Harvard Discounting MBA Tuition by 58.3%

Source: Harvard Business School 2012 annual report

Of course, as is often the case at many of the top business schools, the full cost of the full-time MBA program is subsidized. “HBS sets MBA tuition and fees at levels that do not fully recover annual operating expenses, much less the School’s long-term investments in MBA program innovation,” Harvard explained in its annual report. “The shortfall is offset primarily with income from gifts given by alumni, whose generosity enriches the HBS educational experience for future generations of students. First-year MBA tuition in fiscal 2012 was $51,200—near the midpoint among the seven comparable schools tracked by HBS—compared with $48,600 last year. Tuition and fee revenue from the School’s core academic program grew to $99 million, from $96 million in fiscal 2011.”

UNRESTRICTED GIFTS TO HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL GREW BY 12%

Besides, the school reported a successful fundraising year, especially when it came to unrestricted gifts. “Driven by the HBS community’s class reunion and annual giving, unrestricted current use gifts grew by $2 million, or 12%, year-over-year to an all-time record of $19 million,” said Melnick in his annual report letter.

HBS said it  received gifts from more than 12,000 donors in fiscal 2012, including MBA,Doctoral, and Executive Education program alumni, as well as other friends of HBS. As in fiscal 2011, approximately 27% of the school’s MBA alumni gave to HBS during the year. Total cash received from gifts, including new endowment gifts and gifts for capital construction projects, payments on prior years’ pledges, and restricted and unrestricted current use giving, decreased 24% to $68 million from $89 million in fiscal 2011, which included an initial $25 million cash payment for construction of Tata Hall, the school’s new executive education building.

The school’s endowment actually fell slightly to $2,665,000 last year from $2,779,000 a year earlier due to market fluctuations. “This decline reflected the flat net appreciation in market value and the subtraction of the school’s annual distribution and decapitalizations, offset by $23 million in endowment gifts received by HBS during the year, the report said. But the school’s unrestricted reserves rose substantially to $119 million, up from $79 million in fiscal 2011.

Harvard also reported that revenue rose 7.3% to $546 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, mostly due to sales in its publishing unit and tuition from executive education courses.

Publishing revenues rose 8.6% to $165 million last year, up from $152 million in 2011 and $135 million in 2010, largely from the sale of 10.6 million case studies, 1.6 million books and 3.4 million Harvard Business Review reprints.

Executive education revenue totaled $142 million last year, a 7.6% increase from $132 million a year earlier. In 2010, the school’s exec ed revenues totaled just $113 million. Harvard said that some 9,891 participants enrolled in its exec ed courses in fiscal 2012. The school launched 27 new programs

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Note: An early version of this story underestimated the percentage of the discounted tuition.

 

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