Getting Your Employer to Fund Your MBA - What You Owe Your Company

Getting an MBA is not cheap - between tuition and living expenses, the bills can run up to $100,000. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find someone to pay for your MBA? One place to look is your employer or potential employer. Many companies have tuition reimbursement programs, fellowships and other means to finance their employees MBAs. I’ve been working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show titled “Getting Your Employer to Fund Your MBA.” In the podcast, we’ll explore a variety of situations including people who work for companies who have existing programs for funding MBA’s and those whose companies don’t. Some of the questions we’ll address:

     Why would a company fund your MBA?
     Does it make a difference if you work at a small company or a large company?
     Do economic hard times mean that continued education benefits are going by the wayside?

I’ll be asking these questions and more of my guests and keeping you posted along the way with blog updates.

One of the issues that came up with almost everyone I talked to is that while employers will pay for your MBA, there are often strings attached.

Yoichi N. works in the financial industry, so would like to keep his company and last name private. He goes to school part-time and works full-time. His company has a few programs that will pay for MBA’s, but employees need to have one year invested in the company before they are eligible.

“For anyone that works full time, they basically have what they call tuition reimbursement. It has to be an MBA program or some type of accreditation. The company will pay up to 90% or $10,000 whichever is less.”

And Yoichi must keep up his grades.

“When I started, they said [they required a] ‘B’ average, but they’ve actually lowered their requirements to a ‘C.’ If you don’t get anything better than a ‘C’, you’re not going to get reimbursed for that class. But in a graduate school program... getting a ‘B’ is not very hard, so it’s a fair deal for being reimbursed and you actually learn something from it.”

The 90%/$10,000 tuition reimbursement doesn’t require any back end commitment. Yoichi says his company has another program.

“They will pay the full amount if you commit at least 3 years after, but I’m not sure if I want to commit 3 more years to my company.”

Other people I talked to are taking advantage of a full-ride to B-school. Karla Krause worked for Dell for four years before she enrolled in the MIT Leaders for Global Operations program with full backing from Dell.

“I knew by accepting Dell’s sponsorship I am contractually obligated to go back, but I wouldn’t have signed the contract had I not wanted to go back to Dell. I definitely had a great experience at Dell in the 4 years prior to coming here. Dell’s been great to me and I’m excited to go back, but I am contractually obligated. I could pay back the sponsorship contribution and choose to go somewhere else, but I’m planning to go back to Dell.”

Take away: assess your situation, what your opportunities post-MBA will look like and what your company will require you to commit to and you can decide on what program is appropriate for you.

Learn more of what Yoichi N., Karla Krause and the other guests have to say about company-financed MBAs in our upcoming show that will be in a couple of weeks. Other guests on the show include:

• Lynda Boman, principal, Boman Accounting Group, who will address what you need to know for your tax return if your company pays for your MBA;
• John Gianvittorio, manager at Raytheon and student UCLA Anderson School, who says that the economy hasn’t affected Raytheon’s decision to fund MBA’s;
• Jay, small tech business owner, who will talk about what it would take for him to sponsor an employee;
• Yvon Le Renard, executive at Alcatel (a French telecommunications firm) and student at Kellog-Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Executive MBA program, who gives the best argument in support of your case for company funding;
• Jennifer Powers, Manager of Marketing and Business Development for the City of Brampton, in Ontario, Canada, who will discuss why she decided to fund her MBA herself; and
• Nicole, a financial services executive and student at a top 10 school, who will lay out the best way to have your company fund your MBA.