The University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Río Piedras campus’s doctorate in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance will cease to exist this academic year, after years of falling enrollment and budget challenges. Economist and associate professor José Caraballo Cueto said the last student to defend a dissertation under the program did so last week.
"There is no other (doctoral Finance) program in Puerto Rico. It was the only one," he said.
"There is no other (doctoral Finance) program in Puerto Rico. It was the only one," he said. The UPR Governing Board placed the program in moratorium in December 2022 through Certification 69 2022-2023.
A moratorium means a licensed program admits no students, though it can be reactivated. Caraballo Cueto said UPR’s measures to meet budget cuts ordered by the Oversight Board (JSF) affected the program’s survival. It has one full-time professor because a freeze on faculty positions has left vacancies unfilled after retirements and deaths.
He noted the cuts, which he said equal half the budget over a decade, hit UPR hardest among 16 public entities from 2017 to 2025. Campus spokesperson Lorna Castro cited falling student demand and budget limits. The program has two students this semester, versus 12 in the first semester of 2015-2016; its last new admissions came in 2019-2020, when five students entered.
Between 2019 and 2023, UPR placed seven programs in moratorium, and at least 13 more since. The graduate business school will keep one doctoral program, in International Commerce, with three professors.