What Makes a Good Online MBA Program?

Already, we have seen online MBA programs come and go. As mentioned above, it is a big commitment for a school to offer an online MBA program. We therefore award 15% of the total score for schools that have proved they have staying power in this market, and can continue to attract students.

There’s also the small matter of having experience in delivering courses long distance. Those like Warwick Business School and the Open University who have had decades of experience doing this – even before the courses went online – can certainly boast some expertise in the field. 

We also look at accreditation, which tend to be awarded to schools as a whole rather than to specific programs. The more accreditation bodies (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS and EPAS) that have approved the school, the higher a score they get for this. Nine ranked schools boast the ‘triple crown’ of accreditation from AACSM, AMBA and EQUIS.

Finally, we look at the number of students enrolled – a fairly straightforward indicator of quality here. If you build a decent course, the students will come.

Our faculty and teaching measure is there to ensure that schools are not treating their online MBA programs as an afterthought, but are as fully dedicated to teaching their online MBA as they are their full-time program (if they offer one).

The 15% we award for this indicator is split between three factors. The faculty/student ratio score which forms the basis of many a measure of teaching quality, the proportion of full-time faculty members who teach on the online program as opposed to adjuncts and – this is an important one for online MBA programs, where the often solitary nature of study means that students must be carefully supported to lessen attrition – completion rates.

On average, around two-thirds of faculty members on online MBA programs in our ranking are full-time (the Beacom School of Business at the University of South Dakota is taught exclusively by full-time faculty – it’s a small program, but take a bow nonetheless), with 81% the average completion rate (top marks to the EURO MBA Consortium, with a 99% figure).

Study may be largely self-directed on an online MBA program but this, to our mind, only increases the need for a bit of structural discipline in the course in order to give it some real shape. We also believe that much of the experience hinges on how much of the course comprises of group work – after all, working with other people is what management is all about. We reward courses that assess candidates based on group work – as would largely be the case on a full-time program. And finally, sure, these are online programs, but to have small element where candidates are physically in the same room, even for short while, can make a huge difference to the dynamic, even when working together from afar.

We therefore award 15% of the ranking score based around these elements. Two-thirds of our 30 ranked programs have physical meet-up components, half have regular classes at set times, while just under a third mandate attendance to these. Every course in the 2016 rankings has a group work element, which on average counts for 56% of a student’s final grade.

The final 10% of a school’s score in our ranking looks at the make-up of the class. As with a full-time program, you’ll learn more from a wider range of people.

We look at the percentage of women enrolled on the course, and the number of nationalities represented. In terms of the latter, no one comes close to Alliance Manchester Business School’s 100+ nationalities, while in terms of the former the overall average of 33% is outdone comfortably by Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University (in the US) at 58%, the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs at 51% and the University of Houston-Victoria at 50%.

And that my friends, is how we rate the quality of an online MBA program. Please do have a look at the rankings!