Fed up with state budget cuts to its university, UCLA’s business school has decided to forego public financing and become a privately-funded institution of higher education.

The switch to private financing was all but certain after UCLA’s Academic Senate voted 53-46 last week in favor of the plan for the Anderson School of Management.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and Anderson School Dean Judy D. Olian want the switch because they believe going private will allow them to raise more money and elevate the school’s national ranking among business schools (Anderson currently is ranked No. 15 by U.S. News & World Report).

Olian first proposed the idea in 2010. The plan was nearly scuttled earlier this year when another UCLA body, the Graduate Council, voted against it.

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business already uses a similar budget structure.

Opponents of the move include some UCLA students who fear the loss of state funding will result in higher tuition at Anderson. Critics also worry that the privatization idea may spread to other graduate schools at the university.

In-state students currently pay more than $45,000 a year to attend Anderson.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

UCLA Privatizing MBA Program? Faculty Says YES (by Stephen Frank, California Political News)

UCLA Business School to Go Private: A Blow to the Public University (by Jon Wiener, The Nation)

UCLA's Plan to Take its B-School Private (by David A. Kaplan, Fortune)

UCLA Anderson to Go Private with Probable Tuition Fee Rise (by Richard Burns, TopMBA)

Financial Stability Key to UCLA Anderson Going Private (by Richard Burns, TopMBA)