Friday News & Notes: Stanford Finance Jobs, Another Airline Fiasco and More
Good morning and happy Friday!
Here are a few stories you may have missed from the week that was …
What Are The Most Affordable Boston MBA Programs?
Living in Boston isn’t cheap. According to Expatistan Cost of Living Index, Boston is the sixth most expensive city in North America. On average, people pay between $1,641 (480 sq. ft.) and $2,812 (900 sq. ft.) per month for rent, depending on location and size of the apartment. Then, by the time you add on utilities, food, transportation, personal care and entertainment, living and working in the city can look exceptionally pricey. And costs only increase when you add on an MBA education. That’s why an affordable Boston MBA program is so important.
With the average cost of a top 10 MBA tuition set around $120,000 over two years, breaking the bank may feel especially draining. So, to help you out, we’ve compiled the top five most affordable MBA programs in Boston. Continue reading…
Applying for an MBA During Undergrad: Schools Step Up
Deciding to attend business school isn’t a spur of the moment decision. For most applicants, it’s a choice made after months, if not years, of research and consideration following their undergrad degree. And, according to the 2016 MBA.com Prospective Students Survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), these considerations can begin quite early for some prospective MBA students.
The survey found that on average, millennials apply to graduate management programs within 14 months of considering such degrees – a significantly shorter timeline than members of Generation X (21 months). Further, the 2016 Application Trends Survey Report found that 46 percent of full-time MBA programs target undergrad students in their outreach efforts. With more applicants applying to business school relatively early in their careers, a number of leading business schools are offering pre-business programs for college students considering an MBA.
Pre-MBA Business Programs
The Tech Summer Institute at the Anderson School of Management is a six-week program for UCLA undergraduate students who are interested in business careers. With a combined focus on the tech industry and management, the program aims to help students more clearly envision what their future careers could look like.
Students in the program have the opportunity to learn from instructors with backgrounds as directors, consultants and CEOs, strengthen their teamwork and presentation skills through group programs and company visits, and learn from HBS case studies detailing solutions to real-word business problems. Participants are also able to learn about the graduate experience from a panel of Anderson MBA students.
During the program, students live on campus in summer housing. Students have a choice between two tracks:
- Track 1—Communication and Persuasion for Future Leaders in Technology: for students most interested in developing their communication skills across oral and written platforms.
- Track 2—Data Management and Analytics, Big and Small Data: for students interested in learning how to interpret and analyze data to make sound business decisions.
“Overall, I really enjoyed this program and found it extremely rewarding,” said Grace Nguyen, a Psychology major. “Not only was I introduced to a variety of business concepts, but I was able to fully understand how business and technology interact. This program has provided me with tools, which I will carry with me into my career.”
UCLA Anderson isn’t the only school with a business prep program for undergraduate students. Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business offers a similar opportunity with their Stanford MBA Future Leaders Program. This three-day program aims to introduce college students from a diverse set of backgrounds and schools to the benefits of an MBA education and post-MBA career opportunities. Students in the program live on campus, participate in a case study, visit top companies in the Bay Area, and attend an MBA Bootcamp. The reasoning behind the program is simple: exposure.
“I certainly believe that many people only aspire to what they have been exposed to,” Simone Hill, a Stanford MBA admissions officer and the program’s staff director told Clear Admit. “It is hard for someone to be a computer software engineer if they don’t know what a computer software engineer is. We believe the exact same thing in terms of people thinking about an MBA and, specifically, a Stanford MBA.”
Finally, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College has a unique Business Bridge Program. While more than half of 2016 participants were rising juniors and seniors, this program is also open to recent graduates and other professionals.
The program is offered three times a year — twice over the summer and once during the winter — and is three to four weeks long, depending on the session. It’s meant to give students with humanities, STEM, and social science backgrounds an opportunity to gain a competitive edge by learning fundamental business skills.
Tuck Bridge participants live on campus for an immersive experience similar to the Tuck MBA. After the Bridge Program, attendees go onto careers in business, and some return to Tuck to earn their MBAs.
“Bridge helped me realize that an MBA program would be an important part of my career development, and that Tuck was where I wanted to make that happen,” said Daniel Torres, Bridge ’07 & Tuck ’11, Senior Financial Analyst at Wizards of the Coast. “Everything that impressed me about the school during Bridge has held true in the full-time MBA program.”
Deferred Admissions Programs
Deferred admissions programs are another option for undergraduate students thinking about applying for an MBA. These programs offer a safety net of sorts by allowing undergraduates to apply for an MBA program while still in college, but then to defer their actual enrollment until they’ve completed a year or two of work.
Two such programs are Harvard Business School’s 2+2 Program and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Future Year Admissions Program.
The Harvard 2+2 Program is a deferred admissions process for current undergraduate students or students enrolled in a full-time masters program. Upon graduation, students admitted into the 2+2 Program spend a minimum of two years working in a professional position, and then begin the two-year HBS MBA program after they’ve gained the required real-world experience.
“Having the flexibility to try out a career path, knowing you have already been admitted to business school, is a fortunate place to be,” Stephanie Kaplan, a 2+2 participant told U.S. News. “It gives you the freedom to take risks, without much risk at all, since the worst thing that happens is that your current venture flops and then you enroll in Harvard Business School.”
The Future Year Admissions Program at the Darden School is similar to 2+2 at HBS. Students are accepted into the Darden MBA program either during the final year of their undergrad or Master’s. Then, they go on to complete two, three, or four years of professional work experience before enrolling. It’s a more flexibly timed program where students only have to plan to embark on their MBA in “a future year.”
Many Paths to an MBA
Each of these programs aims to support students in acquiring the skills and information they need to make the most of the MBA experience. Between summer primer courses for undergraduates and deferred admissions programs, business schools are responding to college student interest in graduate management education.
If you’re a college student or recent grad thinking about an MBA, check out our blog post for some advice: “Admissions Tip: Applying to Business School as a Younger Applicant.”
MBA Jobs: Corporate Development Associate
Strategy and leadership development are at the core of almost every MBA program. In fact, they’re two of the skills most often mentioned when candidates discuss why they want to go back to school. But when it comes to narrowing down a career path that best takes advantage of those skills, how do you make a decision? If you enjoy mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as well as planning and executing strategies to meet organizational objectives, then you might want to consider a role as a corporate development associate.
With 10-year job growth—through 2022—expected at 41.2 percent, a career as a Corporate Development Associate is an excellent choice for MBA graduates. Continue reading…
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.
