The University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus (UPR-RP) has closed its doctorate in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance, leaving students no option to complete that degree in Puerto Rico. Graduate School of Business Administration professor and economist José Caraballo Cueto told Metro Puerto Rico that future students will have to fly abroad and cover lodging and study costs.
He said it was the only program of its kind in Puerto Rico and held the top accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which distinguishes 7% of business schools worldwide. He warned that Puerto Rico will lose finance professionals who find jobs in the United States where they study. The last student defended a dissertation last week.
The closure stems from reduced UPR funding and a freeze on faculty positions that left the program with a single professor; one of its professors, Carlos Colón de Armas, died in 2020. The UPR Governing Board placed the program under moratorium on December 22, 2022 (Certification 69 2022-2023), citing insufficient resources. The program had 12 students in the first semester of 2015-2016; the last new-student intake was five students in 2019-2020.
Graduate Joel Viera Pedraza, who earned his doctorate in May, defended preserving such programs. The faculty keeps one doctorate, in International Commerce, with 27 students in 2026-2027 and three tenured professors. UPR central administration said that between 2025 and 2026 the board placed 25 academic programs under moratorium.