Benchmarking and Accreditation Goals Support the Value of an Undergraduate Business Law Core Course

This article provides information about the value of a core course in business law and why it remains essential to business education. It goes on to identify highly ranked undergraduate business programs that require one or more business law courses. Using "Business Week" and "US News and World Report" to identify top undergraduate business programs, the authors identified which programs require business law as part of the undergraduate business core. These sources confirm that business law remains a core requirement at the vast majority of competitive undergraduate business programs. The authors then demonstrate that undergraduate business law courses serve a unique role in fulfilling the goals identified by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The core course contributes substantially to both the general skills and general business knowledge identified by the AACSB. This section also explains how business law courses teach liberal arts skills that are highly prized in the business world. The next section addresses the role and content of business law in the Educational Testing Service's Bachelor of Business Exam, an exam that many schools use to meet the AACSB standard on Assurance of Learning. The article concludes that most top business schools recognize the value of business law courses in the core curriculum, and that our courses contribute substantially to learning goals identified by both the AACSB and the business community.