I am looking for a budget online MBA program ranked among the top 50 in USA

[shrekr]

Hello all, found this forum last weekend, found lot of useful information. I learnt more about certain programs in just half a day compared to what I learnt in the past week of digging online. Thank you very much for sharing.

I am 50 and currently a senior manager in a fairly large company. There may be one more promotion left in me and I would like to equip myself with a MBA degree to enable it. I don't thing an expensive MBA adding a lot of value for me, at this stage of my career, from ROI point of view.

I am looking for a budget online MBA program, with no specific specialization in mind. My main expectations are:
1. Online only 
2. Budget, willing to spend a maximum of $35k
3. the school should be accredited (AASCB is my preference, I might go with ACBSP if there is a compelling reason)
4. I want the school to be ranked among the top 50 in USA. ***
5. I am willing to spend upto 2 years on this program

Most of the MBA programs listed in this thread are definitely within my budget, however most of them do not fare well in terms of US News rankings. 

***I compared rankings for schools offering online MBA, I tried "US News", "Princeton" and "Poets and Quants". These 3 companies have similar results for top 10 schools, and somewhat aligned on the next 10-20 schools, however beyond 20 the rest of the schools were very different by these three companies.

1. It seems me that "US News" has better recognition for their rankings compared to the other 2 companies. Is this a fair conclusion?
2. In the absence of standardized ratings for schools offering online MBA, I would like to understand, how valuable is the Ranking provided by "US News"? Am I chasing something that is not valuable?

I found the below schools satisfying my criteria

University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium; Ranked -9; Tuition-$29700
University of Massachusetts - Amherst; Ranked -12; Tuition-$33300
Ball State University; Ranked -19; Tuition-$27040
University of South Florida (Muma); Ranked -19; Tuition-$34200
Oklahoma State University (Spears); Ranked -27; Tuition-$17490
Rawls College of Business; Ranked -33; Tuition-$23058
University of Massachusetts--Lowell; Ranked -35; Tuition-$35370
University of Memphis (Fogelman); Ranked -45; Tuition-$25308

I will appreciate different insights and thought processes.

[bjcheung77]

@shrekr, This is what I would recommend, narrow your list down to the top 3. Narrow down the list of the entire thread to another backup 3. There is the 6 you can and should apply to. You're ultimately going to see what courses are offered for each one to decide, in addition to cost, time of completion, programmatic or secondary accreditation, and other factors. We can only advise, but you're the one deciding, everyone would have their own view and will go in all directions...

[ThatBankDude]

@shrekr, if you want to pursue a rather prestigious MBA program, you’ll need to look at the following:

•University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
•Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
•University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler School of Business
•Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business
•University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
•University of California-Berkeley, Haas School of Business

There are a few more than offer Online MBA programs. Having said that, as you said, they will not provide you with the ROI as most all of those I listed above are running about $100K total.

If you do not want a prestigious brand on your resume, then I would go with the cheapest AACSB program you can find.

[Jonathan Whatley]

For online MBAs with great prestige relative to cost, also check out Boston University Questrom and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies.

[shrekr]

@shrekr, This is what I would recommend, narrow your list down to the top 3.  Narrow down the list of the entire thread to another backup 3.  There is the 6 you can and should apply to.  You're ultimately going to see what courses are offered for each one to decide, in addition to cost, time of completion, programmatic or secondary accreditation, and other factors.  We can only advise, but you're the one deciding, everyone would have their own view and will go in all directions...

Good point. My final 2 are
University of Massachusetts - Amherst; Ranked -12; Tuition-$33300
Oklahoma State University (Spears); Ranked -27; Tuition-$17490

One of the reasons for my post is to understand if the rankings bear any relevance out there. I brought up this topic with few of my colleagues & Ex-colleagues. They recognized UMass as a reputable institution, but were surprised that OSU figured in my top 5.

[shrekr]

@shrekr, if you want to pursue a rather prestigious MBA program, you’ll need to look at the following:

•University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
•Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
•University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler School of Business
•Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business
•University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
•University of California-Berkeley, Haas School of Business

There are a few more than offer Online MBA programs. Having said that, as you said, they will not provide you with the ROI as most all of those I listed above are running about $100K total.

If you do not want a prestigious brand on your resume, then I would go with the cheapest AACSB program you can find.

@ThatBankDude: Thank you for your response.
I want a prestigious brand (within a certain budget) on my resume and I am trying to figure out "how does one know which are the top 50 or 100 prestigious MBA schools?" 
I though US News ranking determines if a school is prestigious or not. Let me know if I am barking the wrong tree.

---

For online MBAs with great prestige relative to cost, also check out Boston University Questrom and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies.

Hi Jonathan,
How did you figure out Boston University and UILUC are prestigious? Is there a website ranking them?
Thanks

[Pats20]

@shrekr, if you want to pursue a rather prestigious MBA program, you’ll need to look at the following:

•University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
•Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
•University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler School of Business
•Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business
•University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
•University of California-Berkeley, Haas School of Business

There are a few more than offer Online MBA programs. Having said that, as you said, they will not provide you with the ROI as most all of those I listed above are running about $100K total.

If you do not want a prestigious brand on your resume, then I would go with the cheapest AACSB program you can find.

@ThatBankDude: Thank you for your response.
I want a prestigious brand (within a certain budget) on my resume and I am trying to figure out "how does one know which are the top 50 or 100 prestigious MBA schools?" 
I though US News ranking determines if a school is prestigious or not. Let me know if I am barking the wrong tree.

---

For online MBAs with great prestige relative to cost, also check out Boston University Questrom and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies.

Hi Jonathan,
How did you figure out Boston University and UILUC are prestigious? Is there a website ranking them?
Thanks

Both are highly ranked schools. 

Edurank will give you a decent idea.


For business schools I don’t think it gets a ton better than UIUC. 
I like Boston cause it’s 30 credits vs UIUC’s 48 

Program wise. It will be hard to find rankings that actually mean anything.

[Jonathan Whatley]

@shrekr, it looks like you're over-relying on a clickbaity list of online MBA programs with ranking numbers that don't really reflect relative prestige among hirers.

[Pats20]

(6 hours ago)ThatBankDude Wrote:
@shrekr, if you want to pursue a rather prestigious MBA program, you’ll need to look at the following:

•University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
•Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
•University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler School of Business
•Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business
•University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
•University of California-Berkeley, Haas School of Business

There are a few more than offer Online MBA programs. Having said that, as you said, they will not provide you with the ROI as most all of those I listed above are running about $100K total.

If you do not want a prestigious brand on your resume, then I would go with the cheapest AACSB program you can find.
@ThatBankDude: Thank you for your response.
I want a prestigious brand (within a certain budget) on my resume and I am trying to figure out "how does one know which are the top 50 or 100 prestigious MBA schools?"
I though US News ranking determines if a school is prestigious or not. Let me know if I am barking the wrong tree.
(5 hours ago)Jonathan Whatley Wrote:
For online MBAs with great prestige relative to cost, also check out Boston University Questrom and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies.

Hi Jonathan,
How did you figure out Boston University and UILUC are prestigious? Is there a website ranking them?
Thanks
Both are highly ranked schools.

Edurank will give you a decent idea.


For business schools I don’t think it gets a ton better than UIUC.
I like Boston cause it’s 30 credits vs UIUC’s 48

Program wise. It will be hard to find rankings that actually mean anything.

[bjcheung77]

US News is just one of many rankings, believe it or not, I use Wikipedia to source the multiple rankings and make my own... You can see the various global or national rankings for many institutions with various rankings. Many Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, UK and institutions here in the US are known and recognized globally... When ranking an institution, I don't look at just one, I average the three/four or more I look at... Last but not least, you can try the MBA options on Coursera/EDX, both Boston U and UIUC have their program on these MOOC's.