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The World’s First Business School

For more than 135 years, Wharton has been the place where visionaries, inventors, and trailblazers get their start.

In 1881, American entrepreneur and industrialist Joseph Wharton established the world’s first collegiate school of business at the University of Pennsylvania — a radical idea that revolutionized both business practice and higher education.

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Since then, the Wharton School has continued innovating to meet mounting global demand for new ideas, deeper insights, and transformative leadership. We blaze trails, from the nation’s first collegiate center for entrepreneurship in 1973 to our latest research centers in alternative investments and neuroscience.

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Wharton is changing the way business is done. Our faculty, students, and alumni generate big ideas, back them up with incisive analysis, and turn them into ingenious solutions that work. We educate, inform, and inspire the leaders who are meeting the world’s complex challenges, advancing business practice, and driving economic growth at a global scale.

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