Online MBA

The following is the third part of a discussion with Jerry Trapnell, the executive vice president and chief accreditation officer of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB).

The majority of top-rated business business schools seem to be tied to an in-resident MBA degree program. Only two of the Bloomberg Businessweek’s top 20 business schools in the U.S. offer an online MBA degree, at present.

Nitin Nohria, the Dean of the Harvard Business school, told the Financial Times in January 2011 that while the school wants to globalize, he believed that the school’s practice of case teaching method in-residence was here to stay.

“We have not seen a propensity in that direction,” said Trapnell regarding the top business schools. “I think it’s fair to say they are heavily using technology-facilitated learning programs now, but, clearly, their programs are in-residence, full-time.”

Trapnell said that he thought the top 10 business schools have a “unique position in the world. They are cutting edge. They are superior at the traditional market for MBAs and do they want to take any risk with that?”

AACSB-accredited business schools are testing the online waters, though.

In North Carolina, where the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill announced it will unveil an online MBA program (nicknamed MBA@UNC) in 2012, a Google Insights search report for the term “online MBA” reveled that it was looked up over 100,000 million times over the last 12 months. However, another top 20 program, Indiana’s Kelley Direct, was launched in 1999.

“It’s out there, and many leading schools are playing in the technology-driven market. Maybe not in every case, fully online but a range of blended to traditional classes very much facilitated by technology,” Trapnell said.
Trapnell does not want the strict accrediations to be a hindrance to business schools that want to offer an online degree program.

“What we hope is that the standards in our process don’t stand in the way of business schools being creative and innovative in what they do,” said Trapnell. “We would expect them to do that in the same manner that if you were doing a brand new traditional degree program delivered at the home campus. We’d expect they’d focus on the right issues and be done in the right way.”

– Alanna Stage, @alannatweets

Parts One and Two

• Online MBA Programs ‘Not for the Faint of Heart’
• Accreditation and the Online MBA Student