“Two online programs in Northern Kentucky University’s Haile College of Business have been ranked as top online programs in the country by US News and World Report,” according to a Feb. 7 NKU press release. 

According to the press release, Haile College’s Master of Accounting (MAcc) is ranked No. 71 in the country – this being its first time entering and reaching this list – and Master of Business Administration (MBA) program is ranked No. 102. 

“It takes a village to achieve this, and I’m so proud of the work we did here and the support we have from the university and the business community as well,” said Hassan HassabElnaby, the dean of Haile College of Business. “We are proud to be one of the largest MBA programs in the nation as well. And now we have to continue to be that larger, improving quality, reputation and numbers,” he said.

HasabElNaby said that the goal he set with his team when he started working at NKU in 2019 was to be in the top 100 in the next three years. The MAcc successfully reached the goal. However, the MBA was ranked at 102 –  a couple of places less than last year. 

“The Haile College of Business achieved its goal of a Top-100 ranking in the United States by 2023, reaching No. 99,” according to a Feb. 15, 2023 NKU press release. HasabElNaby said that this year’s ranking was a slight step back, but there are strategies put in place to come back into the top 100.

“I’m really proud of our accomplishments as a college, for all the students that are enrolled in our masters programs,” said Abdullah Al-Bahrani, the college’s associate dean of Graduate Programs. 

HassabElnaby said that he is particularly proud of the students in these two programs and the effort they put into navigating the responsibilities of their jobs and studies. The students’ commitment becomes evident when employers provide positive feedback about the college’s graduates, said the dean.

Al-Bahrani said there has been a national decline in enrollment in MBA and MAcc programs; however, the Haile College of Business is seeing the opposite, as enrollment is increasing. 

“The benefits of our program is our courses are five-weeks long,” said Al-Bahrani. “That allows them to specialize in that course and get ingrained entirely in the content.”

He said that since a lot of students are working full-time, a five-week course gives them the option to skip a course when life gets busy and still be able to come back, countering 16-week courses that make it harder to come back to the program.

“The design of the program is genius,” said Al-Bahrani. “I want to give credit to Dr. Sandra Spataro and the committee that she developed when they first designed this new format of our MBA program.”

Some aspects that set Haile College’s program apart from other masters programs are that they accept students three times a year, along with flexibility and affordability, said HasabElnaby.

Each MBA student can specialize in two or more stacks – areas of concentration, said Al-Bahrani. He said there are 11 of those specializations and they add more stacks every semester. HassabElnaby said these stacks respond to the needs of employers and the demand of the market. 

Al-Bahrani said that a common response they get from students is that the program allows and empowers them to find new career paths as well as getting them higher income returns. 

 “Our number one commitment every single day is student success. And if student success is our commitment, then everything else falls into place, right?” said Al-Bahrani. “That’s our guiding star. How do we make sure our students are better off after interacting with us?”

“We want to help our students get as many of the services that we already provide for undergraduate students,” he said. “We’ve rolled out a virtual speaker series, so our students have other ways to engage with their colleagues.”

“The most important [feature] is most of our faculty teaching this program comes to the classes with very intensive industry experience. So, while we do understand theory is important, the focus is really on experiential learning,” said HassabElnaby. These teachers use a lot of projects and case studies to deliver experiential learning.

Some teachers have an optional in-person class once a week to review a chapter and meet their students in person, get to know them and answer questions, said HassabElnaby. He emphasized that this is not required since the classes are 100% online, but the teachers take this initiative as a way to engage with their students.

Faculty development is an essential factor that led these programs to the top. Right now, they are working on integrating artificial intelligence into classes, since it is a tool that they will use in their jobs later on, said HassabElnaby.

“We’re continuously trying to improve our programs because as we improve our programs and our rankings and our credentialing, the value of our education, the perceived value, continues to increase,” said Al-Bahrani.

Al-Bahrani shed light on the effect this ranking has on every level. Employers benefit from the training and education the student receives, the region would benefit from more innovation and more businesses being generated here. The state of Kentucky benefits from us being in this space and helping Kentuckians improve their lifestyles through education.

“We believe that we are a critical part of the economic development of the region and we want to make sure that we continue to invest in the region as much as the region invests in us,” said Al-Bahrani.

HassabElnaby said that some of the benefits of these rankings are that current and incoming students expect a quality program. Graduating students from the program take pride that they grow from nationally-ranked programs, and the Haile College of Business is recognized as benchmarking against national and top programs in the nation.

“We look all the time at the score we got in each dimension, and we examine what we did, what we can do and what we should do to grow,” said HassabElnaby. “The program is designed to be totally delivered with quality and distance.”