Top MBA Recruiters: HSBC
HSBC is a multinational investment bank headquartered in London. It’s the seventh-largest bank in the world and the largest in Europe, with $2.5 trillion in total assets. A financial services holding company, HSBC traces its origins to Hong Kong where it first opened a branch in 1865. Now, it has more than 3,900 offices serving 38 million customers in 65 countries around the globe.
Continue reading…Value Without the Price Tag: How MIT Sloan Assists Low-Income MBA Students
It’s no secret that attending an MBA program can often come with a hefty price tag—and when it comes to one of the top MBA programs in the country, you can guarantee you’ll be paying a lot for the high value of that program. At the Sloan School of Management at MIT, rated as the fourth best business school in the country by the U.S. News and World Report, one year of tuition will set you back $68,250. Factoring in additional fees, such as insurance, food and supplies, the cost is upward of $100,000.
For ambitious students with the skills to attend the best-of-the-best MBA programs, it’s a shame that money should be a determining factor in what program they can attend. Thankfully, most business programs work to ensure that all students—regardless of income—are able to attend the program that fits their qualifications. At MIT Sloan, there are a variety of ways for low-income students to qualify for financial aid based entirely on their financial need.
Below are just a few of the opportunities the school provides for low-income students to pay for their MBA, ensuring that the most talented business students can attend their school regardless of finances.
Loans
Once a student is accepted to MIT Sloan, they will begin a three-tiered financial aid process to determine financial need and the best way it can be addressed. The admissions process itself is needs-blind, ensuring that financial circumstance will not be a factor in whether or not a student is admitted to the program.
After admittance, students should file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and Graduate Loan Application, which will help determine their eligibility for federal and private loans by working alongside the MIT Student Financial Services.
Assistantships
A number of MBA students each year may also have the opportunity to be a teaching or research assistant. These roles, which may include grading assignments/exams, working directly with students or assisting with research both help students pay for school as well as provide important experience and exposure to the research and education programs at Sloan.
Starting in the second semester, students will also have access to TA and RA positions as well.
Fellowships
Each year, MIT Sloan offers a number of competitive fellowships/scholarship to incoming and second-year MBA students. Although these scholarships are merit-based rather than need, they provide low-income students another excellent opportunity to subsidize their education and often include additional ways to gain experience and improve one’s career.
Aside from the Legatum Fellowship and the MIT Public Service Center Fellowships, which have their own application process, all admitted students to MIT will be considered for fellowships that they are eligible for, and do not require a separate application. The fellowships may range in support from $10,000 to full tuition coverage.
You can find more information about the variety of fellowships offered at MIT Sloan here.
Additional Scholarships
A number of other scholarships are available for students at MIT Sloan that may be given out based on a wide variety of factors such as merit, identity, or nationality. These scholarships may range from funding for tuition and coverage of school-related fees to mentorship and the chance to build relationships with industry professionals. For the most part, these scholarships must be applied to separately after admittance to MIT Sloan. More information on these scholarships can be found here.
Even after need-based loans and assistantships, these scholarships may help further bridge the gap in costs for students attending MIT Sloan. These many opportunities for funding ensure that the most talented students can attend the best-fit school for them, allowing MBAs to focus on getting their degree rather than getting their wallets out.
Financing Your MBA, Part 4
In our previous post on financing your MBA, we covered loan programs for MBA students from the United States. Today, in Financing Your MBA, Part 4, we’ll take a look at loans through the lens of international students. These applicants may face some different restrictions but are also eligible for special programs tailored to their unique requirements.
By law, federal loans can only be distributed to U.S. citizens or permanent residents. This means that international students must put extra work into finding financial aid and loan programs to support their education if they choose to pursue a U.S. MBA program.
International students should research their own countries’ options for financing studies abroad, and schools’ financial aid offices are also useful resources in this regard. For instance, MIT Sloan lists 16 scholarships or fellowships geared towards international students.
Private Lenders for International Students
International students can also consider U.S.-based private loans, but they should recognize that many of these loan programs require a U.S. co-signer. Understanding that this can prove a hardship for those without a U.S. connection, some schools offer internal options for international students. For instance, Harvard Business School has partnered with the Harvard University Employees Credit Union to offer private educational loans that do not require a U.S. co-signer. NYU Stern also features a list on its website of loan providers that don’t require international students to have a U.S. co-signer. Consulting with your target schools’ financial aid offices is a great way to learn about available loan options.
International students should keep in mind that U.S. lenders are typically not allowed to issue loans to students from countries on the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Sanctions list. The Treasury Department encourages prospective students to check this list with some regularity, as it is frequently updated.
Also addressing the need for non-co-signer loans, companies like Prodigy Finance have entered the market in recent years. Founded by INSEAD alumni who faced funding challenges themselves as international MBA students, Prodigy offers loans using an innovative community-financed model in which alumni, institutional investors and qualified private investors fund the next generation of MBA students.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Financing Your MBA, Part 3
Moving right along in our multi-part series on financing your MBA, we’ll take a look today at some of the options prospective MBA students have for obtaining loans to finance their time at business school. For the purposes of this post, we will focus primarily on loan programs for U.S. students. International students, stay tuned for subsequent posts that will go into greater detail about loan programs tailored for your needs.
Financing Your MBA, Part 2
In the first of our multi-part series on financing your MBA, we took a look last week at the costs involved in attending a top-tier business school. Now, with a better handle on how much money you’ll need, let’s start looking at where that funding will come from.
Students typically rely on a mixture of savings, fellowships and scholarships, employer or outside assistance, and loans to meet the cost of an MBA program. According to the GMAC 2016 Prospective Student Survey, prospective students expect to finance almost half their education through a combination of grants, fellowships and scholarships (26 percent) and loans (20 percent). Other anticipated sources of aid include personal savings, parental support, employer support and spousal or partner earnings.
Meanwhile, estimates from several top programs suggest that between 30 and 50 percent of students receive some form of fellowship or scholarship. For instance, the Stanford Graduate School of Business calculates that 50 percent of its students receive fellowships funds, while New York University’s Stern School of Business states that up to 20 percent of its full-time MBA students receive merit-based scholarships. Harvard Business School (HBS), one of the few schools to solely offer need-based aid, reports that 50 percent of students are eligible for needs-based Fellowships. About half of all HBS students receive approximately $37,000 each year through need-based fellowships, the school says.
The best place to find information about a particular program’s financial aid offerings is the business school’s financial aid office, which may be run by the parent university. Along with providing substantial information about school-based fellowships or scholarships, financial aid officers can also help students navigate the loan application process and secure alternative sources of funding. In addition, free online resources such as finaid.org, scholarships.com or Peterson’s Award Database can provide students with further guidance in financing their degrees.
School-Based Financial Aid
Schools often offer a variety of options to help students pay for their education. These options can include merit- or need-based business school scholarships or fellowships, university-wide scholarships, work-based opportunities such as research assistant or teaching assistant positions, and lists of outside resources. To find out more about a particular school’s offerings, students should refer to the financial aid or cost of attendance section of a school’s website or contact the school’s financial aid office directly.
Merit-and Diversity-Based Fellowships and Scholarships
Most scholarships provided by schools are awarded based on merit, meaning they are offered to students who have demonstrated qualities such as academic excellence, professional aptitude or outstanding leadership. Merit-based scholarships are usually awarded at the admissions committee’s discretion in order to attract the highest caliber students and can cover the full cost of tuition.
To enhance the diversity of a class, private donors, alumni and corporations also can endow a variety of scholarships or fellowships targeted towards applicants with a particular career interest, educational background, nationality, racial or ethnic identity, or gender. In addition, some schools offer financial awards to students who are already enrolled and have demonstrated leadership on campus or exceptional academic ability.
The process of applying for scholarships and fellowships varies by school. In some cases, students are automatically considered for these awards when they submit their applications to an MBA program, with no additional work required. Alternatively, some scholarships and fellowships require an additional essay, submitted either at the time of application to the program or after acceptance. A large majority of merit- and diversity-based awards are time-sensitive or based on a first-come, first-served process, so students are encouraged to apply early in the MBA admissions cycle.
Scholarships provided directly by a school are typically offered on a consistent basis year to year. However, endowed fellowships or private scholarships may not always have funds available. Students applying separately to these scholarships and fellowships should check with the head of each program to ensure they are being offered that year.
Need-Based Awards
Though not as widely available, schools may offer financial aid based on students’ demonstrated financial needs. Certain leading schools, such as Harvard, are notable exceptions to this trend in that all of the fellowships they offer are based on financial need. Need-based aid may come in the form of a grant, which does not need to be paid back, or a low-interest loan.
When deciding whether to offer a student need-based aid, the financial aid office typically weighs the student’s income from previous years; his or her spouse’s financial situation; any assets such as stocks, trust funds or home equity; and other outside funding such as employer assistance. Schools compile this information by either asking students to fill out school-specific forms or, in the case of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, using information found in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more commonly known as the FAFSA.
School-Based Work Opportunities
MBA programs typically discourage full-time students from working during their studies. However, some business schools, like Stern, do offer work-based financial assistance, in which students apply to work with professors on research projects or help teach classes in exchange for tuition reimbursements. These opportunities may pay up to $20,000 a year and are usually available after a student has been enrolled for at least a semester.
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAPs) are designed to encourage students to pursue careers in the public and nonprofit sectors, which generally offer lower salaries than those in the private sector, by offering assistance on loan repayments. While the individual requirements of each program vary by school, LRAPs typically require that a graduate work full-time, receive an income below a certain threshold and demonstrate they required financial aid during their MBA studies. Financial support from these programs varies from covering a certain percentage of a student’s loan to assuming the full cost of a loan payment.
Next up in the series, we’ll provide an overview of private scholarships, as well as public and private loan programs. In subsequent posts we’ll examine options for international students, specific financial aid programs at individual schools and more. So stay tuned.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Financing Your MBA, Part I
As more and more of you are receiving your admissions results from all your hard work during the MBA application process, we wanted to turn our attention to how you’ll manage financing your MBA.
If you’ve got a spare couple hundred thousand dollars in your bank account, then you can probably skip this series. For everyone else, read on. In this post and a handful to follow, we’ll provide a broad overview of the various costs a typical MBA student faces and the types of funding opportunities currently available. Down the line, we’ll take a closer look at the financial aid processes at a diverse range of leading business schools, giving you the tools you need to assess MBA programs in light of both your own goals and available financing options.
If you’re just beginning to think about an MBA, this series can help map out the landscape, outlining the financial aid process and resources available at various programs. You can extend your research by consulting the Clear Admit School Guides and schools’ own websites, as well as through conversations with current students.
First Things First: What’s an MBA Going to Cost?
The first step in financing the MBA is getting a handle on how much it will cost. The primary expense of an MBA program is tuition. Having said that, there are a variety of other costs—including living expenses, course materials and additional fees—that can increase the total amount a student pays by a half again. Most business schools provide a breakdown of the expenses, which are posted under the financial aid or admissions section of their websites in order to help prospective students seriously consider the cost of completing a particular MBA program. Schools typically take the total cost of attendance into account when calculating the financial aid package students receive.
Tuition
Tuition at the top business programs has risen steadily for decades, often at a rate above inflation. Students can now expect to pay between $50,000 and $75,000 for a single year’s tuition at a top school, with an average total price tag of $130,000 for tuition alone. Public universities, which discount tuition for state residents, can sometimes be more affordable. For instance, in-state residents attending schools such as UT Austin’s McCombs and UNC’s Kenan-Flagler pay about $15,000 less in tuition each year than do out-of-state residents. The range of variance of costs that in-state residents pay can be explained in part by the different levels of subsidies that public universities receive and the economies of the states in which they are located.
Living Costs
The cost of living also forms a substantial part of a student’s expenses while at business school. These costs typically cover housing, food, utilities and other personal expenses, and they can vary widely by geographic region. For example, the Fuqua School of Business, located in the college town of Durham, North Carolina, estimates that students will pay $12,800 for room and board in their first year. Meanwhile, at NYU Stern, located in the center of Manhattan in New York City, the estimated cost for room and board is $25,170.
Living costs are usually based on surveys of the student population or estimates of local rental costs. Students should keep in mind that the figures posted by most schools are for single students with no dependents; those with partners or children should take into account the additional expenses of balancing family life with full-time studies. Harvard Business School, for instance, estimates that students with a spouse or partner should set aside an additional $16,900 in yearly expenses for a spouse or partner, another $13,100 for one child and an additional $8,500 for a second child. Meanwhile, Tuck, with its rural New Hampshire campus, calculates that $7,500 should be set aside for each additional family member. Prospective students with further questions may contact their target programs’ financial aid offices in order to request information about expected family expenses.
Additional Expenses and Fees
Course materials, healthcare insurance, transportation costs and other mandatory university fees can add several thousand dollars to a student’s expenses each year. For example, Wharton’s Pre-term fee is $2,000. Furthermore, extracurricular activities, particularly international trips that are often a highlight of an MBA experience, can substantially increase costs; for example, the Kellogg Worldwide Experience and Service Trips (KWEST) run into the thousands before considering a number of additional out-of-pocket expenses. To help cover these expenses, some schools allow students to apply for an increase to their cost of attendance and thereby take on more loans.
Loan Interest
Because recent legislature has rendered federally subsidized loans unavailable for U.S. citizens or permanent residents in graduate school, students relying on loans to fund their studies will see their interest accumulate while in business school. For the most part, students do not have to start paying that interest, or the principle, until several months after they graduate. Federal loans and some private loans also include an ordination fee that is tacked on to each loan disbursement. We’ll go into greater detail on loans in a later post in this series.
Stay tuned for future posts in this series, where we’ll take a closer look at the range of financing options available to MBA students—including school-based financial aid, private scholarships and loan programs—as well as specific resources for international students.
