The Easiest Ways to Pay for an MBA

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Recently you have realized that you need to do an MBA to advance your career few steps. Now the hard part comes: how to pay off your fund.

With tuition fees ranging upto few thousand dollars a year, fun ding an MBA course is in all its probability among the biggest investments that you will be making during your whole lifetime. Tuition fees are just one factor to be considered while considering the budget for the MBA course. With it come the living expenses, course materials, exam fees and so on. Unless you have a considerable amount tucked away in form of personal savings, it is highly advisable to explore multiple sources of funding as early as possible.

Scholarships and Fellowships:

It is evident that scholarships are a great source of funding – it is free money. It is easier to say but the difficulty is how to get them. How your school makes scholarship offers is the thing to be aware of, as you may require preparing a separate application to be qualified. Recognized business schools would not want to risk losing the best MBA talents to competitors, so many will put forward a choice of scholarships to draw in potential candidates.

It is also advised to look ahead of your business school, to organizations that present highly helpful scholarships for MBA students.

Employer Sponsorship:

If you can get your existing employer to pay back you for all or a fraction of your MBA schooling, you can evade going into debt overall. This often comes with a clause that you’ll have to go back to the company after graduating.

However, sponsorship is not the most regular option. According to CEIBS (the international business school), for example, about 7% of its students are sponsored by their employer and usually go back to their employers on graduation, whereas 12% of MBA students at INSEAD (international graduate business school) get employer sponsorship.

But if your employer is not willing to financially support an MBA program, do not stop being hopeful. You can still persuade them to support the funding for your program through an insightful, well written proposal. The idea behind this proposal is to show that as an employee, it will be worthy to invest on you. If you lack the fine quality of writing a good paper, professional assignment services available online on MBA can be of great help.

Loans:

Federal Loans:

There are other options available to borrow money for paying an MBA. Federal loans are typically the best option in such case. The US government offers atleast two loan alternatives for each academic year –the Stafford and the Grad PLUS Loan. Ofcourse, not everybody is qualified for government funded loans. Many loan plans are need-oriented. Eligibility will be decided by the financial aid office of your selected business school.

In UK, career development loans are available from the Co-operative Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays to students who have targeted to settle in the UK or European Economic Area after completing their MBA program.

Private Loans:

Private loans are helpful to provide customized options for you to save; occasionally at rates even lesser than the federal government’s. If you are looking to increase your other MBA financing, seek out a lender with considerable customer service and inquire about what loan options can make the most of your savings.

Eligibility requirements to avail private loans may vary depending upon the bank, corporation, or foundation’s policy that is offering the loan. The best way to settle on eligibility is to explore around and research as many various private loan resources as you can.

Crowdfunding:

As a substitute to bank loans you can also seek funding from peer-to-peer lenders. They allow students access to funding that is often sponsored by business school alumni. Prodigy offers loans to MBA students at 20 foremost business schools across the US and Europe, including INSEAD and Cass Business School, London. These loans are given away on the basis of an applicant’s future earnings potential rather than his/her credit history.

You may be needed to work as a full time employee while you go to a business school. You may also have to approve to continue with that employer for more than a few years after graduating. The bottom line is, your MBA is a large investment, and I'm sure you can make the best use of the coming months to ensure that you have all the funding you need.

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