The history of Business degrees in the US stems from education in commercial subjects that stretches well back into the 1800s. For example, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1881, was the first business school to be founded within a broader university. And in 1889, The College of Commerce at the University of California, Berkeley (later to be renamed the Haas School of Business), was founded as the first business school at a public university.
These early programs were dedicated to the teaching of economics and accounting. Demonstrative of this early approach was The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. Founded in 1898, and the second-oldest business school in the United States, the school was chartered officially as the College of Commerce and Administration, and was intended to be an extension of the school's founding principles of "scientific guidance and investigation of great economic and social matters of everyday importance".
However, through the early 1900's, business schools offered little in the way of a standardized "tool kit" for managers. At this time in history, managers generally did not possess a recognized role in American society, were largely uneducated and viewed as only interested in making a profit (which, back then, was seen as a bad thing). Even as late as the 1940s and 1950s, the curriculum at the majority of business schools in the USA was best described as an amalgamation of disparate subjects which lacked quality control.
The transformation of business schools began in the late 1950's with the Ford Foundation's critiques, which looked at the quality of business education at most business schools, the quality of the faculty, and the quality of the students. These critiques argued that the best business school faculty should be strongly immersed in quantitative training and have a disciplinary orientation (e.g., particularly economics, sociology, and psychology).
These efforts were supported by AACSB International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). Founded in 1916 by seventeen leading American colleges and universities, today AACSB is a leading accrediting agency for bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in business administration and accounting around the world.
In the 1980's, a second wave of change within America's business schools was about to begin. In a report entitled, ''Management Education and Development: Drift or Thrust into the 21st Century,'' commissioned by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, America's business schools were criticized for their failure to help business students achieve sufficient educational breath, particularly with regard to the external environment of business. Business schools responded to the criticisms by adapting their curriculum to provide much more emphasis on the environment in which business operates, on entrepreneurship, business ethics and managers' communication skills.
While America's university-based 4-year business schools were evolving, so were America's 2-year community colleges. Commencing in the 1960's, America's 2-year community colleges started on a path of creating and adapting business education to the needs of a changing society. Founded to provide vocational courses with a practical orientation quite distinct from their 4-year university counterparts, they continue to this day to emphasize meeting the practical needs of business, and they are in the forefront of curriculum development and research focused on managers' needs.
Today, business schools in the US can be found at almost all of America's 1,500 4-year universities and 1,000 2-year community colleges. They offer a wide variety of options, with some focusing on high level academic research and others on the development of practicing managers.
Why Choose Business
AACSB Accredited Business Schools in the USA