BW Drops EMBA & Exec Ed Rankings

Bloomberg Businessweek said yesterday (March 16) that it will no longer publish rankings on Executive MBA or executive education programs. In an email sent to business school officials, the magazine gave no reason for giving up on its EMBA and exec ed rankings which were launched in 1991.

Businessweek was the first media outlet to rank business school programs for executives–its core audience. Over the years, rankings of EMBA programs have proliferated from U.S. News & World Report, The Financial Times, and The Economist. The Financial Times also publishes annual rankings of executive education programs.

Though the magazine didn’t explain why it decided to cease publication of these rankings, the decision appears to be part of a new strategy to focus less attention on business education. Businessweek has significantly lessened its coverage of business schools in recent years. Stories about management education are rarely published in the print magazine, and fewer articles are published online. The last guidebooks to both MBA programs and undergraduate business programs by Businessweek were published seven years ago in 2008. More recently, in shutting down Bloomberg Businessweek’s website and moving to a rebranded Bloomberg Business website, it removed business schools as a key category of coverage in the main navigation bar on the site’s homepage.

THE FIRST EMBA WINNER WAS THE LAST EMBA WINNER: NORTHWESTERN KELLOGG

When Businessweek first ranked these programs, the EMBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management came out first, while the University of Michigan’s exec ed seminars and programs was ranked first in executive education. The last time Businessweek ranked EMBA programs in 2013, Kellogg was again on top of its list. Harvard Business School topped the ranking for open-enrollment exec ed programs that year, while Duke Corporate Education was rated best in custom executive education.

Businessweek’s announcement was among several made by the magazine yesterday. The magazine also said it would resume publication of its undergraduate business rankings next year after a one-year suspension. For the second time in two years, it also made major changes to the methodology of its full-time MBA rankings which will be published in October.