Chico State remains in global stratosphere among business schools

Accreditation means College of Business is among top 6 percent

Fewer than 6% of business schools worldwide can say they’ve received accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Business Schools International. Just as it has been since 1972, Chico State’s College of Business is one of those schools.

Chico State has satisfied the requirements of accreditation every five years in the past half-century, according to Terence Lau, dean of the College of Business. It’s crucial to have and keep this designation, Lau said.

“We’ve had companies tell us they won’t hire students unless they come from an accredited program,” Lau explained. “It’s really a seal of quality. Only 6% of schools around the world get this accreditation — so it meets an extremely high standard of quality.”

An AACSB peer review team conducted an extensive site visit at Chico State Sept. 26-27, 2022. The schedule included meetings with campus administrators, faculty, staff, current students and alumni to ensure the College of Business meets the rigorous standards of accreditation.

“Nowadays, they (the accreditation team) are asking, ‘What kind of positive societal impact is your school having on the community?’” Lau said. That is one of nine standards Chico State’s program needed to meet or exceed in order to renew the accreditation. The others included strategic planning; physical, virtual and financial resources; faculty and professional staff resources; curriculum; assurance of learning; learner progression; teaching effectiveness and impact; and impact of scholarship.

Lau said the designation is a selling point for recruiting, something the university at large is focused on improving with its enrollment numbers down about 4,000 students since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Someone can learn about finance from YouTube or from a for-profit university that charges a lot for tuition, but doesn’t care what happens to the students after the graduate,” Lau said. “For us, being a public university with this accreditation means students can trust that they’re getting a high-quality business degree at an affordable cost.”

Chico State’s College of Business has 1,774 students majoring in, and 333 students minoring in, business-related programs. The college offers 10 options in accounting, business analytics, entrepreneurship and small business management, finance, human resource management, management, marketing, project management, management information systems, and operations and supply chain management.

In addition to two undergraduate degrees, the college offers a campus-based and online master’s degree in Business Administration program.