Atlanta Business Chronicle has ranked Brenau University as the top Master of Business Administration program in terms of enrollment in its 2016 listing of business schools in the metropolitan Atlanta area.
With 721 students enrolled in the program in 2015-16, Brenau moved up on the July 27-published list ahead of Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech with its 519 students, J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University at 450, Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics at Mercer University at 429 and Emory University Goizueta Business School at 345.
Brenau’s program placed second in last year’s listings with 604 students.
Suzanne M. Erickson, dean of the Brenau College of Business & Mass Communication, attributed the growth to the university’s staggered enrollment that enabled students to commence classes at multiple times throughout the year rather than at traditional fixed times at the beginning of each semester or academic year. She also credited Brenau’s multiple formats and a wide range of concentrations like project management and health care administration.
“We are working very hard to make our programs available to as wide a range of people as possible,” said Erickson. “Sometimes an individual’s career development needs do not fit neatly into the rigid schedules of traditional semesters and academic years.”
The Brenau program, at $652 per credit hour, also was the second-least expensive among the top five programs listed, tuitions for which ranged from $483 per credit hour at Georgia State, $727 per hour at Mercer, $1,107 per hour at Georgia Tech to $57,000 a year at Emory.
The MBA program includes specialization in accounting, business analytics, entrepreneurship, finance, general business, health care administration, human resources, information assurance, management, marketing, and project management. The university also offers a master’s degree in organizational leadership, which was not included in the MBA survey, as well as Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in accounting, general business, financial economics, marketing and human resources management and a Bachelor of Arts in organizational leadership.
Although Brenau did not make the cutoff for the number of undergraduate students by a couple of dozen students in the weekly newspaper’s Top 10 BBA list, the dean said she believes it’s only a matter of time.
“I believe students choose Brenau due to the convenience of our six start dates per year and the flexibility of our online offerings,” said Erickson, who has been among the Atlanta Business Chronicle list of the region’s most influential educators for the past three years. “All of our degrees can be earned completely online, which allows busy working adults the flexibility to tailor the timing of their classes to their lives. The School of Business was a pioneer in online education, and we continue to be recognized as a quality online program.”
Erickson attributed the strong growth in the graduate programs this past year – which catapulted Brenau from the second spot last year – to the marketing efforts of the university’s partner Helix Education from Salt Lake City, Utah.
