Miami drops high-rated MBA program | Business

OXFORD, OH (FOX19) - Miami University has suspended the accelerated MBA program that was ranked as 9th best in the world and 3rd best in the U.S. a couple of years ago by the Wall Street Journal. 

The program is being dropped for financial reasons, said Alan Oak, Assistant Dean for External Relations at the Farmer School of business. 

The 14-month program started just a few years ago, and currently has 30 students.  Those students will be able to complete their program.  The school will continue to offer and expects to expand its two-year part-time MBA program, which is offered at its VOA Learning Center campus in West Chester, and currently has 80 students. 

Oak says state budget cuts and the program's relatively small size made it expensive to operate.  Oak says Miami state funding was cut by 17 per cent, which amounts to 2 or 3 per cent of the school's total budget. 

The program required executives to leave their jobs and study continuously beginning in the summer, going through the school year, and finishing with a field experience the next summer, during which the professors would attend to the incoming class. 

Oak says the type of students was different between the two programs, with a group typically having 3-5 years of business experience joining the accelerated MBA program, and often coming from far away to do so, while people in the two-year program most often have 10-12 years experience and continue to work at jobs in the Tri-State during the day while taking classes three nights a week. 

The program has been suspended, not cancelled, meaning they may consider bringing it back in the future.  The faculty for both programs is drawn from the same group, so professors who will no longer teach accelerated classes may be absorbed into the West Chester program. 

The biggest part of the Farmer School of Business continues to be the undergraduate school of business, one of the largest in the country, with 4,000 students, about a quarter of the Miami student body.  The college also offers graduate programs in economics and accountancy. 

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