April 24, 2025

The business lovers

Joseph B. Hash

Ranking expands, but Warwick retains top slot

With coronavirus shutting down on-campus schooling, its electronic counterpart has been evolving quick — and on line MBAs are attaining in popularity.

Business educational facilities are developing far more on line MBAs and improving present programmes. This calendar year, far more educational facilities than ever participated in the FT’s ranking of these courses, while minor has transformed at the leading of the table.

Warwick Business Faculty retains the leading slot for the fourth calendar year in a row. The most important rationale is the salaries that its alumni command: an ordinary of $207,725 three years following graduation. The faculty also ranks highest for alumni occupation development.

FT On-line MBA ranking 2021 — leading fifteen

Come across out which educational facilities are in our ranking of On-line MBA levels. Discover how the table was compiled beneath (methodology) and view a checklist of On-line MBA programmes in our directory Also, browse the relaxation of our coverage at www.ft.com/on line-learning.

In 2nd position, also for the fourth consecutive calendar year, is Spain’s IE Business Faculty. It hosts the highest share of global learners, at 92 for every cent, and of overseas board users, at ninety six for every cent. For the 3rd calendar year, IE also ranks highest for corporate social obligation, measured by the range of credits from main courses covering CSR topics.

The UK’s Imperial College or university Business Faculty, in 3rd position, is the highest new entrant. Its alumni realize the 2nd-highest ordinary salary, at $184,899, and the faculty is rated leading for global mobility: centered on the place graduates had been in advance of their MBA, on completion, and now.

A further newcomer is University of Utah: David Eccles. The US faculty is rated 13th in general and comes very first for alumni assessments of the conversation between learners, and for the availability of school.

Indiana University’s Kelley Faculty has underlined the strengths of its occupations support, on line programme delivery and analysis — classes in which it repeats very last year’s leading placing.

Alumni of Italy’s Politecnico di Milano Faculty of Administration report the highest salary increase three years following graduation — 45 for every cent — and the faculty comes 3rd for CSR.

Though there are differences in the way the share increase in salary is calculated in the FT rankings for on line MBAs and for complete-time MBAs, the information deliver some exciting comparisons. The ordinary rise for the on line courses is 29 for every cent, in comparison with 123 for every cent for the leading fifteen complete-time programmes in the 2021 world-wide MBA ranking.

This demonstrates students’ demographic profile. Complete-time MBA learners tend to be in their late 20s and might take pleasure in rapid promotion. On-line MBA learners are far more probable to be in their mid-30s and far more proven, so their salary is far more probable to plateau.

Bar chart of Percentage of alumni scores out of 10 for key course aspects showing How effective are schools at delivering courses online?
Bar chart of Average alumni score out of 10 for various network benefits showing Global MBA versus Online MBA alumni networks

For these types of learners, who might also be juggling important loved ones and specialist obligations, flexibility and lower tuition charges are wonderful benefits of the on line structure. Alumni report that educational facilities are executing a fantastic job in delivering content material and tests on line, though teamwork and conversation with other learners score less effectively.

Alumni networks for on line MBAs are also rated lower than for complete-time MBAs. One locating is that, though most alumni examined purely on line, those on “mixed-mode” programmes, with some in-individual content material, had been probable to make far more occupation progress subsequently: just over 24 for every cent of “mixed-mode” alumni described big progress in their occupations — outlined by seniority and size of firm — in comparison with just over 17 for every cent of “online-only” alumni.

Chart showing that most people chose to study online-only
Chart on how alumni rate schools’ teaching

Ranked educational facilities executed effectively in a range of the topics taught: normal management and organisational conduct have been continually remarkably rated by alumni for the past five years. Fintech and ecommerce schooling acquired lower scores, as did IT, though this is the sector that most alumni work in.

This year’s ranking is centered on surveys from educational facilities and alumni who concluded their on line MBA in 2017. Though 30 educational facilities took component, the alumni response price was as well lower in fifteen conditions to be representative, so these had been ineligible to qualify for the last ranking.

Extra reporting by Sam Stephens.

Key to ranking table

• Weighting percentages are demonstrated in brackets beneath.

• For the three gender-linked standards, educational facilities that have fifty:fifty (male: feminine) composition acquire the highest score.

Income these days US$ (20): ordinary alumnus salary three years following graduation, $ PPP equivalent (see methodology).†

Income increase (10): share increase in alumnus salary in existing job versus three years back on graduation.†

Benefit for money (3): calculated in accordance to alumnus salary, tuition, expenses and other charges.†

Career progress (4): development in alumni seniority and the size of firm they now work for, versus three years back on graduation.†

Aims accomplished (4): extent to which alumni fulfilled their objectives for taking an on line MBA.†

Professions support (4): efficiency of faculty occupations support for occupation counselling, private development, networking events and recruitment, as rated by alumni.†

Programme delivery (five): how alumni price the on line delivery of are living training sessions, other training resources and on line tests.†

On-line conversation (10): how alumni price the conversation between learners, teamwork, and availability of school.†

Woman school (3): share of feminine users of school.

Woman learners (3): share of feminine learners on MBA programme.

Ladies on board (one): share of feminine users on faculty advisory board.

Intercontinental school (4): share of school who are not citizens of the region the place they are used.

Intercontinental learners (4): share of existing learners who are not citizens of the region in which the faculty is situated.

Intercontinental board (two): share of board who are not citizens of the region in which the faculty is situated.

Intercontinental mobility (five): centered on alumni citizenship and the international locations the place they worked in advance of their MBA, on completion, and three years following.†

College with doctorates (five): share of complete-time school with a doctoral diploma.

Company social obligation rank (3): proportion of credits from main courses committed to CSR, ethics, social and environmental concerns.

FT analysis rank (10): calculated in accordance to the range of content published by a school’s existing complete-time school users in fifty tutorial and practitioner journals between January 2018 and Oct 2020. The rank brings together the absolute range of publications with the range weighted relative to the faculty’s size.

Extra notes

The pursuing information are for info only and are not employed in the ranking calculations.

Program tuition and expenses (community forex): Programme tuition and expenses paid by the most recently enrolled course to complete the programme, in the forex of the region in which the faculty is situated. Determine exhibits weighted ordinary.

Average completion time (years): The ordinary sum of time learners acquire to complete the programme.

On-line training resources ({ae9868201ea352e02dded42c9f03788806ac4deebecf3e725332939dc9b357ad}): Percentage of programme training resources that are shipped on line.

General fulfillment: Average analysis by alumni of the system, scored out of 10.

Includes information for course of 2017 and one particular or two previous classes if accessible.

How the Money Instances On-line MBA 2021 ranking is compiled

This is the eighth yearly edition of the Money Instances ranking of the ideal on line MBA programmes around the globe. A overall of 30 educational facilities took component in the 2021 edition.

All participating organization educational facilities have to meet up with the FT’s stringent entry standards. The faculty have to be accredited by AACSB or Equis and programmes have to have run for four consecutive years. At minimum 70 for every cent of the content material have to be shipped on line. The contributors have to also move a collection method in advance of enrolling and an examination method in advance of graduating.

Facts had been gathered as a result of two on line surveys — the very first was concluded by participating educational facilities and the 2nd by their alumni who completed their On-line MBA in 2017. Some 733 of them concluded our questionnaire — a response price of about 19 for every cent.

The ranking has 18 standards. Alumni responses tell 9 standards that alongside one another add 65 for every cent of the overall weight. A further 8 standards are centered on the faculty information, accounting for 25 for every cent. The remaining criterion, the analysis rank, counts for 10 for every cent.

Alumni-knowledgeable standards are centered on information gathered in the past three years. Responses from the 2021 survey carry fifty for every cent of the overall weight and those from 2020 and 2019 account for 25 for every cent just about every. Excluding salary standards, if only two years’ information are accessible, the weighting is split sixty:40, if information are from 2021 and 2020, or 70:30, if information are from 2021 and 2019. For salary figures, the weighting is fifty:fifty for two years’ information.

The very first two alumni standards are ordinary income three years following graduation and the salary increase in comparison with their shell out on graduation, with respective weights of 20 for every cent and 10 for every cent. For the latter, 50 percent of the weight applies to the absolute increase and 50 percent to the share increase (the published figure). Salaries are transformed to US pounds utilizing the Intercontinental Financial Fund acquiring electricity parity premiums published in Oct 2020.

The salaries of non-earnings and public sector workers and complete-time learners are taken off, as are the highest and most affordable salaries for just about every faculty, in buy to compute a normalised ordinary. Lastly, salaries are weighted to replicate differences between industry sectors.

“Value for money” for just about every faculty is calculated by dividing ordinary alumni salary three years following graduation by the programme’s overall value, which include tuition expenses and other bills. Any economical support supplied to alumni is subtracted from the overall value.

Faculty standards involve the diversity of personnel, board users and learners by gender and nationality. For gender standards, educational facilities with a fifty:fifty composition score the highest.

The corporate social obligation category is centered on the proportion of credits from main courses committed to CSR, ethics, social and environmental concerns. It carries a weight of three for every cent.

The analysis rank is centered on the range of content by complete-time school in fifty internationally recognised tutorial and practitioner journals. The rank brings together the range of publications from January 2018 to Oct 2020, with the figure weighted relative to the size of the school.

The On-line MBA ranking is a relative listing. Educational institutions are rated from just about every other by calculating a Z-score for just about every criterion. The Z-score is a statistic that exhibits the place a score lies in relation to the mean. These scores are then weighted as outlined in the ranking crucial and additional alongside one another for a last score.

Soon after taking away the educational facilities that did not meet up with the response price threshold from the alumni survey, a very first edition is calculated utilizing all remaining educational facilities. The faculty at the bottom is taken off and a 2nd edition is calculated, and so on until the leading 10 have been discovered. The leading 10 educational facilities are rated accordingly to generate the 2021 checklist.

Judith Pizer of Pizer-MacMillan acted as the FT’s databases consultant. The FT analysis rank was calculated utilizing Clarivate Analytics information from the World wide web of Science, an summary and quotation databases of analysis literature.