In the first year, Kelley On Campus brings students together for an in-person residency featuring a live client engagement with global and domestic companies, hands-on problem solving, and networking and career coaching on IU Bloomington’s campus.
It’s a repeat for Indiana University’s Kelley Direct Online MBA.
The Kelley School of Business program topped the U.S. News’ ranking of the best online MBA programs in the U.S. for 2026, the same result as last year.
It’s the second No. 1 Kelley has scored for the 2026 ranking cycle, also Kelley topping Poets&Quants’ ranking of the best online MBA programs which was released in December.
It is the fourth time Kelley topped P&Q’s list and the 11th time in 13 years it has topped U.S. News’ ranking. It is an unprecedented record of success in a highly cluttered and competitive market.
U.S. News’ 2026 list, published today (January 27), ranks 377 different online MBAs out of more than 700 options that now exist in the U.S. alone.
U.S. News Online MBA Top 10 For 2026 |
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2026 rank |
School |
2025 Rank |
YOY Change |
Enrollment |
Acceptance Rate |
| 1 | Indiana University–Bloomington (Kelley) | 1 | 0 | 1,452 | 23% |
| 2 | Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) | 3 | 1 | 257 | 69% |
| 3 | University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) | 2 | -1 | 531 | 57% |
| 4 | University of Washington (Foster) | 4 | 0 | 147 | 67% |
| 5 | University of Florida (Warrington) | 4 | -1 | 818 | 60% |
| 6 | University of Arizona (Eller) | 7 | 1 | 725 | 69% |
| 6 | University of Southern California (Marshall) | 7 | 1 | 417 | 53% |
| 8 | Arizona State University (Carey) | 7 | -1 | 801 | 70% |
| 8 | University of Kansas | 7 | -1 | 566 | 64% |
| 10 | Oklahoma State University (Spears) | 11 | 1 | 492 | 27% |
| 10 | University of Texas at Dallas (Jindal) | 11 | 1 | 369 | 49% |
| 10 | University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross) | 6 | -4 | 500 | 49% |
Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business hybrid online MBA rose one spot to No. 2 while Kenan-Flagler Business School‘s MBA@UNC program fell one spot to No. 3.
The Universities of Florida and Washington rounded out the five.
The biggest change among Top Ten programs comes from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Its online MBA fell four spots to No. 10 after rising 10 places last year.
There are actually 12 schools that made it into the Top 10 on U.S. News’ list due to a methodology that makes for a lot of ties. In fact, there are seven different programs that tied for No. 14 on this ranking, nine that tied for No. 33 and for No. 50, and eight tied for No. 42.
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY JUMPS 16 SPOTS
Among the top 50 programs, four saw double digit rises over last year. They include University of Iowa (Tippie) which rose 11 spots to No. 14, Texas Tech University (Rawls) which rose 12 to No. 33, University of Missouri–St. Louis which rose 13 and Lehigh University which rose 16.
Conversely, four programs also slipped double digits including Villanova University which fell 21 points to No. 50 and University of Maryland–College Park (Smith) dropping 19 spots to No. 33.
Top 50’s Biggest Risers & Fallers |
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Risers |
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2026 rank |
School |
2025 Rank |
YOY Change |
Enrollment |
Acceptance Rate |
|
| 26 | Lehigh University | 42 | 16 | 229 | 79% | |
| 33 | University of Missouri–St. Louis | 46 | 13 | 57 | 73% | |
| 21 | Texas Tech University (Rawls) | 33 | 12 | 252 | 84% | |
| 14 | University of Iowa (Tippie) | 25 | 11 | 1,603 | 83% | |
| 26 | Florida International University (Chapman) | 33 | 7 | 735 | 58% | |
| 26 | University of Massachusetts–Lowell (Manning) | 33 | 7 | 1,342 | 94% | |
| 14 | University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium | 20 | 6 | 421 | 90% | |
Fallers |
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| 26 | Kansas State University | 20 | -6 | 149 | 92% | |
| 26 | University of California–Davis | 20 | -6 | 346 | 83% | |
| 26 | University of Delaware (Lerner) | 20 | -6 | 260 | 85% | |
| 33 | James Madison University | 25 | -8 | 141 | 84% | |
| 50 | Kennesaw State University (Coles) | 42 | -8 | 227 | 95% | |
| 42 | Bryant University | 33 | -9 | 189 | 58% | |
| 42 | Creighton University (Heider) | 33 | -9 | 178 | 83% | |
| 50 | Pennsylvania State University–World Campus (Smeal) | 33 | -17 | 1,102 | 62% | |
| 50 | William & Mary (Mason) | 33 | -17 | 352 | 85% | |
| 33 | University of Maryland–College Park (Smith) | 14 | -19 | 290 | 74% | |
| 50 | Villanova University | 29 | -21 | 279 | 94% | |
KELLEY ENROLLED 1,452 WHILE BEING THE MOST SELECTIVE
Indiana University was an early mover in the online MBA space. In 1999, when dial-up internet was still the norm, Kelley School of Business became the first top-ranked business school to offer an online program. In 2021, P&Q named Kelley Direct our MBA Program of the Year. Today, Kelley School of Business has over 135,000 living alumni including more than 6,000 online MBA alumni.
As more programs compete for a limited number of online students, Kelley’s program continues to enroll large classes despite being one of the most selective programs on the market. Its reported enrollment of 1,452 is 43.2% higher than its 2020 enrollment. While lower than the 1,729 students it enrolled last cycle, its acceptance rate dropped six percentage points to 23%.
The program has also continued to innovate. One of the most consequential changes of the past two years is the launch of Kelley Direct Professional Advancement, an in-house career services team dedicated exclusively to serving Kelley Direct students and alumni. It features an alumni-driven job referral pipeline that sources opportunities directly from the Kelley network.
“It is one of the only fully customized online-MBA career services units of its kind, staffed by 17 specialized career coaches with an average of more than 25 years of industry experience across more than 20 industries and functions,” Miki Pike Hamstra, executive director of Kelley Direct Programs, tells Poet&Quants.
It is hiring a five-person in-house consultancy that will help faculty embed AI tools into their courses, redesign curriculum, and develop new ways of teaching. In 2026, it will make ChatGPT Edu available to all students, representing the second-largest ChatGPT deployment ever in higher education. It created its very own LLM, KelleyGPT, for secure research, and it published its own AI Playbook, a best-practices guide on using AI ethically in teaching, research, and service.
Virtual Advanced Business Technologies is a brand-new department within the business school with 70 faculty across 10 different business disciplines collaborating to bring AI innovations to the classroom. Kelley Direct now offers seven classes with a specific AI focus spanning AI for business leaders, agentic AI, machine learning, big data, automation, enterprise platforms, digital platforms, law and ethics, and cybersecurity. Two of these courses are new and will go live this spring.
U.S. NEWS’ METHODOLOGY
Indiana Kelley also placed at or near the top across multiple U.S. News categories, underscoring the breadth of its online MBA strength. Along with its top overall finish, Kelley ranked No. 1 for Best Online MBA Programs for Veterans. In specialty rankings, it finished No. 2 in Business Analytics and General Management while earning a No. 3 in Finance. Kelley also tied for No. 1 Marketing, rounding out a sweep that highlights both its core management training and depth in high-demand concentrations.
U.S. News & World Report evaluates online MBA programs using data specific to distance education only, separating them from campus-based MBAs and from non-MBA online business master’s programs. For the 2026 rankings, U.S. News assessed programs offered primarily online during the 2025–2026 academic year, using institutional survey data and peer evaluations. All student and faculty metrics reflect cohorts from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, while information on policies, services, and technologies reflects conditions in place during the second half of 2025.
The rankings are built on five weighted categories that together aim to capture both academic quality and the online student experience. Engagement (30%) measures how well programs foster interaction and support persistence, incorporating graduation rates, class size, retention, time-to-degree policies, and a best-practices index that includes accreditation and instructional design standards. Peer assessment (25%) draws on surveys of senior academic leaders, capturing reputational factors that quantitative data may not reflect.
Faculty and students account for another 30% of the methodology. Faculty credentials and training (15%) evaluates instructors’ academic qualifications, tenure status, and preparation to teach online learners. Student excellence (15%) considers the academic profile and preparedness of incoming students, using undergraduate GPA, acceptance rates, and an experience index tied to work background, admissions requirements, and employer sponsorship. Notably, GMAT and GRE scores are published in school profiles but are not factored into the rankings due to limited reporting.
The final 15% focuses on services and technologies, assessing student debt at graduation, access to online support services, and the technological infrastructure supporting distance learning. U.S. News standardizes all indicators, applies category weights, and rescales scores so the top program receives a score of 100. Schools are ranked in descending order of overall score, with ties allowed. Programs with very small enrollments or newly launched offerings are listed as unranked, and schools that do not submit data are excluded entirely.
U.S. News does not report how many officials were surveyed nor how many responded for its peer assessment survey. Nor does it survey students, graduates, or employers for the ranking.
Go to the next page to see U.S. News’ Top 50 online MBA programs for 2026.
Or, check out Poets&Quants’ 2026 ranking – and all the data the comes with it – in our full ranking package: