The Rankings Problem

Having dominated the entire college search landscape, college rankings contribute to the false narrative that schools can be stacked up against each other and equally considered the “best” or “worst” for everyone in the same way. Numerical ranks create the illusion of certainty, even though every school has its own set of programs, class format options, and resources that specifically cater to different students’ needs. Instead, they are largely measured by arbitrary quantitative data and perceived prestige that can be manipulated by schools in order to climb to the top.

Ultimately, the most popular rankings are especially misleading for adult students who have unique needs that aren’t even considered by traditional rankings systems. Adult-specific metrics are often more qualitative in nature and, therefore, difficult to track (not to mention the fact that they aren’t usually considered in rankings algorithms in the first place). Even more limiting, the rankings fail to acknowledge the fact that adult students with work and personal commitments can’t pack up and move across the country to attend an in-person MBA program outside of their region. All of this means that the leading rankings systems don’t even take into account the non-traditional offerings that are most important for busy adults to have a successful experience.

Abound does not rank our MBA programs; rather, we measure them based on a rigorous review of their qualities as individual institutions. The MBA programs in our cohort are those that we found to excel in what they do best with the understanding that every student will have different needs. It’s not about finding the “best” program—it’s about finding the best fit, the one that will help them achieve their personal goals.

Our Methodology

Every year, we refine our cohort to ensure that we have accessible, high-quality MBA programs that remain up to date with how they meet students’ needs.

We encourage future students to look at how schools meet what we call the Four As: Accessibility, Affordability, Acceleration, and Advancement. These categories encompass the qualities that students will want in order to have an efficient, worthwhile grad school experience. And while they are easy-to-remember factors for students to keep in mind during their own grad school search, they also inform the more technical grading system that we used to select our cohort. Here is a breakdown of our method as it corresponds with the Four As:

Accessibility

We select programs that offer courses in the evening, weekends, and/or online so that students may fit their education around other commitments, such as family and work. We look for schools that have many online programs in a variety of concentrations, paying attention to whether they have been offering online courses and degrees throughout the last decade.

Large populations or high percentages of online-only, hybrid, and part-time MBA students signal to us that a school is committed to flexible education. Track record is important as well; the longer a school has been offering flexible or online MBA options, the more experience they have in those delivery methods.

Affordability

Our recognized schools commit to making their degrees affordable. We look at the tuition costs (including out-of-state tuition for public schools) and fees for graduates as well as the per-credit hour charge for part-time students.

The other side of the affordability coin is debt repayment. We factor in debt repayment data for graduate students one, two, and five years after graduation.

Acceleration

Schools must be leaders in accelerating their students’ time to completion in order to earn their place in our cohort. We want schools that offer MBA students a direct path to their degree in the most timely and cost-effective way. First, we look at whether they offer night and weekend courses, giving extra credit for how long they have offered these flexible options. Second, we factor in the percentage of the graduate student body who are enrolled part time.

Finally, we reward schools that are members of The Online Learning Consortium (OLC), a collaborative community of educators dedicated to improving online and blended learning effectiveness. Membership in such industry groups can tell us the commitment the schools have made toward these groups’ best practices.

Advancement

MBA students spend a lot of time with their professors, and thus the quality of their experience is influenced greatly by their student-professor relationships. Mentorship in higher education is a huge driver of success, so we look at faculty credentials and training (particularly for online programs).

We use MBA specific accreditation as a positive indicator of a school’s commitment to providing a high-quality experience. Here we look accreditation through one of: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), and the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE). These accrediting agencies only qualify a percentage of programs and are a signal that a program meets certain quality standards.

For our initial vetting process, we first reviewed the institutions on the membership rosters of the aforementioned accrediting agencies. For everything else, we used the nationally corroborated data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the US Department of Education’s College Scorecard, and The Center for Measuring University Performance.

Best MBA Programs 2024

We narrow down our selection by picking the programs that performed strongly in many categories. To further combat the statistical bias that tends only to put a certain type of institution at the top of rankings lists, we make sure to adjust our cohort to have a more representative distribution of school locations, school sizes, public schools, and private schools. The cultures, available resources, and teaching styles all cater to specific students, so we ensure that all students have an equal variety to choose from.

What Isn’t Included

There are a number of reasons that an institution might not qualify for Abound: MBA. We take precautions to keep students safe in their college search, wary of for-profit institutions as well as those that are at risk of underdelivering a quality education.

We also looked for disqualifying red flags related to institutional finances, stability, or investigation into recruiting practices. Those undergoing heightened cash monitoring are at risk of federal compliance issues and therefore at risk of harming students’ ability to graduate with an accredited degree. The closing of a school can have dramatic effects on its current students and recent grads, so great scrutiny was given to schools with “very high” financial risk levels.

Additional Nominations

We recognize that statistical models for things as complex as higher education can leave out institutions that deserve to be celebrated, regardless of how thoroughly we conduct our search. That’s why we invite nominations from administrators, faculty, and counselors to review schools to add to our cohort. Based on the nomination and vetting process that we’ve used throughout Colleges of Distinction’s 24-year operation, we’ve found that this greatly benefits our cohort at Abound.

Programs that fall outside of our assigned parameters can choose to go through a selection process that includes a team review, survey request and, when appropriate, an interview with the administration. Our team looks over the MBA program and online website sections to look at the size of staff, resources available to students, and the transparency of the information provided.

Our application and interview consist of a variety of questions that return back to the principles of our Four As. Questions cover the breadth of online programming and how long it has been in place, when and in what format classes are offered, and how students are supported efficiently and effectively through their education.

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