The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.
International students can study anything from sociology to English literature at U.S. colleges, but many choose to study business.
Management, business and marketing are some of the most popular disciplines for international students, according to a 2014 report from the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research organization. And because of the vast amount of online offerings from U.S. schools, students from abroad can log in without ever visiting the States.
At Madonna University in Michigan, 100 percent of students in its online MBA program during the 2013-2014 school year were not from the U.S. The program had the highest percentage of international students among 152 ranked institutions that submitted data to U.S. News in an annual survey.
[Weigh the benefits of an online MBA program that involves residency.]
Madonna’s program included just 54 students, all of whom were international. Some schools, however, had much larger enrollments for their online MBA programs and many more international students, although the percentage of international students was smaller.
Lynn University in Florida, for example, had 103 international students, who made up 24.4 percent of its online MBA student body. It is No. 4 on the list of online MBA programs with the most students from abroad.
At City University of Seattle, there were 231 international students — or 19.4 percent of the total number of online MBA candidates. The only West Coast school on the list, it came in at No. 6.
[Find out which online MBA programs cost the most for out-of-state students.]
Of the schools that had at least one international student, 15 institutions had less than 1 percent of their online MBA student bodies made up of students who were from abroad. Colorado Technical University had such a low percentage it rounded to zero. During the 2013-2014 school year, only one out of 2,405 students was international.
Three schools on the list were labeled RNP, meaning their programs’ overall scores put them in the bottom 25 percent of the online MBA rankings. U.S. News calculates numerical ranks for these schools but does not publish them.
Below is a list of the 10 online MBA programs with the most international students during the 2013-2014 school year. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
| School (name) (state) | Total enrollment | Percentage of international students | U.S. News rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madonna University (MI) | 54 | 100% | RNP |
| Andrews University (MI) | 32 | 37.5% | 114 (tie) |
| University of Bridgeport (CT) | 45 | 26.7% | RNP |
| Lynn University (FL) | 422 | 24.4% | 135 |
| Missouri University of Science & Technology | 46 | 21.7% | 55 (tie) |
| City University of Seattle | 1,189 | 19.4% | 117 (tie) |
| Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA) | 29 | 17.2% | 7 (tie) |
| Thunderbird School of Global Management (AZ) | 215 | 16.3% | 21 (tie) |
| Regent University (VA) | 164 | 14.6% | 78 (tie) |
| Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ) | 82 | 13.4% | RNP |
U.S. News surveyed 195 public, private and for-profit schools for our 2015 Best Online MBA Programs rankings. Schools reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News’ data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of these survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Online MBA Programs rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. These data are specific to schools’ online MBA degree program offerings and have no influence over U.S. News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings assessing traditional business programs. The enrollment data above are correct as of Aug. 18, 2015.
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10 Online MBA Programs With the Most International Students originally appeared on usnews.com