Master of Business Administration: Finance
Master of Business Administration: Finance
Finance Concentration in Rowan's MBA
Why an MBA Concentration in Finance?
Financial decisions influence how organizations invest, grow, manage risk, fund operations, and evaluate opportunities. Choices about capital, borrowing, investment, liquidity, and financial structure can affect both near-term performance and long-term value. Finance provides a framework for weighing expected returns against uncertainty, understanding the cost and availability of capital, and assessing the financial consequences of decisions made across the organization.
Finance connects valuation, investment, funding, markets, risk, and financial analysis. Corporate finance examines how organizations allocate capital, evaluate investments, and determine how activities should be financed. Investment analysis considers how assets and securities are valued and how risk and return shape portfolio decisions. Financial institutions and markets influence the movement and pricing of capital, while risk management addresses exposure to financial uncertainty. Quantitative methods, modeling, financial planning, and financial statement analysis provide additional tools for evaluating alternatives, testing assumptions, and understanding how operating and market conditions may affect financial outcomes.
The Finance Concentration gives students considerable latitude to shape their financial depth within the MBA. Depending on the courses selected, students can explore corporate finance, investments, financial markets, quantitative methods and modeling, risk management, international finance, financial planning, or financial statement analysis. That focused financial perspective can complement work in accounting, operations, marketing, entrepreneurship, and other business areas where decisions about growth, resources, risk, and performance carry financial implications.
Concentration Details
Requirement: 9 credits; select 9 credits from approved Finance courses. For the STEM MBA, select 9 credits from the STEM-designated Finance options.
Approved Finance options span corporate finance, quantitative methods and modeling, investments, financial institutions and markets, risk management, international finance, financial planning, and financial statement analysis. Students can use that range to emphasize areas most relevant to their professional and academic interests.
Concentration courses may also be taken as graduate business electives when students satisfy any listed Foundations and prerequisites.
*STEM-designated course. For degree-level requirements, see the STEM MBA.
Course Details
ACC 03510 – Financial Statement Analysis (STEM*)
This course will take an expanded study of financial statement analysis from the point of view of the primary users of financial statements: equity and credit analysts. The analysis and use of financial statements will also emphasize the properties of numbers derived from these statements, business and asset valuation, and the importance and use of the notes to the financial statements. Expanded data analytic skills will be emphasized.
Foundations: Accounting I and II.
FIN 04505 - Advanced Financial Planning
Financial planning is the process of meeting life goals through the proper management of finances. Life goals can include buying a home, saving for your child’s education or planning for retirement. Through sound financial planning individuals can make decisions that will produce their desired results. In this course, students will learn foundations of financial planning, managing basic assets, managing credit, managing insurance needs, managing investments and preparing for retirement and estate planning.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics.
FIN 04511 – Quantitative Methods in Finance (STEM*)
The objective of this course is to teach students the fundamentals of quantitative finance. The topics covered in the course include asset returns and time value of money, probability and statistics in their applications to financial analysis, portfolio theory and asset pricing models, regression and econometrics for financial data analysis, structure and pricing of financial derivatives, risk quantification and management.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics.
FIN 04512 - Capital Budgeting
This course includes the following topics: estimation of project cash flows, interest, annuity, and present value calculations, evaluation of projects under conditions of certainty and risk, strategic planning in capital budgeting, and leasing.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Statistics.
FIN 04518 – Derivative Securities and Financial Risk Management (STEM*)
In this course students will learn forward, future, option and swap contracts, and hedging, arbitrage, and derivatives-pricing models. In addition, securitization and risk management concepts will be covered. Students will learn how to model and evaluate derivative instruments and their applications to corporate strategy and risk management.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics.
FIN 04520 – Financial Modeling (STEM*)
The objective of this course is to teach students the fundamentals and practice of building financial models by using Microsoft Excel. Students become familiar with the built-in-functions of Excel and learn how to use them in financial model building with a hands-on-approach. The topics covered in the course include financial statement modeling, cost of capital, capital budgeting modeling, leasing, valuation analysis, portfolio modeling, capital-asset pricing models, option-pricing models, real options modeling, bonds, and term structure modeling.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics.
FIN 04530 - Multinational Financial Management
The objective of this course is to examine the managerial implications pertaining to the financial operations of the multinational firms of the investments in the international arena. The standard topics in international finance, such as exchange rate determination, foreign exchange risk (exposure), hedging techniques (using derivatives), international corporate valuation and capital budgeting, and sources of funds and the cost of capital in the international bond, stock, and money markets, are examined from a managerial point of view.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics.
FIN 04540 - Financial Institutions Management
In the course, students will learn about the many roles financial service-providers play in the economy today. Students will examine how and why the financial services marketplace as a whole is rapidly changing, becoming new and different as we move forward into the future. Students will also learn the techniques how to measure and manage various financial risks the modern financial institutions face in today’s globally competitive financial environment, such as interest rate, market, credit, liquidity, off balance sheet, foreign exchange, sovereign, technology and other operational risks.
Foundations: Accounting I and II, Calculus, Finance, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics.
FIN 04560 – Fixed Income Securities (STEM*)
The objective of this course is to teach students the fundamentals of fixed income markets, covering different fixed income security types, and the mathematics of their evaluation and risk management. The topics covered in the course include fixed income security valuation, term structure of interest rates and the yield curve, fixed income risk quantification and management, securities with embedded options, credit derivatives, interest rate derivatives, and portfolio management.
Foundations: Finance.
FIN 04600 – Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (STEM*)
In this course students will analyze and develop an ability to deal with the following topics: investment values and market price with regard to risk, return, portfolio diversification, taxes and inflation. Students will also examine the role of fixed income securities versus common stock prices, yields, returns and valuations, warrants, options and future contracts, U.S. and foreign securities markets, and the rapidly developing science of portfolio management as it applies to both the firm and the individual.
Foundations: Finance.
BUS 01600 – Special Topics in Business Administration (3–6 credits)
Students will study advanced level topics in specific disciplines as identified through participation in in-depth seminars on topics to be determined by faculty in consultation with the Graduate Committee of the College of Business. Students will complete research or projects on specialized topics in various disciplines in Business Administration. Students may take each topic only once. This course may not be offered annually.
Continue Building Finance Expertise
Use the Finance Concentration as part of a broader graduate Finance plan when additional study supports what you want to accomplish. Finance coursework can connect with Rowan’s MS in Finance, MBA/MS Finance accelerated pathway, and graduate Finance certificates through current degree and credential requirements.Master of Science in Finance
The 30-credit MS in Finance provides ten required graduate Finance courses across financial analysis, investments, quantitative methods, modeling, risk, financial institutions, global finance, and financial planning.
MBA/MS Finance Accelerated Pathway
Combine the MS in Finance with either the 36-credit MBA or 36-credit STEM MBA through up to 15 approved shared credits. Completed separately, the two degrees require 66 credits; the accelerated pathway can reduce the combined requirement to 51 credits.
Finance Certificate of Graduate Study
The 9-credit Finance COGS provides a stand-alone graduate Finance credential. Students considering a later MBA can select certificate coursework that supports the Finance Concentration and graduate business elective requirements where the completed courses fit the current MBA structure.
Finance Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study
Professionals who already hold a master’s degree can complete the 9-credit Finance CAGS to add an additional graduate credential in Finance.
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