Auburn University Online MBA at the Harbert College of Business

Auburn Online MBA program currently has just under 550 students, taking in about 100 new students each spring and fall.

Jim Parrish, executive director of Full Time and Online Graduate Programs at Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business, is quick to name the greatest appeal of the school’s highly ranked online program: value.

“If a prospective student is calling me or interested in talking with one of our team members here, one of the things we lead with is our great value,” says Parrish. “There’s a very strong value-add for our Online MBA program. We’re very competitively priced, and if you look at our price point compared to the other top 10, top 12 schools, we really are a very strong value.”

But that’s not all. Auburn offers something that not every other school can: longevity. The school has been in the distance-learning game since 1989, when VHS tapes were the delivery vehicle, and at the forefront of technological changes ever since.

We Invite you to Connect with Auburn University’s Online MBA.

“As a land-grant institution, the three pillars of Auburn University’s mission are research, instruction, and extension,” Parrish tells Poets&Quants. “If you go way back into our foundation, we’ve been taking education to the masses around our state and helping the individuals of our state with any kind of skill or trade or assistance they might need in terms of their livelihood. Fast-forward that to delivering education via technology, we were doing that beginning in 1989 when we would film the classes, record VHS tapes, and then mail those out.

“As tech has evolved since the early 1990s, so has how we deliver the materials: We moved into the DVD space and we were kind of a hybrid between DVD…

Auburn Online MBA program currently has just under 550 students, taking in about 100 new students each spring and fall.

Jim Parrish, executive director of Full Time and Online Graduate Programs at Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business, is quick to name the greatest appeal of the school’s highly ranked online program: value.

“If a prospective student is calling me or interested in talking with one of our team members here, one of the things we lead with is our great value,” says Parrish. “There’s a very strong value-add for our Online MBA program. We’re very competitively priced, and if you look at our price point compared to the other top 10, top 12 schools, we really are a very strong value.”

But that’s not all. Auburn offers something that not every other school can: longevity. The school has been in the distance-learning game since 1989, when VHS tapes were the delivery vehicle, and at the forefront of technological changes ever since.

We Invite you to Connect with Auburn University’s Online MBA.

“As a land-grant institution, the three pillars of Auburn University’s mission are research, instruction, and extension,” Parrish tells Poets&Quants. “If you go way back into our foundation, we’ve been taking education to the masses around our state and helping the individuals of our state with any kind of skill or trade or assistance they might need in terms of their livelihood. Fast-forward that to delivering education via technology, we were doing that beginning in 1989 when we would film the classes, record VHS tapes, and then mail those out.

“As tech has evolved since the early 1990s, so has how we deliver the materials: We moved into the DVD space and we were kind of a hybrid between DVD and streaming in the mid-2000s, and then beginning in 2010 we were exclusively streaming online.”

The program offers dual-degree options in MSBA-Finance, Management Information Systems, and Industrial and Systems Engineering. Graduate certificates are available in Supply Chain Innovation, Cybersecurity Management, Business Analytics, and Management Information Systems. Additionally, students may choose from three areas of concentrated study: Finance, Information Systems, and Quantitative Analysis/Statistics.

The program curriculum is composed of 13 classes — nine core business courses and four electives; currently, 27 electives are offered. The online program mirrors the on-campus program, Parrish says. On-campus are filmed during the day and available for viewing that afternoon. “However, students can watch the class live — we’re not synchronous but it could be utilized if you have the time,” Parrish says. “Some students in the past would listen to the audio feed during the day while at work, and then they would watch the class later that evening as a way to better absorb the information.”

Auburn Online MBA students take an average of two classes per semester — “a good, manageable load,” Parrish says. Superstars finish the program in 18 months. Others are given a maximum of six years.

OMBA Luke Brietzke says, “One class I was taking at the time, Information Technology for Competitive Advantage, opened my eyes to new ideas.” Brietzke tells Poets&Quants,“Inspired by the class, I broadened my search and ultimately found a position with an industry-leading company called Origami Risk, which has been named one of the Top 25 Best Companies to Work For in Atlanta and Chicago (our two primary hubs) in each of the past two years. So even before I complete my studies at Auburn, the program has meant a great deal to me.”