Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute The Lally School of Management

MBA, Full Time (1 year)

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Survey: How did you fund your MBA?

An MBA is an investment in your own career - not only in terms of time, but also financially. Therefore, many prospective students ask themselves before choosing a course of study what costs they have to expect for their studies. We have received information from over 200 MBA graduates and can now give a comprehensive overview of the costs of an MBA degree for the first time.

Question 1: What was the total cost of your MBA?

The tuition fees make up the majority, but not all of the costs. We therefore asked about the total costs, which included accommodation at the place of study (e.g. for weekend courses), learning material or stays abroad.

It can be seen that the distribution of total expenditure is relatively even. 28% of the participants spent no more than 15,000 euros for their MBA, for 32% the study was more expensive than 25,000 euros. Most of the respondents, 39%, have invested between 15,000 and 25,000 euros in their own further training.

Question 2: How did you finance your MBA?

Of course, you don't shake such high amounts out of your sleeve. It was therefore important for us to know how the graduates surveyed financed the expenses. Multiple answers were possible.

The answers show that the majority of MBA students had already built up reserves and were able to finance at least part of their studies. The employer also plays an important role for 43%. Under "Other" it was mentioned above all that the costs were paid from the current salary.

Question 3: What was the distribution of funding like?

Since it was often not just a single source that contributed to the funding, we wanted to know from those who had ticked several fields which funding option contributed to the MBA and to what extent. The answers are very different - an excerpt:

• 50% employer, 50% savings
• 25% scholarship, 25% family, 50% savings
• 50% from lottery win, 50% with personal loan
• 30% savings, 70% credit
• 40% job, 60% savings
• 10% employer, 50% savings, 40% credit
• 40% scholarship, 60% family allowance
• 10% credit, 30% savings, 60% "credit" within the family
• 50% scholarship, 45% employer, 5% savings

What is striking is that the employer often contributes to the costs, but rarely more than 50%. Nevertheless, there is good leverage for financing here for employees who would like to stay in the company after completing their MBA. Since the grants are usually linked to a repayment obligation if you leave the company prematurely, this type of financing is not worthwhile for those who would like to reorient themselves with an MBA in their pockets.

Conclusion: are these high expenses worthwhile?

In addition to the above monetary information, we also received an experience report from 163 graduates of an MBA course by answering, among other things, the question of whether the course was worthwhile or not.

It should be noted that all questions were open and did not aim for the most positive answer possible.

Four aspects of the respondents for whom the MBA was worthwhile were mentioned. You can see that above all the newly acquired professional and professional skills were highlighted. This is not a surprise, because this is exactly what an MBA aims at. It is somewhat more unusual that only 40% had an impact on the salary. N maybe everyone can therefore bring in the high costs within a reasonable period by larger salary jumps again.