Practical Business Mastery + Leadership Vision
The iMBA gives you carefully curated content and experiences that fuel you for both immediate impact and enduring career lift. For both core business mastery and access to special future-forward leadership capacity in fields including globalization, innovation, and shaping the digital future. It’s a leadership-level, top MBA program completely online and heavily interactive for under $22k. That’s why Poets & Quants, the definitive source on management education, calls it “a breakthrough.”
Career-Curated Course Design
Courses are grouped into specializations, structured so that you get academics in combinations that mirror how you’ll actually use them on the job. That produces business mastery. All the specializations you complete throughout the program ultimately come together as a capstone project and lead to the complete iMBA.
Future-Forward Leadership Capacity
You become a leader on two levels – the everyday level of getting things done, and the higher level of developing a vision for the future. Your core leadership comes from a foundational iMBA program requirement. Then you choose two of three advanced-leadership pathways – innovation, digitalization, and globalization.
Global Online Classrooms & Projects
The people in your class live all over the world, in more than 40 different countries. They bring you real-time perspectives from the front lines of business. Faculty are hands-on and interactive in classes and projects. They hold weekly live class sessions for you, covering multiple time zones across the world.
A Degree the Job Market Values
Top 5: The University of Illinois, according to The Wall Street Journal, is among corporate recruiters’ top five places to recruit talent.
Top 40: The Illinois full-time MBA is ranked in the top 40 by US News & World Report as well as Poets & Quants.
Top 3: Our parent university is ranked #3 by Businessweek for the return on investment graduates get with an Illinois degree.
iMBA Curriculum
Here’s a quick overview of the program. You can also see a video that walks you through this on the student experience page.
The curriculum is organized as “specializations.” Each specialization consists of three individual classes and a capstone project.
You can complete the program in 23 – 36 months, depending on the pace you set for yourself.
Here’s what’s required of you as a degree student to earn an MBA:
• Complete four required core specializations.
• Choose and complete two of three Focus Area specializations.
• Complete any two of the specialization capstones plus an integrated capstone final project.
The Specializations
The courses are integrated in ways that correspond to how you’ll use the material in the real world, while also reflecting academic rigor.
In that sense, they don’t always follow traditional definitions of what constitutes an academic department. That’s why they’re called “specializations” rather than “departments.”
Core Specializations: All Four Required
The four required specializations are the core of developing your business mastery and leadership skills: They are:
Focus Area / Advanced Specializations: Take Two of Three
Courses
Each specialization consists of three classes. Each course has two parts.
Foundational / Level 1
The first part is an on-demand, self-paced format. It consists of video lectures basic readings and self-administered quizzes. It also includes projects that are peer-graded. Faculty interaction is asynchronous.
We refer to this level being delivered on the “Coursera platform.” That simply means that you access this part on our partner, Coursera’s platform.
Advanced / Level 2
The second part is heavily interactive, with live online classes in which students ask questions and discuss material directly with their professors and with each other. This portion of the class also includes team projects and interactions.
We refer to this level being offered on the “Illinois platform.” That platform is a website you’ll log into when you do live classes, have online meetings with faculty, and other forms of interaction.
The common trait is academic ability and the kind of experience that will make for rich collaboration that will deepen your learning and benefit your career. They work in nonprofits, major corporations, start-ups, the military, and more.
It’s always expanding, but the iMBA program currently includes students living and working in 17 countries:
Brazil
Canada
China
Egypt
Germany
Greece
India
Indonesia
Mexico
The Netherlands
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Singapore
Republic of Korea
USA
And including the following US states:
California
Colorado
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
South Carolina
Texas
Utah
Wisconsin
Tuition and Costs
When you register and take an Illinois iMBA course, you will pay University of Illinois a tuition of $250 per credit hour. Additionally, you will also be required to pay ID verification fee.
| Tuition1 [total: 18 Courses/ 72 credit hours] | $18,000 | |
| Fees2 [Coursera ID Verification fees- 6 specializations] | $2,844 | |
| Books3/Supplies/case packets | $1,000 | |
| Estimated Total4 | $21,844.00 |
- Tuition is based on $250/credit hour. Tuition and fees are subject to change. The tuition figures found here are based on 2016-2017 rates.
- Fees are for Coursera ID verification that students must pay at Coursera- $79 for each 2-credit hour course or $158 for a 4-credit hour course.
- Books/supplies, and other expenses are only estimates. Please note that financial aid may not be approved for the total expense levels.
- Additional travel expense may be incurred depending on student participation in immersion, alumni and networking events.
Cancellation, Drop & Withdrawal:
A cancellation occurs when a student disenrolls all course sections for a term prior to classes beginning.
To drop is to disenroll from one or more courses while remaining enrolled in at least one course.
To withdraw is to disenroll from all course sections on or after the first day of instruction.
For refund policy for Coursera fees click here.
Refund Schedule for 4-Week Courses:
Cancel prior to the start date of the course: 100% refund
Drop the course: No refund
Withdrawal policy:
Days 1 – 6: 80% refund
Days 7-13: 60% refund
Days 14-20: 40% refund
After day 20: No refund
Refund Schedule for 8-Week Courses:
Cancel prior to the start date of the course: 100% refund
Drop the course: No refund
Withdrawal policy:
Days 1 – 6: 90% refund
Days 7-13: 80% refund
Days 14-20: 70% refund
Days 21-27: 50% refund
Days 28-34: 40% refund
After day 34: No refund
