UCLA & Cornell Are The Latest B-Schools To Make A Play For Tech Workers Who Have Lost Their Jobs

Have you recently lost your job in the tech industry? Business schools want to help you get the skills and credentials that make it less likely to happen again.

Three more B-schools joined a group that have announced enticements to the tens of thousands who have become jobless in the wave of layoffs impacting the sector this year. UCLA Anderson School of Management is offering fee waivers and a second-round deadline extension to its two-year MBA program. Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management is offering fee and test waivers to both its two- and one-year MBA programs.

And one smaller B-school, the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University — based in the same town where Amazon, Dell, and many other tech companies are located — has created an entire program to help laid-off techies that includes scholarships of up to $15,000.

UCLA ANDERSON OFFERS TEST SCORE EXTENSION, OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

According to True Up’s Tech Layoff Tracker, more than 210,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in 2022 in more than 1,300 layoffs. In November alone, nearly 60,000 tech workers were fired, including high-profile layoffs at Twitter, Meta/Facebook, and Amazon. The sector’s bloodbath prompted several top business schools to ease their application process in an effort to entice the suddenly jobless to return to school for an MBA. Kellogg School of Management was the first, offering to waive its test score requirement for those applying to its part- or full-time MBA programs. Others followed suit, each with their own wrinkles but most offering at least tow waive app fees: MIT Sloan School of Management, Indiana Kelley School of Business, UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business, Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, and NYU Stern School of Business all made offers in November to the scores of workers whose skills might be complemented by a graduate business degree. See the bottom of this page for links to those stories.

UCLA Anderson is among the latest to make overtures to laid-off techies, including:

• Application fee waivers;
• Deadline extensions for test scores and recommendations;
• Automatic fellowship consideration, regardless of employment status;
• Application preparation support; and
• A quick application process with just one essay question.

ANDERSON HAS A UNIQUE TWIST ON OFFER TO TECHIES

UCLA’s unique wrinkle is that students admitted to its full-time MBA program through this process but who later gain new employment may be eligible to switch to Anderson’s part-time program.

Applicants must apply to UCLA Anderson’s full-time MBA program by the Round 2 application deadline of January 4, 2023, with test scores and recommendations submitted by a special extended deadline of February 4, 2023. To be eligible, individuals must submit documented proof of being recently laid off because of an organizational restructuring or downsizing — not for issues related to job performance.

“We believe now may be an ideal time for these talented individuals to get their MBA at UCLA Anderson and set themselves up for success in the next phase of their careers,” says Gary Fraser, associate dean of Anderson’s full-time MBA program. “This includes an outstanding curriculum led by our world-renowned faculty, a unique co-curricular experience that is designed to develop tomorrow’s leaders, and Anderson’s top-rated, customized career support.”

CORNELL: A TECH HEAVEN

Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management is offering qualified candidates who have been laid off by a U.S. tech company an application fee waiver and an application test waiver for the January 2023 deadline. That offer includes applicants to Cornell’s one-year tech MBA, like NYU Stern’s program one of the few one-year, tech-focused programs at a top-25 U.S. B-school.

The accelerated one-year Johnson Cornell Tech MBA is based at the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, includes a unique studio curriculum in which students study and work with others in computer science, engineering, design, law, and info systems to develop tech solutions for existing companies and launch tech-based startups. It was named Poets&Quants‘ MBA Program of the Year in 2017.

Cornell’s two-year MBA is “aimed at students seeking to change industries as well as those choosing to advance in a given industry,” according to a school news release; within it, the school offers a new 1+1 Program that includes a semester immersion in digital technology or digital operations followed by a tech internship. Cornell’s students have the opportunity to spend their second year in New York City immersed as part of the Cornell Tech MBA program – which the school hails as “the only existing MBA program offering a second year in New York City.”

“The Johnson School has a strong track record of developing tech leaders and helping those students who seek to pivot into and out of tech positions,” says Johnson Dean Mark Nelson, “as evidenced by two key programs from our MBA suite – the traditional two-year MBA and the Cornell Tech MBA.”

SEATTLE ALBERS OFFERS UP TO $15K IN SCHOLARSHIPS

One smaller West Coast program has a lot going for it in the tech-worker sweepstakes. Seattle University’s Albers School of Business and Economics has launched Project Pivot, a program to support graduate students in the tech sector by offering scholarship assistance up to $15,000 to those who enroll in the Winter 2023 or Spring 2023 quarters.

To qualify, a new grad student must be a former full-time employee at a U.S.-headquartered tech company at another website that tracks tech layoffs, Layoffs.fyi; been terminated after September 1, 2022; and enroll full-time (six credits or more) for Winter 2023 or Spring 2023 quarters in Albers’ Professional MBA, Master’s in Finance, Master’s in Business Analytics, or Master’s in Accounting & Analytics programs.

The deadline to apply to the Albers PMBA, MSF, and MSAA for Winter 2023 is December 9, 2022; for the PMBA, MSF, and MSBA for Spring 2023, March 10, 2023.

DON’T MISS P&Q’S COVERAGE OF B-SCHOOLS’ OVERTURES TO LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS: 

ATTENTION LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS: A TOP-5 B-SCHOOL WANTS YOU TO CONSIDER AN MBA

MORE B-SCHOOLS MAKE OVERTURES TO LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS

2 TECH-HEAVY B-SCHOOLS JOIN THOSE WOOING LAID-OFF WORKERS

INSIDE NYU STERN’S UNIQUE OFFER TO LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS