Jones Graduate School of Business

The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business is the graduate business school of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1974 through a gift from Houston Endowment Inc., the school is named for Houston businessman and civic leader Jesse Holman Jones. It offers a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Accounting (MAcc), and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees, along with non-degree executive education courses and credit-bearing certificates. The school is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and, together with the Virani Undergraduate School of Business, forms part of Rice Business. Since 2016, the school has been led by Peter Rodriguez.

The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business was established at Rice University in 1974 through a gift from Houston Endowment, the philanthrophic foundation created by Jesse H. Jones and Mary Gibbs Jones. The school opened in Sewall Hall and began as a small graduate enterprise with 55 students, three full-time faculty members and four adjunct faculty members. In its early years, it offered the Master of Accounting and the Master of Business and Public Management, reflecting Rice's effort to expand professional education along its traditional strengths in science, engineering, and the humanities.

In the late 1970s, future U.S. president George H. W. Bush served at the school as an adjunct professor of administrative science. His relationship to the school helped bring the 16th G7 summit to Rice University in 1990.^[4]

As the school grew, it moved into Robert R. Herring Hall in 1984, a building designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates. In 2002 it relocated to Janice and Robert McNair Hall, designed by Robert A. M. Stern. The move gave the school a more visible and centralized presence on campus and marked a new phase in its development. Rice formally named the building for Janice and Robert McNair in 2005.

In 2009 Rice changed the school's name from the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management to the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, a shift the university presented as part of a broader effort to clarify the school's identity and public profile.^[5]

The school entered another period of expansion after Peter Rodriguez became dean in 2016. During those years, Rice broadened its MBA portfolio, including the launch of the MBA@Rice (online MBA) in 2018 and the later introduction of a Hybrid MBA in 2023. The growth of the school's graduate and undergraduate business offerings also drove a major facilities expansion. In 2024, Rice broke ground on a 112,000-square-foot building adjoining McNair Hall, and the university said in 2025 that the project remained on schedule for a summer 2026 opening.^[6]

Rice offers the MBA through full-time, executive, professional, hybrid and online formats. Rice's General Announcements states that the executive, professional, hybrid and online MBA options are intended for students who continue working while pursuing the degree. ^[7]

The school also offers a 10-month Master of Accounting and a Ph.D. in business, with doctoral study available in fields including accounting, finance, operations management, organizational behavior and strategic management.^[8]

In addition to its degree programs, the school offers non-degree executive education through open-enrollment and custom programs.^[9]

The school has been closely associated with Rice's entrepreneurship infrastructure.

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship ("Rice Alliance") was launched in 1999 as a collaboration among Rice's engineering, science and business schools. It sponsors programs that connect startups with investors and mentors and oversees the annual Rice Business Plan Competition, which has been described as the world's largest and richest intercollegiate student startup competition.

Rice Alliance conducts extensive programming on Rice campus and Houston's Ion District. In 2013 and 2014, Rice Alliance was ranked No. 1 among top university business incubators in.^[10]

The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (LILIE) was established in 2015 through a $16.5 million gift from the Liu Family Foundation. The center supports entrepreneurship education and co-curricular programming across the university and works closely with Rice Business. The center offers experiential courses, workshops, mentorship, funding opportunities, and a dedicated on-campus lab space.

The school is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In national and international rankings, Jones regularly appears among the higher-ranked U.S. business schools.

In the Financial Times 2026 ranking, Rice was listed 38th globally and 16th in the United States. Bloomberg Businessweek's 2025-2026 ranking also placed the school among the leading U.S. programs. In 2025, Poets&Quants named their dean Peter Rodriguez "Dean of the Year."^[11]

A distinctive part of the school's reputation has been its emphasis on entrepreneurship. Rice's graduate entrepreneurship program has been ranked No. 1 by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine for seven consecutive years (2020-2026).^[12][13]

The program has also consistently been recognized among the top MBA programs for finance , including No. 3 best in finance by Princeton Review (2025).^[14]

In addition to strengths in entrepreneurship and finance, the school has particular ties to Houston’s energy and healthcare sectors, reflected in MBA specializations in both fields and a credit-bearing graduate healthcare certificate in management.^[15] Recent employment reports also show significant student and employer interest in consulting and technology.^[16]

• List of United States business school rankings
• List of business schools in the United States
• List of business schools in Texas

29°43′03″N 95°24′12″W / 29.7175°N 95.4034°W / 29.7175; -95.4034