Wharton School
business school of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School ( WHOR-tən) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton School is the world's oldest collegiate business school. It is one of six Ivy League business schools, and is the business school which has educated the highest number of billionaires in America, including Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and US president Donald Trump.
The Wharton School awards undergraduate and graduate degrees with a school-specific economics major and concentrations in 18 disciplines in Wharton's academic departments. The undergraduate degree is a general business degree focused on core business skills. At the graduate level, the Master of Business Administration program can be pursued by itself or along with dual studies leading to a joint degree from the University of Pennsylvania's law, engineering, and government schools.
In addition to its tracks in accounting, finance, operations, statistics, and other academic departments, the doctoral and post-doctoral programs co-sponsor several diploma programs in conjunction with other schools within the university.
History
Founding
Joseph Wharton, a native Philadelphian, was a leader in industrial metallurgy who built his fortune through the American Nickel Company and Bethlehem Steel Corporation. As Wharton's business grew, he recognized that business knowledge in the United States was only taught through an apprenticeship system, and such a system was not viable for creating a wider economy during the Second Industrial Revolution.
After two years of planning, Wharton in 1881 founded the Wharton School of Finance and Economy through a $100,000 initial pledge, making it the first business school established in the United States.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wharton School” is business school of the University of Pennsylvania. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wharton, School and business, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1329269. VIAF identifies the subject as 124281362. The Library of Congress control number is n79065483. Authority coordinates are 39.953, -75.198. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wharton School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.