Scholarships have decisively overtaken savings, loans and employer support as the largest funding source for all graduate business degree courses. For many aspiring students, gaining access to an award — many of which are linked to developing a more diverse student intake — represents the difference between attending business school, or not.
The biggest source of intended funding among prospective students for full-time MBA programmes comes from grants, fellowships and scholarships, according to the exam administrator the Graduate Management Admission Council, and accounts for 30 per cent of the average financial mix. This is more than loans (24 per cent).
Kelsey Lents would not have gone to business school if it had not been for MBA scholarships. She worked as an associate at a New York architecture practice, having studied English as an undergraduate followed by a masters in architecture. Most people in her workplace came from design backgrounds and few had any formal business training. Ms Lents saw an opportunity to build valuable business skills, but without the $80,000 award offered by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, she could not have justified the estimated $170,000 cost of the two-year course.