Florida Atlantic University College of Business

The Florida Atlantic University College of Business, founded as part of Florida Atlantic University in 1964, is a public, state-affiliated business school headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. FAU was established to serve the higher education needs of a rapidly expanding Southeast Florida population, and the College of Business grew alongside it, developing deep relationships with the region's financial services, real estate, and international business communities. Today the school operates across multiple South Florida campuses — including locations in Fort Lauderdale and Davie — bringing graduate and executive programs closer to the professionals who need them. Its academic philosophy centers on applied learning: connecting classroom theory to the real decisions being made by companies operating across Florida, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

Accreditations and Rankings

• AACSB Accredited — one of fewer than 6% of business schools worldwide to hold this designation
• AMBA Accredited (MBA programs)
• Princeton Review — Ranked among the Best Business Schools (2024)
• U.S. News & World Report — FAU's part-time MBA program ranked among the top programs in Florida (2024)
• U.S. News & World Report — FAU ranked among the Top 100 Public Universities nationally (2024)

Executive Education at a Glance

FAU's College of Business delivers executive education primarily through its Executive Education & Lifelong Learning division, with a catalog that spans open-enrollment programs, professional certificates, and custom corporate engagements. The school has built particular depth in topics that reflect South Florida's economic character: international business, financial management, supply chain and logistics, healthcare administration, and entrepreneurship. Programs run in both in-person and online formats, with many designed specifically around the schedules of working professionals — evening and weekend scheduling is standard rather than exceptional here.

Open programs typically run from one day to several weeks, with professional certificate series often spanning two to four months. Indicative pricing for open programs ranges roughly from $500 for single-day workshops to several thousand dollars for certificate programs, keeping FAU's executive offerings accessible to mid-career professionals who may not have corporate sponsorship. Custom programs for corporate clients can be designed to specification, with FAU faculty deploying on-site or at the Boca Raton campus. The Adams Center for Entrepreneurship and the Global Business Center are two named centers that regularly inform the executive curriculum, ensuring that content stays connected to active research and regional industry partnerships.

Campus and Facilities

FAU's main campus in Boca Raton spans roughly 850 acres and carries the sun-drenched, open architectural character typical of Florida's postwar public universities — low-rise buildings, palm-lined walkways, and abundant outdoor space that keeps the learning environment relaxed without feeling informal. The College of Business is housed in the Fleming Hall complex, which includes modern classrooms, technology-equipped seminar rooms, and collaborative spaces suited to executive cohort work. Beyond the physical infrastructure, the Boca Raton location places participants within easy reach of the dense concentration of financial services firms, regional headquarters, and professional service organizations that line the I-95 and Turnpike corridors from Boca to Fort Lauderdale and Miami — a geography that turns networking from an extracurricular activity into something almost unavoidable.

Faculty and Research

The College of Business employs over 100 full-time faculty across departments including accounting, finance, management, marketing, and information technology and operations management, with a meaningful proportion of faculty holding industry experience alongside their academic credentials. Research strengths that translate directly into executive education content include corporate governance, real estate finance, supply chain resilience, and international marketing — topics where FAU faculty publish in peer-reviewed journals while maintaining active consulting and advisory relationships with South Florida firms. The Florida Atlantic University Research Park, located adjacent to the Boca Raton campus, creates an unusual physical proximity between academic researchers and private-sector innovators, and faculty frequently draw on those relationships to bring current case material into the classroom. Several faculty members hold appointments in the Global Business Center, which focuses on trade and investment flows between the U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean — a research angle with direct practical relevance for executives managing cross-border operations.

Student Body, Alumni, and Career Outcomes

FAU's executive and graduate business programs attract a cohort profile that reflects South Florida's demographic reality: a high proportion of participants have Latin American heritage or manage businesses with significant regional exposure, and Spanish-English bilingualism is common in the room. The university's alumni network numbers over 50,000 business graduates, concentrated heavily in the financial services, real estate, healthcare, and hospitality sectors that anchor the South Florida economy, with a notable secondary cluster in international trade and logistics tied to the Port of Miami and Port Everglades. Employers including AutoNation, Office Depot (now ODP Corporation), Citrix, and a range of regional banks and wealth management firms have historically hired and developed talent through FAU's programs. For executives already employed in the region, FAU's network functions less as an entry point into a new industry and more as a way to deepen relationships within the one they already operate in — which, for many participants, is precisely what they are looking for.