U.S. News & World Report Rates Deese College Top Public HBCU Graduate Business School

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (April 5, 2021) – The Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University is the nation’s No. 1 graduate business school at a public historically Black college or university, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The Deese College – in its first numerical ranking on the list – is 96^th out of 486 institutions on the list, joining private campus Howard University as the only other HBCU in the magazine’s top 100 for 2022.

“Even though our program is very young when compared with other ranked institutions, having started in 2016, we have entered an elite class,” said Eric Gladney, Ph.D., Deese College associate dean and MBA director. “We have been working very diligently toward this goal and hope to continue our upward trajectory.”

The Deese College, named last year for distinguished alumnus Willie A. Deese ‘77, offers N.C. A&T’s MBA program in one of four concentrations – accounting, human resource management, supply chain management and general MBA. The latter three also are offered through the university’s online MBA program.

MBA program students participate in experiential methodologies that connect the classroom to the workplace and challenge students to solve real-life problems. Using a student- and business-mentored model, the program also brings corporate partners into each classroom to interact and connect with students in real, meaningful ways. The program engages with corporate partners including AT&T, VF Corp., Walmart and Corning.

MBA program graduates include senior executives at large corporations, such as Merck & Co. Inc. (where Deese served as global president of manufacturing), General Electric Co., Wells Fargo, Truist, Union Pacific, International Paper, Volvo Corp., Shell Oil Co., Twitter, Amazon, Georgia-Pacific, Rubbermaid, XPO Logistics, KPMG, Texas Instruments, Frito-Lay, and John Deere, among many others. In addition, MBA graduates have received acceptance to some of the most competitive Ph.D. programs in the country.

The college is also home to a Master of Accountancy program, a prestigious graduate program for professionals who plan to practice as Certified Public Accountants.

The Deese College graduate and undergraduate degrees are all accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. The business programs were first accredited in 1979, when A&T became the first university in the Piedmont-Triad area to earn the organization’s prestigious stamp of quality. A&T continues to be one of only 189 business schools worldwide to have its entire business program AACSB accredited as well as separate AACSB accreditation for its accounting program.

“We are excited to add this recognition to the rankings successes we have achieved as a business college, and with our MBA program in particular,” said Kevin L. James, Ph.D., Deese College dean. “We look forward to continuing this momentum as we work tirelessly to maximize MBA program quality and the great opportunities we provide our graduates.”

U.S. News & World Report assesses both the aptitude of a school’s incoming students and the career outcomes of the school’s graduates. For business school rankings, the magazine also considers factors like starting salaries and MBA students’ ability to find jobs upon graduation or three months later.

This ranking is the latest national recognition of the MBA program at A&T, following its College Consensus rating among the top 10 in the country for best value in 2021.