Consider the following:
- Most of today’s MBA students, not employers, must foot the bill for their own degrees.
- Top business schools compete fiercely for the best prospects.
Sixty-one percent of this year’s MBA students — up from 41 percent in 2014 — receive scholarships or fellowships based on need, merit or both.
As the U.S. job market strengthens, enrollment in full-time MBA programs has dropped by a third nationwide since 2010, with prospective students weighing the cost and relative value of the degree for their future careers, driving a flight to the top programs.
For many young professionals, it’s not an easy choice. Fifty-six percent of UCLA Anderson’s full-time MBA class of 2017 took out loans. Their average debt at graduation was $85,000 — or $1,000 dollars a month for the next decade.
Until recently, the state of California gave every Anderson student a fellowship of sorts, through highly affordable tuition. In 2001, California residents in the full-time MBA program paid less than $12,000 in yearly tuition, while non-residents paid roughly $21,000. But for the class of 2017, annual tuition reached nearly $60,000 for residents and non-residents alike, and the full cost of attending Anderson topped $90,000 a year.
Given the shifting dynamics and smaller pool of top MBA applicants, leading U.S. business schools are competing ever more fiercely for top students, wooing them with beefed-up financial aid packages.
To attract the very best, Anderson must compete not just through its excellent faculty and programs, but on the financial front, too.
“Merit-based fellowships allow us to compete with other top business schools for talented applicants,” says Associate Dean Rob Weiler (’91), who oversees admissions for the full-time program. “We must offer similar incentives to remain attractive to the best and brightest, who often have many choices when deciding where to go. Net price plays an important role.”
While it’s easy to think of business schools like Harvard, Stanford and Wharton with endowments of $1 billion or more as outliers, the need for support became clear in 2016 when Poets & Quants compared Berkeley Haas’ $307 million endowment to what was then Anderson’s $216 million (Anderson’s current endowment now tops $265 million). Only 15 percent of Anderson’s financial aid comes from philanthropy, the rest from the operating budget, leaving fewer resources for program enhancements.
“Fellowships are now a key tool to matriculate the most competitive applicants,” adds FEMBA Assistant Dean of Admissions Dylan Stafford. “They are a critical element to build a strong, diverse class.”
What’s more, at Anderson, we look for even more in our students, seeking out future leaders who will make an impact on the world. That excellence comes at a cost.
We want, quite simply, to transform management thinking and prepare future leaders for careers in today’s ever-changing organizations and markets — and for lives of impact and significance.
We’re looking, in other words, for students like David Lee (’18), the current recipient of the Evelyn and David Hou Fellowship, who speaks eloquently about how the Hou family’s investment in him will help him achieve his goal to help others.
In a recent letter to the Hou family, Lee said his passion for qualitative analysis and interest in social impact and enterprise will ultimately define how significantly he is able to affect the lives of others. “The past year has been among the most rewarding of our lives, and it is in great part made possible by the generosity your family has shown ours,” he wrote.
Donor David Hou, whose family has enjoyed getting to know Lee since the fellowship brought them together, says this is why he gives.
“The quality of a top business school is greatly measured by the quality of its students,” Hou says. “I want to ensure that Anderson continues to attract students who will make a difference in the business world and in their community. I make a point to connect with these amazing students and their families on a personal level.”
The goal of Anderson’s Into the Next campaign is to raise $80 million and to increase the number and amount of fellowships offered to students, offsetting the rising cost of tuition and living expenses and reducing the student debt burden for students like Lee.
Won’t you help?
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