Kenan-Flagler Online MBA Tops New Fortune Rankings

Posted on April 27, 2021

Fortune magazine has ranked Kenan-Flagler Business School’s online MBA program first in a new ranking announced with the launch of Fortune Education, a hub intended to help readers develop skills and advance in their careers.

Curated by a team of journalists, Fortune Education is designed to be a destination for reporting about what prospective students should know to make the best career decisions. The hub will produce rankings and ratings of graduate, postgraduate, executive education, and personal and professional improvement programs.

“The Best Online MBA Programs of 2021” is the first of six higher education rankings to be published in this year. The other online MBA programs in the top 10 are Indiana University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Southern California, the University of Florida, the University of Maryland-College Park, the University of Pittsburgh, Syracuse University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Rice University.

In his daily newsletter, Fortune CEO Alan Murray ’77 explained why the hub chose to highlight online MBA programs first.

“During the pandemic year, two things happened that are propelling this new initiative,” wrote Murray, who is a former member of the GAA’s Board of Directors. “First, the speed of technological change — already head-spinningly fast — accelerated even more, underscoring the urgent need for programs that help workers acquire new skills to keep up with change. And second, digital access to everything expanded, making online education the dominant mode for lifelong learning.”

The hub uses multiple data sets to formulate education rankings, including data provided by schools, a brand score calculated from a survey of hiring managers and business professionals and a weighted “Fortune 1000 Score,” which considers business school alumni placement in the C-suites of the biggest companies in the U.S.

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