The University of California, Irvine’s business school, which trains students for master’s and doctorates in business, plans to start offering its first bachelor’s degree next year.
The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine plans to start training students for a bachelor’s in business administration starting in fall 2008.
The school is looking to enroll about 150 undergraduates per school year, according to Vijay Gurbaxani, associate business school dean.
UCI students looking to change majors and students transferring from other schools are expected to make up about 10% of en-rollees, he said.
The business school plans to recruit nine professors for each of the next two years, Gurbaxani said.
The Merage school now has about 42 professors with plans to grow to 60.
Student surveys showed demand for a business bachelor’s, Gurbaxani said. Up to now, UCI has offered a bachelor’s in economics and a minor in business administration or accounting.
Those programs have long waits, according to Gurbaxani.
“It was necessary to do this,” he said.
The business school is capping initial enrollment at 150 students to keep class sizes small, Gurbaxani said.
“We’ve concluded that we could only do this with 150 students,” he said.
The bachelor’s program is set to teach students about interpersonal communication, individual and group behavior, leadership, strategy, financial and accounting issues, ethics, information technology and marketing, among other subjects.
Students will be required to complete 10 courses stressing business writing and presentation skills.
They’ll also need to complete a minimum of 10 business electives in accounting, general management and marketing.
Planning
UCI has planned an undergraduate business program for about two years, Gurbaxani said. Seeking approval, budgeting and finding faculty have been challenging, he said.
“But it was all worth it,” Gurbaxani said. “It just makes this program better.”
To be accepted, students will have to have strong backgrounds in mathematics, critical thinking and writing, said Denise Patrick, associate director for undergraduate student affairs.
Transfers and UCI students switching to business will need to have completed lower level calculus and economics courses. Grade point averages should be in the high 3.0 range, Patrick said.
“We want students that are the highest performers in their groups,” she said.
The business school also plans to offer a joint degree with UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, Gurbaxani said.
The cost for the business bachelor’s stands to be the same as for other majors. Undergraduate tuition now costs $8,347 per year.
The school’s full-time MBA program costs about $26,000 per year for California students.
Only a handful of UC campuses offer business bachelor’s, including UC Riverside and UC Berkley.
Cal State Fullerton, Chapman
In Orange County, California State University, Fullerton, dominates in business undergraduate degrees.
Chapman University in Orange also offers a business bachelor’s.
Cal State Fullerton’s College of Business and Economics is the biggest business school in the county with about 8,500 students in its program, 7,600 of them undergraduates.
Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics has about 860 undergraduate students and 187 graduate students.
UCI now has about 1,000 students.
Cal State Fullerton had been expecting UCI to start its undergraduate business program, said Anil Puri, dean of Cal State Fullerton’s College of Business and Economics.
Puri said he thinks it won’t affect Cal State Fullerton’s enrollment because of its small startup size.
“UC Irvine’s new program shows that it’s trying to grow and I don’t see any harm in it,” he said. “If they stick to their goals, it should be great for them.”
Arthur Kraft, dean of Chapman’s George Argyros School of Business & Economics, said he likes more competition.
“We look forward to what UC Irvine will do because as they continue to be competitive and innovative, we have to continue to be competitive and innovative,” he said. “It really benefits everyone.”
