RANKING: Poets&Quants' Best Online MBA Programs For 2024

Kelley Direct students participate in Kelley on Location in Chicago in September 2022. The online MBA program at Indiana University Kelley School of Business has topped P&Q’s Online MBA ranking for the second straight year. Courtesy photo

For the second straight year, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business has topped Poets&Quants’ ranking of the best online MBA programs in the U.S. It’s the third time the Kelley Direct MBA has topped the ranking in the seven years we’ve run it, also winning in 2021.

The win makes Kelley the most dominant program of the ranking so far. In fact, it is one of just two business schools to land in the top five in every single year of the ranking. Moreover, in 2021, P&Q named Kelley Direct our MBA Program of the Year, the first and only time the honor was awarded to an online program.

“Kelley Direct offers personal touches more common to full-time, residential programs. We are always looking for ways for students to connect with one another and with us, as if they were here on campus, learning in person full-time,” Will Geoghegan tells Poets&Quants. He is the Kelley Direct chair and a clinical associate professor of management and entrepreneurship.

“For example, we offer weekly virtual live class sessions, global and domestic immersions tailored to online MBA students, and career services and coaching specifically for advanced career professionals – program elements many other online MBA programs can’t or don’t replicate.”

Read more about Kelley Direct: The Future Of The MBA Is Happening Right Now At Indiana Kelley

POETS&QUANTS’ BEST ONLINE MBA PROGRAMS OF 2024

2024’s runner up, University of Washington Foster School of Business, shot up six spots to No. 2. The program debuted at No. 9 on our ranking in 2021, rising to No. 4 in 2022 before slipping to No. 8 last year. This is Foster’s highest finish so far.

Foster scored higher than any other program in our academic experience category measured solely by our alumni survey. In other words: Foster alumni from the Class of 2023 speak more highly of their program than alumni from any other school on the ranking. In fact, Foster alumni gave the school the highest rating in 9 of 14 categories directly used in our methodology, ranging from quality of professors to applying lessons directly to their jobs. (You can see how 2023 alumni rated each school in every category in our academic experience data drop here.)

“We are honored to be recognized by Poets&Quants but mostly by our alumni. We strive to better their lives and it gives us such pride and motivation to continue. We know our graduates are out there bettering their communities and humanity through action,” Jodey Farwell tells Poets&Quants. She is director of Foster’s Hybrid MBA.

At No. 3, University of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management marked a sharp rise up the list for the second straight year. After debuting at No. 18 on our ranking for 2021, it slipped to 45 for 2022. It then rose 38 spots to No. 7 last year after alumni gave it particularly strong scores in both academic experience and career outcomes.

University of Michigan Ross School of Business came in at No. 4, the same rank as last year when it appeared on the ranking for the first time. Launched in 2019, Ross graduated its first cohort in 2021.

Finally, Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business rounds out the top five. It is the second most dominant school on our ranking, winning outright in 2018 and 2020 and placing second three times. It has also ranked in the top five on all our previous lists.

While about 95% of the Hybrid MBA at University of Washington’s Foster School of Business is online through its live virtual classrooms, it has in-person immersions at the start of each quarter on its Seattle campus. Here, Foster students work in teams on class assignments during one such immersion. Courtesy photo

BIGGEST CLIMBERS AND DIVERS

Eight of the top ten programs from last year’s ranking made it into the top 10 for 2024. The two exceptions: Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business fell from No. 9 to No. 11 while University of Florida Warrington College of Business fell from No. 10 to No. 15. That left room for University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School and Auburn University Raymond J. Harbert College of Business to break into the top 10. Kenan-Flagler rose five spots while Auburn rose four.

Because our alumni survey accounts for two-thirds of the final score (used to calculate academic experience and career outcomes) there are still annual climbs and dives, especially at the middle of the ranking.

This year’s biggest climber is the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business which rose 16 spaces. Bryant University rose 15 spots while Hofstra University Frank G. Zarb School of Business rose 12.

At the other end, Kennesaw State University had the largest fall at 15 places. University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business dropped 14 spots, largely because it was the only school that didn’t meet the 10% response threshold on its alumni survey. It had a 7.8% response rate, so it was given credit for 78% of each of its alumni scores.

Biggest Climbers & Divers In P&Q’s 2024 OMBA Ranking
Climbers
2024 Rank	School	Final Score	YOY Change
17	University of Utah (Eccles)	76.11	16
24	Bryant University	72.23	15
18	Hofstra University (Zarb)	74.46	12
14	University of Tennessee at Chattanooga	80.51	7
35	University of Cincinnati (Lindner)	64.24	7
2	University of Washington (Foster)	94.53	6
7	University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	91.15	5
21	University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium	72.82	5
22	William & Mary (Mason)	72.50	5
30	University of Denver (Daniels)	66.86	5
36	Florida International University	63.56	5
42	Rogers State University	52.17	5
Divers
2024 Rank	School	Final Score	YOY Change
47	Kennesaw State University	43.02	-15
32	University of Maryland (Smith)	65.16	-14
31	Washington State University	65.41	-12
39	Pepperdine University (Graziadio)	61.87	-11
25	University of Nebraska-Lincoln	71.34	-10
9	University of Southern California (Marshall)	87.50	-6
46	University of Delaware (Lerner)	47.07	-6