Two undergraduate programs in Detroit Mercy’s College of Business Administration achieved national rankings in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” 2021 edition. The rankings were released Sept. 14.
Detroit Mercy’s Management program was ranked No. 23 in the United States, marking the seventh consecutive year it has achieved a top 30 ranking, while the Accounting program earned its first national ranking at No. 58.
“These rankings literally identify the best of the best and they send an important signal to three groups,” said Joseph G. Eisenhauer, dean of the College of Business Administration. “First, prospective students and their parents can be assured that nationally ranked institutions are worth attending. Second, faculty and staff prefer to work at prestigious institutions, so our rankings help us attract the best employees. And third, employers know that the graduates of nationally ranked programs will perform well on the job, so they actively recruit our students.”
As a whole, Detroit Mercy ranked among the top 200 national universities, earning a No. 187 rank in the National Universities category. This is the second year in a row that Detroit Mercy has ranked high in this newly designated category; only three other Michigan universities earned a place in this year’s group.
These new national rankings follow several impressive developments for Detroit Mercy’s College of Business Administration over the past two years.
Last fall, Detroit Mercy Account graduates had the nation’s best first-time pass rates on the Certified Public Accounting (CPA), according to the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). The group reported the rankings in its annual publication, Candidate Performance on the Uniform CPA Examination.
Detroit Mercy students and alumni achieved a 95% pass rate and an average test score of 87.5 on the CPA exam. The University was one of only two institutions in the nation to achieve a pass rate of at least 90%. It marked the third year in a row that first-time pass rates of Detroit Mercy students have ranked among the best in the United States.
In addition, the College’s Center for Practice & Research in Management & Ethics (PRIME Center) launched a new business journal and initiated a speaker series that featured Denise Morrison, former president & CEO of Campbell Soup, as the inaugural presenter in February 2020. The PRIME Center is currently sponsoring an essay contest on business ethics, in which high school students can win generous cash prizes and scholarships.
Eisenhauer credits the College of Business Administration’s faculty, curriculum, programming and centers for building a level of academic excellence that leads to national rankings for the Management and Accounting programs.
“Our academic excellence begins with our faculty,” Eisenhauer said. “We conduct national and even international searches to hire the best professors, we give them small classes where they can provide personalized attention to students and we support their scholarly research to keep them at the forefront of their fields. In addition, our curriculum focuses on experiential service-learning, in which students gain experience in their fields while supporting the community. To complement their coursework, for example, our Accounting students provide free income tax assistance to neighborhood residents each year.”
Detroit Mercy’s MBA program also achieved a high national ranking in the 2021 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Graduate School Rankings,” released in March 2020.
The MBA program ranked No. 22 in the nation for Management. This is the sixth year in a row that Detroit Mercy’s MBA program has been ranked among the nation’s top 25 graduate management programs.
U.S. News & World Report’s undergraduate business program rankings are based solely on peer assessment surveys. The report only considers undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).