UTRGV MS in Business Analytics ranks 4th in Texas

Karen Villarreal

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS– Dr. Murad Moqbel, program director for UTRGV’s Master of Science in Business Analytics, says “data is the new oil.”

The MS program, recently ranked 4th in Texas by Fortune, helps train and prepare UTRGV students for jobs with companies that collect data needed to derive insights, improve efficiencies, reduce waste and increase profitability.

“It used to be that people made decisions based on their experience or intuition, but analytics allows us to make data-driven decisions,” Moqbel said.

“In the MSBA program, we teach our students how to process all this data – transforming it from raw facts or ‘crude oil’ to clear, useful information,” Moqbel said.

It is predicted that the employment rate for data scientists will grow by 36 percent from 2021 to 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations, with a projected 17,700 openings for data scientists each year.

UTRGV’s MSBA program – which also ranked 17th nationwide on Fortune’s Best Online Master’s in Business Analytics Programs for 2024 based on a combination of selectivity, success and demand – can be completed in as little as a year.

HIGH RANKING ANALYSIS

Dr. Bin Wang, chair of the Department of Information Systems in the Robert C. Vackar College of Business and Entrepreneurship, was a leading force in organizing the MSBA program five years ago.

Since then, the program has graduated more than 200 students.

“We took a lot of care when we developed our curriculum to make sure we have a high-quality program, and people who care about our students to make this the program really successful,” Wang said.

In addition to training students in the highly technical, leading-edge analytics skills sought out by many industries – like data mining, machine learning and data visualization – the UTRGV MSBA is accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds, not only those with business, math, or computer science expertise.

An analysis of their students found that more than half have a non-business undergraduate degree, Wang said.

“Many joined our program and were enabled to shift careers,” Wang said. “Anyone who has an interest in using data to project how businesses can grow successfully in the future is welcome.”