in the USA occupy the fifth, sixth, and seventh positions respectively.
The Durham University Business School and the University of Liverpool Management School both in the UK are rated eighth and ninth in the ranking, while the Politecnico di Milano School of Management from Italy is in the tenth position.
