Poets and Quants

The New B-School Arms Race for the Best & Brightest

by John A. Byrne

The MBA Scholarship Game: What Leading Schools Give To Students in Financial Support

School % Getting Financial Aid 2011 Financial Aid 2005 Financial Aid
MIT (Sloan) 63% $67,288 $55,000
NYU (Stern) NA $61,828 $42,554
Stanford GSB 75% $58,562 $42,360
Harvard Business School 64% $57,665 $48,360
Columbia 53% $56,152 $48,725
Virginia (Darden) 75% $56,150 $38,022
Dartmouth (Tuck) 72% $55,457 $42,573
Northwestern (Kellogg) 65% $53,504 $18,500
Michigan (Ross) 75% $53,322 $53,399
Cornell (Johnson) 76% $51,737 $39,300
Vanderbilt (Owen) 83% $48,160 $36,887
Texas (McCombs) 68% $47,770 $26,000
UCLA (Anderson) 78% $47,691 $46,200
Georgetown (McDonough) 81% $47,473 $42,000
Emory (Goizueta) 79% $44,707 $34,543
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 80% $44,653 $28,450
Yale 68% $43,117 $27,000
Indiana (Kelley) 89% $41,899 $24,429
UNC (Chapel Hill) 94% $36,837 $34,884
Berkeley (Haas) 66% $26,688 $26,044
Wisconsin-Madison 75% $19,975 $7,749
Duke (Fuqua) 81% NA $40,113
Chicago (Booth) NA NA $50,000
UPenn (Wharton) NA NA $59,858
USC (Marshall) NA NA $45,000

Source: Business schools reporting to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Financial aid includes loans, fellowships and assistantships. All numbers are for one year.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

  • Josh

    Booth is an example on how money from donations should be spent, I believe this is one of the main reasons why Booth is in such a great momentum, which may last for decades.

  • abcdefg

    How much of the $28mm of scholarships for HBS are as need-based versus merit-based? My understanding is that HBS’ scholarships are strictly need-based (i.e. if you are in good financial position going in, you are unlikely to receive a scholarship). Is that not the case?

  • jay

    Last year, Sloan’s average annual package for MBA students was $67,288.”

    Is that accurate? 67k a year in aid for 82k in total cost?

  • http://poetsandquants.com/members/jbyrne/ John A. Byrne

    Jay,

    Yes, the $67,288 number is correct for the average financial aid package provided to Sloan students by MIT. Financial aid is the term for loans, scholarships, and graduate assistantships.

    The actual average scholarship at MIT, as noted in the tables accompanying the story, is $25,230.

    Best,
    John

  • Afzal

    I wonder how many of these are international students like me. It is hard for foreigners to finance their MBA without getting into a mountain of debt

  • Spearhead

    With all due respect, these numbers make no sense. There is no way that 70%+ of top 20 schools are doling out scholarships averaging $50K per year…that simply does not pass the sanity check…

  • http://poetsandquants.com/members/bschool13/ bschool2013

    Spearhead,

    You’re right. The numbers you’re looking at are the financial aid numbers, which include loans.

    Scholarship numbers are on the 3rd page of the article.

  • abcdefg

    So does HBS offer merit-based scholarships? I was under the impression it was only need-based.

  • http://poetsandquants.com/members/jbyrne/ John A. Byrne

    The vast majority of HBS scholarships–$25.6 million–is need based as the article points out.

  • Sri

    How exactly is ‘average scholarship’ defined? Does this mean that out of the students who receive scholarships, the amount given is the average award?

    Or does it is defined as total scholarship money/total students, meaning that it represents the amount that each student gets, on average?

  • Skeptical this time

    John, would you consider changing the picture on the main page for this article (the one of the young man surrounded by cash bills)? My apologies if he’s your son, or a friend, but “obnoxious” is probably the most charitable description I can find for it. The money-grubbing MBAs get accused of is bad enough; I can tell you that one of the most liberating aspects of a large scholarship (which I received from a top school) was the realization that “I won’t need to sell out to banking or consulting in order to make this degree financially justifiable, and can instead pursue a career instead of a quick buck.” The picture you posted is more suited to a crowd of nerds with a penchant for crashing sports cars.

  • Juan Manuel

    i am familiar with many international MBAs going to MIT and i know of none of them who got financial aid (free money) from MIT…I wonder if this number is for US citizens/perm residents. In contrast, HBS, Stanford give need based to all, and Chicago is aggressive with offering scholarships to internationals as is Darden and Michigan

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