Dublin Business School (DBS) is one of the leading independent business colleges in Ireland and provides a comprehensive range of undergraduate, graduate, professional and executive education programmes.

The School, which was originally known as Accountancy and Business College, was established in 1975 to provide evening courses for students preparing for the examinations of the professional accounting bodies. The School quickly established an excellent reputation for quality and standards and its students achieved a high level of success in the professional examinations. Based on this reputation, the School developed rapidly and by the mid 1980's was providing accounting, marketing and banking courses for full-time and part-time students.

DBS continues to offer a wide range of professional programmes and, consistently over the years, its students have achieved exceptionally high pass rates and several world status awards and prizes in the professional examinations.

The first undergraduate programme was introduced by the School in 1989 when the BA in Business Studies (Sandwich) Programme was offered under a franchise arrangement with the Liverpool Polytechnic, now Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The relationship with Liverpool has developed successfully and the School became an Accredited Institution of LJMU in 1995.

As an Accredited Institution, DBS is authorised to develop its own programmes and to nominate its own external examiners, subject to approval by LJMU. There are elaborate review arrangements in place to ensure that the programmes developed by the School meet the standards required, and students completing these programmes are conferred with LJMU degrees.

The year 2000 was a further milestone in our development with the amalgamation of Dublin Business School and LSB College. The amalgamation was seen by those involved as the most important and exciting development in the history of independent third level education in Ireland. LSB College has now become known as DBS School of Arts.

In 2003, Dublin Business School was acquired by Kaplan, Inc., the education division of The Washington Post Company. Kaplan, Inc. is a leading provider of higher education, professional development and lifelong learning programmes with headquarters in New York City and locations throughout the U.S. and internationally. As part of Kaplan Inc., DBS will play a central role in the implementation of group strategy for global development, particularly through its strategic alliances in the European market. Kaplan Inc.'s acquisition of Dublin Business School will not alone transform the independent third-level sector of Irish education but will enhance Ireland's standing as an international education centre.