QS Releases Largest-ever List of World’s Best Online MBA Programs

The Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at UNSW Business School has ranked fourth in a just-released list of the world’s best online MBA programs.

QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global business education analysts, have released their 2022 list, which sees for the fifth year in a row, Spain’s IE Business School boasting the world’s highest-quality online offering.

Professor Nick Wailes, Senior Deputy Dean UNSW Business School and Director AGSM said: “With more competition than ever, the AGSM MBAX has again ranked among the world’s top Online MBAs.

“The increase in the number of programs being ranked this year signals that online MBAs have now become mainstream. For students who are seeking a high-quality educational experience coupled with a high degree of flexibility programs like AGSM’s MBAX are a great choice.”

QS use four groups of metrics to evaluate the quality of an online MBA offering: (1) Employability, (2) Class Profile, (3) Faculty & Teaching, and (4) Class Experience.

Also read: How Business Degrees Are Paying Off, And Not Just For Salaries

QS Online MBA Rankings 2022: Highlights

·         IE’s closest competitors remain British providers. Imperial College Business School retains its #2 rank, and Warwick Business School its #3 rank.

·         Asia-Pacific’s top-ranked program is Australian: Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at UNSW Business School ranks 4th, achieving its highest score – 81.80/100 – for Employability.

·         The United States remains the dominant provider of high-quality MBA programs, accounting for 38 of the 72 entrants, and for five of the top 10. The leading American online MBA is offered by USC Marshall (5th), which excels in QS’s Class Experience metric group (89.7/100). Two US new entries made the top-ten: University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) and Arizona State University (Carey), joint #8.

·         Continental Europe’s second highest-ranked online MBA offering is Italian: Politecnico di Milano School of Management drops from 6th to 11th. While its scores for Faculty and Teaching have improved over the last year, these improvements are counterbalanced by drops in score for the other three criteria.

·         Only one Indian program is ranked: Amity Directorate of Distance & Online Education (52th), which drops fifteen places in this edition, partially due to the extension of the list.

·         The 72 programs featured in this year’s edition of the ranking represents an increase of 15 on 2021’s iteration: the majority of the newly featured programs are American.

Nunzio Quacquarelli, CEO at QS Quacquarelli Symonds, said: “Online MBA programs across the world are becoming more popular– a trend accelerated by the pandemic – and we anticipate that this rise in student interest will only increase in the current climate. As ever-more business schools seek to place their offerings in front of ever-more potential students, our rankings will continue to help MBA candidates differentiate between the myriad options now available to them, using independent data and a methodology carefully crafted to capture the quality of the online learning experience.”

Brenton Gibbs
Brenton is a contributing writer to MBA News Australia. He is a director and co-founder of communications, content & creative agency RGC Media & Mktng and editorial manager of Fixed Income News Australia.