Best universities for business degrees 2023
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 and economics rank 2023 | Business and economics rank 2022 | University | Country/region |
1 | =1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
2 | =1 | Stanford University | United States |
3 | 4 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
4 | 5 | Harvard University | United States |
5 | 7 | The University of Chicago | United States |
6 | 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
7 | 6 | University of California, Berkeley | United States |
8 | 11 | Tsinghua University | China |
9 | 8 | Yale University | United States |
10 | 9 | London School of Economics and Political Science | United Kingdom |
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 870 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 three universities among 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
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business offers an MBA degree in four formats: the full-time MBA, evening MBA, weekend MBA and the global executive MBA programme.
The school also offers a PhD programme, as well as three joint PhD programmes and seven doctoral dissertation areas. Students can combine their business PhD programme with marketing, financial economics and psychology.
Undergraduate students are also able to take business courses within the university’s Faculty of Economics.
4. 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 organisations.
3. 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.
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.
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2. Stanford University
Stanford’s graduate business school admits students for MBA, PhD, master’s and executive degrees.
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
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 2023
Click each institution to view its World University Rankings 2023 profile
Click here to view the full ranking for business degrees
Editors note: As part of our THE statement on Ukraine published on 2 March 2022, Russian universities have been given less prominence in our rankings. Russian and Belarusian universities that met the criteria for this ranking are not displayed in the table above.