Michigan Ross Expands Its Reach in L.A.
Credit: LeoPatrizi / E+ / Getty Images- The University of Michigan Ross School of Business is planning a new campus in downtown Los Angeles.
- Construction on the 20,000-square-foot downtown L.A. campus is expected to wrap up by the end of 2025.
- The new campus will allow Ross to build on the success of its longstanding Los Angeles-based executive MBA program.
- Ross Dean Sharon Matusik told BestColleges that the school has a strong alumni network in California.
One of the country’s top business schools has a new home in downtown Los Angeles.
The University of Michigan Ross School of Business is planning a new campus at The Grand LA in the city’s Grand Ave Arts Corridor. The campus will “serve as a hub of educational programming for executives” and as an event anchor for Ross events and conferences.
“This is what we see as a great way to capitalize on the momentum we have and build from it,” Ross School Dean Sharon Matusik told BestColleges in an interview.
Michigan is no stranger to Los Angeles: Ross launched an executive master of business administration (MBA) program in the city in 2012. It marked the first time in the university’s history that students could earn a Michigan degree outside of the university’s home state.
“This will allow us to grow that program and then also add to our portfolio,” Matusik said.
The new Los Angeles campus will help the school establish a more permanent presence on the West Coast. The school’s current Los Angeles executive MBA program has run out of hotels since it was launched 12 years ago.
Matusik said the permanent campus will allow Michigan to “have a much firmer foothold” in rapidly growing industries that are thriving in Los Angeles.
“That’s one of the things that’s so attractive about building out this facility in the Los Angeles area,” she said. “They’ve got a great high-tech industry. They’ve got the creative economy, aerospace, manufacturing, venture capital, international trade. Many of them are the growth industries of the future.”
Matusik said the permanent downtown L.A. location will also be an avenue to expand Ross’ reach across the entire West Coast, as well as for executive education opportunities in international markets like Asia and South America.
Students from California make up the largest percentage of University of Michigan students outside of Michigan itself, Matusik said.
She said Ross has a large and highly engaged alumni network in the L.A. area — and added that alumni are “energized” by the westward expansion of the Big Ten athletic conference.
The Big Ten added several West Coast universities, including the Los Angeles-based University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to its ranks this year.
Matusik said she’s been in communication with USC’s Marshall College of Business about opportunities to collaborate as Ross looks to expand its L.A. base.
“I think that Big Ten Conference change also helps us gain from the momentum we already have,” Matusik said.
Construction on the 20,000-square-foot downtown L.A. campus is expected to wrap up by the end of 2025, according to a press release from the school.
The farther westward expansion comes as Ross celebrates its centennial anniversary in 2024.
The school’s first century saw it rise to become one of the most influential in the country. And Matusik previously told BestColleges that Ross is uniquely positioned to embrace emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and help shape the future of business education.