The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga traces its origins back to the late 19th century and mixes a blend of private and public traditions. In the 1880s, the Methodist Episcopal Church and citizens of Chattanooga recognized the need for higher education in Chattanooga and sought to develop a university for its residents. The work of this group resulted inthe creation of a private university known as Chattanooga University in 1886.

In 1889, Chattanooga University consolidated with East Tennessee Wesleyan University at Athens and adopted the name of Grant University. The faculty changed the name of the University to the University of Chattanooga in 1907. In 1969, the University of Chattanooga became a public university by joining with the junior college Chattanooga City College to merge with one of the nations oldest land grant universities: the Universityof Tennessee. The merger created the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), and the Tennessee General Assembly authorized the new campus to grant degrees. The mandate for the new campus was to develop excellence in undergraduate education and specific areas of graduate study.

Business courses have been offered fairly continuously by the University since its founding in 1886. The University first organized its business studies as a separate unit in the 1920s with the creation ofthe Department of Economics and Business.
As the Department grew, the University saw the need to reorganize it into the School of Business Administration in 1974-1975. At that time, the School organized four departments: Accounting and Finance, Economics, Management and Marketing, and Office Administration. Office Administration was subsequently dropped, and the Department of Economics moved to the College of Arts and Sciences in 1994. The School changed its name to the College of Business Administration in 1999.

The University awarded the first undergraduate degrees in business, the Bachelor of Business Administration, in the 1920s. The University offered the Bachelor of Business Administration through 1950. In 1951-1952, the B.B.A. was replaced with the Bachelor of Science with a major in Business Administration. The B.S. degree continues to the present. The Master of Business Administration degree was started in 1961-1962, and the Master of Accountancy was offered for the first time in 1992. The AACSB first accredited the College of Business Administration's B.S. in Business Administration in 1982. The M.B.A. gained accreditation in 1988. The AACSB reaffirmed the College's accreditation in 1993.