Temple University’s Fox School of Business Online MBA

Up until this year, if you were thinking about doing an online MBA program it would have been a no-brainer to include Temple University’s highly ranked option. The online program at Temple’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia had been ranked first by U.S. News & World Report for three consecutive years in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
But just after claiming its fourth consecutive No. 1 title in U.S. News’ online MBA ranking in January of 2018, the school reported back to U.S. News that it had provided inaccurate data for the ranking. Temple had reported that all 255 of the program’s latest incoming class submitted GMAT scores to get into the program. In fact, the school acknowledged that only 50 students, or 19.6%, submitted GMAT scores.
As a result, Temple’s online MBA program was tossed off the list, relegated to unranked status. A prominent law firm, Jones Day, has been brought into the school to investigate what went on and whether Fox had also misreported data in previous years.
And those high rankings have fueled a significant increase in online students. In fact, in the past year alone, Temple was able to increase its online MBA enrollment by an impressive 57% to 546 students from 351. But the loss of the ranking and the independent review of Fox’s program means that would-be applicants should hit the pause button on this online MBA — at least until the dust clears and the Jones Day review is made public.
That’s a shame, because even if Fox wasn’t No. 1, it had — by many accounts — put together a credible online offering admired by many rival deans and directors at a decent price: $57,048. It lacks many of the bells and whistles of the very best online programs at schools that are more highly ranked for their…

Up until this year, if you were thinking about doing an online MBA program it would have been a no-brainer to include Temple University’s highly ranked option. The online program at Temple’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia had been ranked first by U.S. News & World Report for three consecutive years in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
But just after claiming its fourth consecutive No. 1 title in U.S. News’ online MBA ranking in January of 2018, the school reported back to U.S. News that it had provided inaccurate data for the ranking. Temple had reported that all 255 of the program’s latest incoming class submitted GMAT scores to get into the program. In fact, the school acknowledged that only 50 students, or 19.6%, submitted GMAT scores.
As a result, Temple’s online MBA program was tossed off the list, relegated to unranked status. A prominent law firm, Jones Day, has been brought into the school to investigate what went on and whether Fox had also misreported data in previous years.
And those high rankings have fueled a significant increase in online students. In fact, in the past year alone, Temple was able to increase its online MBA enrollment by an impressive 57% to 546 students from 351. But the loss of the ranking and the independent review of Fox’s program means that would-be applicants should hit the pause button on this online MBA — at least until the dust clears and the Jones Day review is made public.
That’s a shame, because even if Fox wasn’t No. 1, it had — by many accounts — put together a credible online offering admired by many rival deans and directors at a decent price: $57,048. It lacks many of the bells and whistles of the very best online programs at schools that are more highly ranked for their full-time residential programs, but at that price Fox had a competitive offering in the marketplace.
Temple entered the online MBA market in 2009, enrolling just 18 students in its inaugural class, which then had a price tag of $70,000, more than $10,000 more than current pricing. The program grew slowly to an intake of 22 students in 2010 and 35 in 2011. The school is now up to three intakes a year, in the spring, summer, and fall, with a goal of moving to five intakes, each with a maximum of 100 students. At least that was the goal before this latest controvery got the school kicked out of the U.S. News ranking (Poets&Quants also decided not to include Temple in its inaugural ranking of the best 25 online MBA programs in 2018.)
Students can finish the Fox MBA in as little as 20 months — something 40% of the students do — or can stretch the program out up to six years. The average time Fox students take to complete their MBA is 30 months. Some 75% of the courses are in the required core, with the remaining time devoted to electives that can build into one of eight concentrations, ranging from entrepreneurship to strategic management. A ninth concentration in supply chain management was added last fall.
Fox’s program tends to draw students with more work experience than rivals. The latest cohort, with an average 11 years of work experience and an average age of 36, looks more like an Executive MBA program than an online MBA. What makes the program stand out? According to Darin Kapanjie, managing director of online and digital learning at Fox, “first and foremost, it’s the caliber of student we attract to the program. In an MBA program, students bring their professional experiences into the classroom, so it’s important that you have students with significant work backgrounds. And the program is attractive to the busy working professional.”
The Fox program, which features a week-long residency with hotel accommodations included, allows students to take one course at a time over four- to five-week periods. Each online class at Fox meets live with a faculty member every Thursday night from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EST, and quizzes are assigned after each required video. The program concludes with a capstone experience. In a typical year, the school will run some 60 projects involving 350 students, with a seven-to-one student-faculty ratio for the capstone presentations that are delivered virtually or in-person.
A video vault stuffed with 2,500 lectures by Fox profs can be tapped into for mini-tutorials on everything from emerging markets and the power of feedback to Excel proficiency and multiple regressions. Students can search the video database at any time for a quick refresh or when assigned specific lectures in a class. Many of the lectures are inferior to things you can find on Kahn Academy, but you’ve got to give the school credit for trying.
The school claims some healthy outcomes for graduates of its online program. Fox claims that 54% of its online MBAs were either promoted or given a raise after joining the program. The school says that the average salary increase for grads between program start and end is slightly more than $30,000, or a 22% jump in pay. Median salaries for its graduates three years after graduation is $105,000.
But there is that troublesome controversy that has cast a long and deep shadow over the program and all the claims this school has been making. That all makes Temple a risky choice right now in a field where there are a lot of other more viable options.