Best Online MBA Programs: Five Takeaways From Our New Ranking

You learn a lot about education programs when you attempt to rank them in some systematic way with a rigorous methodology. We certainly did in our second annual ranking of the best online MBA programs. Here are the five most important takeaways:

1) While there are nearly 300 online MBA programs in the U.S. today and more business schools getting into the game very month, very few of them deliver the goods. How do we know? Because most programs have no idea what happens to their alumni. They lack the resources and the will to track online alums, to cultivate a strong and loyal alumni network--a critical part of the value proposition of getting n MBA in the first place. That's largely why we could only rank 35 programs, just a small fraction of the available options out there.

2) At the very best ranked programs, student satisfaction is extremely high. When we surveyed alumni who had graduated in the past two years from these online programs, they praised the quality of the faculty and their accessibility as well as the quality of their classmates. They believed the technology platforms they used for both live online classes and pre-recorded classes was exceptionally high. They had good things to say about accomplishing their primary and secondly goals for getting an online MBA.

3) Though online MBA students are already employed and rarely use their degree to transition to a new employer, they do expect that an MBA experience will help their careers. The data shows they are right. Our alumni survey data showed that the graduates of USC's Marshall School of Business had the most alums, 64%, who reported receiving a promotion at work as a direct result of the online MBA program. Alums from the Jack Welch Management Institute were next (58%), followed by those at the University of Maryland’s (53%), nd UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School (52%). Alums who reported gaining a salary increase as a direct result of their MBA experience topped out at the University of Texas at Dallas (90%), with USC second (80%), Indiana Kelley third (73%), and Carnegie Mellon (69%) all at the high end of immediate impact.

4) One of the major worries of prospective students is that they will sacrifice the ability to bond with their classmates and professors in an online environment. There's no doubt that online students aren't going to get the same sense of community as on-campus students. But our data shows that in the best programs at least, graduates are very satisfied about their ability to strike these connections with others. On a scale of one to ten, with ten reflecting the highest level of satisfaction, we asked alums to tell us if their program created opportunities to make good connections with fellow students. Hofstra Universitys’ Zarb School topped the list, with an average score of 9.8 from its alums, USC was next with a 9.5, followed by Carnegie Mellon at 9.4, UNC Kenan-Flagler at 9.2, and Indiana Kelley at 9.1.

5) One of the benefits of an online MBA program, of course, is that you don't have to quit your job to get the degree. In fact, if a school is doing its job, you can actually apply at work what you learn in the virtual classroom. The schools that best delivered actionable insights: the Jack Welch Management Institute, USC, the Rochester Institute of Technology, UNC, and Indiana Kelley, according to our alumni survey.

Check out our detailed charts on student satisfaction for the best online MBA programs in the U.S.:

Student Satisfaction At The Best Online MBA Programs