Best universities for business degrees 2022
Find the best universities for business degrees using Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings data
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Top 10 universities in the world for business degrees
Scroll down for the full list of best universities in the world for business degrees.
Business Rank 2022 | Business Rank 2021 | University | Country/region |
=1 | 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
=1 | 1 | Stanford University | United States |
3 | 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
4 | 4 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
5 | 5 | Harvard University | United States |
6 | 9 | University of California, Berkeley | United States |
7 | 6 | The University of Chicago | United States |
8 | 8 | Yale University | United States |
9 | 7 | London School of Economics and Political Science | United Kingdom |
10 | 10 | Duke University | United States |
Choosing where to study business is an important decision for prospective students, so Times Higher Education has published a world ranking of business and economics degrees.
The subject ranking for business includes 795 universities in 62 countries.
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The majority of the top 20 universities in the business ranking are US colleges, with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the top.
Although the US dominates the ranking, universities in the UK and across Asia do particularly well.
The UK has five universities in the top 20, which also features two institutions from two Asian territories.
Canadian, Dutch and Australian schools also perform well for business and economics degrees.
The ranking uses the same methodology as the World University Rankings, but with slightly more weight given to teaching and research metrics and slightly less to citations. The complete methodology can be found here.
Scroll down for a full list of degrees covered by the ranking and the career paths that they open up.
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Top 5 universities for business and economics degrees
5. Harvard University
-Harvard University’s Business School is one of the most prestigious postgraduate business schools in the world.
-The school offers a two-year MBA with a focus on real-world practice. There are also eight doctoral programmes leading to a PhD or DBA.
At the moment Harvard does not offer an undergraduate business programme, but students are able to study economics at undergraduate level. There are also summer programmes for undergraduates. These range from a one-day taster of the MBA programme to a 10-week course on research into markets and organisation.
4. University of Oxford
-Undergraduate business students at the University of Oxford study economics and management within the traditional degree framework, and they are taught primarily in small group tutorials.
-Oxford’s academic department for business is the Saïd Business School, which teaches business, management and finance.
The school is just over 20 years old – fairly new compared with other prestigious business schools around the world.
The current dean, Peter Tufano, was at Harvard Business School before joining Oxford.
Postgraduate programmes on offer include the popular MBA programme, an executive MBA programme, a PhD in management studies and master’s degrees in financial economics, law and finance and strategic management.
MBA students can also extend their one-year degree to combine the course with one of the specialised master’s programmes.
All business students are members of an Oxford college and participate in university life outside the business school. Although not all colleges accept business students, the majority do.
3. University of Cambridge
-The University of Cambridge is made up of 29 separate colleges.
-The university is also home to more than 100 libraries, which hold a total of more than 15 million books.
Business and economics degrees are generally taught at the Cambridge Judge Business School. Courses include the MBA, Master of Finance, Master of Accounting and a number of MPhil programmes.
The business school has developed partnerships with companies in the private sector to facilitate collaborations. Business students are given the opportunity to work with the university’s partners on business and research projects. Students can also make the most of the nearby incubators, science parks and innovation centres.
The business school is home to the Entrepreneurship Centre, the Centre for Business Research, and the Psychometrics Centre.
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=1. Stanford University
-Stanford’s graduate business school admits students for MBA, PhD, master’s and executive degrees.
-The school’s dean is Jonathan Levin, a renowned expert in industrial organisation.
In 2006, the school received what was then the largest endowment ever given to a business school: $105 million from Phil Knight, an alumnus and the founder of Nike.
The business school at Stanford is known to be the most selective in the US, based on the competition for acceptance on to a course. Typically, less than 7 per cent of applicants secure a place.
Postgraduate students can take joint degrees with other schools, combining business with subjects such as earth sciences, education and law.
Although there is no specific business and management programme for undergraduates, students can choose to major in economics, international relations or management science and engineering.
=1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
-MIT is one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
-Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, next door to Harvard University, it is a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Sloan School of Management, also known as MIT Sloan, offers business programmes at the university.
In addition to MBA courses, executive training programmes and other postgraduate degrees, the school also teaches undergraduates through “Course 15”, which provides business skills to students with a technical and quantitative background.
The classes feature problem sets that make use of real-world business cases, tackling them with scientific approaches. The course also provides opportunities to conduct research and take part in entrepreneurship competitions.
Business courses at MIT cover a variety of topics, including operations research, consulting, entrepreneurship, finance, information technology, product development and marketing.
There is an emphasis on innovation across all these topics. Many influential new ideas in business, including the field of system dynamics, were born out of work at the Sloan School.
Best universities for business degrees in the UK
Best universities for business degrees in Australia
Best universities for business degrees in the United States
Best universities for business degrees in Canada
Top 200 universities for business and economics 2022
Click each institution to view its World University Rankings 2022 profile
Click here to view the full ranking for business degrees
Editor's Note: This article was updated in January 2022 to reflect a change in the results. After the publication of the World University Rankings 2022, Imperial College London informed us that an incorrect distribution of their data at the subject level was considered for the ranking calculation. This matter was reviewed under our corrections policy and we agreed, at our discretion, to re-calculate Imperial College London’s score based on a corrected data submission at the subject level. The amendments have not affected Imperial College London’s rank in the World University Rankings, but have impacted their subject rankings in: Clinical and Health (4th after correction; it was 3rd before) and Physical Sciences (13th after correction; it was joint 11th before). Imperial College London previously did not appear in the Computer Science subject ranking but now features at 11th place, while it has been removed from the Business and Economics and Education subject rankings as it no longer meets the eligibility criteria for these tables.