Business school
A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in business administration or management. A business school may also be referred to as school of management, management school, school of business administration, or colloquially b-school or biz school. A business school teaches topics such as accounting, administration, business analytics, strategy, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, human resource management, management science, management information systems, international business, logistics, marketing, sales, operations management, organizational psychology, organizational behavior, public relations, research methods, real estate, and supply chain management among others. Types. There are several forms of business schools, including a school  of business, business administration, and management. Kaplan classifies business schools along four Corners: Notable firsts. The first business schools appeared in Europe in the eighteenth century and multiplied from the beginning of the nineteenth century. As the French scholar Adrien Jean-Guy Passant points out, the oldest business school in the world is, to this day, ESCP Business School, founded in Paris in October 1819, under the name ‘Special School of Commerce and Industry’, followed by the business school of the Università Ca'Foscari in Italy which was opened in August 1868 under the name ‘Higher School of Commerce of Venice ’. If, in Europe, business schools are generally recognized as the first educational establishments to have taught commerce, it was however the engineering schools which, at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, provided a commercial education at higher level, particularly within the Prague Polytechnic (from 1806) and the Vienna Polytechnic (from 1815). Degrees. In the United States, common degrees are as follows: In Europe, higher education degrees have been commonly re-organized into three levels which correspond to those of other European countries in order to facilitate international mobility: the "Licence" / "Licence Professionnelle" (Bachelor's degrees), and the Master's  and Doctorat degrees. The Bachelors and the Masters are organized in semesters: 6 for the Bachelors and 4 for the Masters. A student accumulates those ECTS (European credits) which are generally transferable between paths. A Bachelors is awarded once 180 ECTS have been obtained (bac + 3); a Masters is awarded once 120 additional credits have been obtained (bac +5) . A Doctorate is awarded after a Master's and additional 180 ECTS are obtained (bac + 8), and other academic requirements are satisfied. In Francophone countries, those levels of study include various "parcours" or paths based on UE (Unités d'enseignement  or Modules), each worth a defined number of ECTS. "Grand école" business schools are elite academic institutions that admit students through an extremely competitive process, and the highly coveted PGE (Grand Ecole Program) ends with the degree of Master's in Management (MiM). Use of case studies. Some business schools structure their teaching around the use of case studies (i.e. the case method). Case studies have been used in Graduate and Undergraduate business education for nearly one hundred years. Business cases are historical descriptions of actual business situations. Typically, information is presented about a business firm's products, markets, competition , financial structure, sales volumes, management, employees and other factors influencing the firm's success. The length of a business case study may range from two or three pages to 30 pages, or more. Business schools often obtain case studies published by the Harvard Business School, INSEAD, London Business School, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, the Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario, the Darden School at the University of Virginia, IESE, other academic institutions, or case clearing houses (such as The Case Centre ). Harvard's most popular case studies include "Lincoln Electric Co." and "Google, Inc." Students are expected to scrutinize the case study and prepare to discuss strategies and tactics that the firm should employ in the future. Three different methods have been used in business case teaching: History of business cases. When Harvard Business School started operating in 1908, the faculty realized that there were no textbooks suitable for a graduate program in business. Their first solution to this problem involved interviewing leading practitioners of business and writing detailed accounts of what these managers were doing, based partly on the case  method already in use at Harvard Law School. Of course, the professors could not present these cases as practices to be emulated, because there were no criteria available for determining what would succeed and what would not succeed. So the professors instructed their students to read the cases and to come to class prepared to discuss the cases and to offer recommendations for appropriate courses of action. The basic outlines of this method still operate in business-school curricula . Other approaches. In contrast to the case method some schools use a skills-based approach in teaching business. This approach emphasizes  quantitative methods, in particular operations research, management information systems, statistics, organizational behavior, modeling and simulation, and decision science. The leading institution in this method is the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. The goal is to provide students a set of tools that will prepare them to tackle and solve problems. Another important approach used in business school is the use of business games that are used in different disciplines such as business, economics, management, etc. Some colleges are blending many of these approaches throughout their degree programs, and even blending the method of delivery for each of  these approaches. A study from by Inside Higher Ed and the Babson Survey Research Group shows that there is still disagreement as to the effectiveness of the approaches but the reach and accessibility is proving to be more and more appealing. Liberal arts colleges in the United States like New England College, Wesleyan University, and Bryn Mawr College are now offering complete online degrees in many business curricula despite the controversy that surrounds the learning method. There are also several business schools which still rely on the lecture method to give students a basic business education. Lectures are generally given  from the professor's point of view, and rarely require interaction from the students unless notetaking is required. Lecture as a method of teaching in business schools has been criticized by experts for reducing the incentive and individualism in the learning experience. Executive education. In addition to teaching students, many business schools run Executive Education programs. These may be either open programs or company-specific programs. Executives may also acquire an MBA title in an Executive MBA program within university of business or from top ranked business schools. Many business schools seek close co-operation with business. Accreditation. There are  three main accreditation agencies for business schools in the United States: ACBSP, AACSB, and the IACBE. In Europe, the EQUIS business school accreditation system is run by the EFMD, which sometimes applies the more narrow EPAS label to specific courses. The AMBA accredits MBA programmes and other post-graduate business programmes in 75 countries; its sister organisation the Business Graduates Association (BGA), accredits business schools, based on the impact they make on students, employers and the wider community and society, in terms of ethics and responsible management practices. Triple accreditation is used to indicate that a school has been accredited  by these three bodies: AACSB, AMBA, and EQUIS. About 1% of business schools are triple-accredited. Global Master of Business Administration ranking. Each year, well-known business publications such as "The Economist", "Eduniversal", "U.S. News & World Report", "Fortune", "Financial Times", "Business Week", "Expansion" and "The Wall Street Journal" publish rankings of selected MBA programs and business schools that, while controversial in their methodology, nevertheless can directly influence the prestige of schools that achieve high scores. Academic research is also considered to be an important feature and popular way to gauge the prestige of business schools. Business schools share the common  purpose of developing global managerial talent and to this end, business schools are encouraged to accelerate global engagement strategies on the foundations of collaboration and innovation. Tuition. In Europe, a Bachelors degree is tuition-free at public intuitions in several countries: Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Malta, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey. In the German education system, most universities do not charge tuition, except for some executive MBA programs. French tuition fees are capped based on the level of education pursued, from 183 Euros (US $) per year for undergraduate and up to  388 Euros (US $) for doctorates. Tuition fees in the United Kingdom were introduced in 1998 and are at 9,000 GBP annually in most of the UK, except in Scotland where was tuition abolished. All private and autonomous institutions in Europe charge tuition. In the United States, most public college and universities charge tuition. According to the CollegeBoard, the average cost for an out-of-state, or international student, to attend a public four year university in 2020 was US $38,330 ( Euros), while the average in-state cost was US $21,950 ( Euros). Two year public universities, such as  a community colleges, charge US $3,730 ( Euros) on average for in-state students, but these institutions usually do not offer Bachelors or MBA degrees. Private institutions in the United States all charge tuition, often considerably more than their public counterparts.