The Hamburg School of Business Administration (HSBA) is a private business school founded by the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce in 2004. It is a state-recognised third-level institution and its system of education is called the “cooperative education model”, by which students spend alternate semesters of academic study with semesters of full-time employment in a selected company. Students receive a monthly salary, and most of the cooperating companies take over part of the tuition fees. HSBA cooperates with more than 300 companies. Its study programmes are accredited by the FIBAA Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation. The school has also been granted higher educational accreditation by the German Council of Science and Humanities.