<p>I've heard that Business School has no financial aid like they do in college. I heard that they give you loans and aid, but that you have to eventually pay it all back. </p>
<p>How the hell is someone like me, who ends uo going to a top tier school with a cost of $50,000 and getting financial aid and scholarship for most of it suppose to pay? Harvard MBA costs roughly $85,000 for a single person for one year. How do they expect high achieving, low income minorities to pay that? </p>
<p>Based on this, I am really going to have to consider changing majors when I go to college. If I know I want to go into the financial field and work in the Business industry, I might have to go undergrad Econ or Undergrad business just because I KNOW that I won't be able to graduate with $170,000 in graduate school debt.</p>
<p>Can you please help me out can help fix this massive confusion in my head.
thanks,</p>
<p>You don’t immediately attend a business school like Harvard or Wharton straight out of undergrad. Ideally, you join a firm after graduating and perform at an exceptionally high level for a few years. The firm then pays for your MBA. Take a look at a few companies you think you might be interested in working for; some of them will tell you that they do reimburse you for graduate school costs. I am working in the energy/natural gas industry this summer, and the firm I work for pays for costs associated with graduate education.</p>
Wait, what does being a minority have to do with anything? Wouldn’t this situation be extended to “majorities” too? Why did you feel the need to specify this?</p>
<p>
Furthermore, what gives you the right to call yourself “high achieving”? You haven’t even started college yet. </p>
<p>To answer your question, by the time you apply/enroll in business school, you will be ~24-25 years old. You’ll be an adult who has graduated college and is working a steady job and earning money, just like everyone else. As a result, if you want to attend a full-time MBA program, you’ll have to take out loans and pay for it, just like everyone else. Your family’s “low income” has little to do with it, and has no impact on your ability to take out student loans.</p>
<p>Many jobs have gotten rid of their “pay for your MBA” programs during the recession, which sucks, but oh well.</p>
<p>How can someone who hasn’t even started college be thinking about a Harvard MBA and finding a way to afford it? One thing at a time, young grasshopper. </p>
<p>Even at 50k tuition a year, the elite MBAs are worth it if you utilize the network and the exit opportunities.</p>
<p>@Medwell,
I don’t think I am better than anyone else on this forum, but I do think I have the right to call myself a high achieving minority. I am hispanic, which most colleges strongly seek, and I have a 3.75GPA at my prep school on full scholarship, where the average GPA for the 14 students we sent to Harvard was a 3.6. My SAT score was a 2360 and ACT was a 35. The reason I wanted to include my ethnicity and my stats was because as a low income minority, with exceptional scores and stats, I can count on my education to be alomst 100% paid for. If I get into Harvard, I would meet their criteria for 100% free education. </p>
<p>Now knowing that my parents can’t pay for graduate school, unlike many of my classmates, whose families can afford the $47,000 a year tution at my prep school, I might consider going undergrad Wharton, or Econ at Harvard, Yale, etc. as opposed to maybe going the Liberal Arts route or the Engineering route as an undergrad.</p>
<p>You might not be trying to, but you are coming off as being an extremely entitled person. If you keep an attitude like that, you will A) fit in quite well at an Ivy and B) not get the most useful responses from this board. Just my $0.02.</p>
<p>You need to learn a bit about finances as well. Being low income has zero impact on you being able to afford a college education. It is an excuse with no basis; anyone can take out student loans to go to college. You need to make sure your major and college choice result in exit opportunities if you take on debt to finance college, but it is easily justifiable if you take the right approach.</p>
<p>Lastly, your parents are not the people to finance an MBA. Go look in the mirror–that is who will be financing an MBA. For the elite programs, you need about 4-5 years of work experience, so you are trying to plan almost a decade into the future right now. Just relax for a moment. (1 year of HS + 4 years undergraduate + 4-5 years of work experience). </p>
<p>Just as with undergrad, you can take out student loans for an MBA. If fact, most people probably do unless their employer pays for it. Having an entitled approach of “I am a low-income hispanic that is intelligent, therefore, I deserve a free education” is not going to give a good impression of yourself in life.</p>
<p>Lastly, you throw out different areas of study without any understanding of how those classes operate at the collegiate level. “Wharton” (finance?), economics, liberal arts, and engineering…I think you need to at least take a course in these before you write any of them off as good or bad for you.</p>
<p>I remember being your age not too long ago. You need to take a step back and get some real-life advice from someone in person. Try to find someone that is not scared to tell you what you don’t want to hear, otherwise, you are not getting a legitimate viewpoint. </p>
<p>This doesn’t mean popping your dreams, but I think you need a reality check.</p>
<p>Please take this as constructive criticism.</p>
<p>goose7856 is spot on. You project this attitude that you are very special for being a low-income minority, and you seem to feel that you deserve a 100% full ride to the school of your choice because of your situation. Guess what - you never won the Putnam, cured cancer, or designed a vehicle that uses water as fuel. These things would be worthy of a full scholarship to Harvard. Being born to hispanic parents who have low salaries, a matter that you had no choice in and that took no effort to create, is not.</p>
<p>Like goose7856 said, your parents’ income has no impact in your ability to take out student loans. No matter how special you think your situation is, there’s no difference between a kid with rich parents taking out 80k in loans and a kid with no parents at all taking out 80k in loans. They both have to work and pay it back. </p>
<p>Good luck in college! You have big dreams, and that’s great. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to pursuing them for free. I know you’re not accustomed to paying for stuff since you seem to be getting a full ride to your prep school, but things in life cost money. Get used to it.</p>
<p>I’m not saying I deserve a full ride. I’m saying that MOST LIKELY, I will get a full ride. The average GPA from graduating seniors from my school that got accepted into Harvard based on Naviance is a 3.6. Based on those numbers alone, I am qualified for Harvard, and Harvard, along with most other Ivies, state that if your family makes under 60K, which my family does, you get a full rise
thats what I was saying.</p>
<p>But thanks to all of you for the advice, sounds like I am looking too far into the future.</p>
<p>I know you’ve specified that you are the “low income minority” but I have to echo the sentiment that there are plenty of low income majorities as well who are just as equally just as deserving (high gpa, sat and etc).</p>
<p>I know about exec or part time MBA’s, but do firms really pay for someone to take off two years to go to a top 20? Otherwise you are borrowing?</p>
<p>I am asking for my two S’s. I should have gotten one, and I think if I had one even from any of our state schools, I wouldn’t be unemployed at this point. Every job I’m going for is mba pref. But I digress, S1, ivy grad, top 99%gmat applied after 3 years of work, didn’t get into Columbia Exec program. His company would reimburse like 80% for part time. I guess he will reapply, or go to somewhere more local in NJ where he works. For S2 who is going to a state school, I think it would be worth it to get the mba at the state school or another affordable school particularly if he could get some merit scholarships. They are not top 1 or 2 tier, but I still think it is worth it. He could apply to some better schools of course. It is so hard to go back after you are working(as I can attest). </p>
<p>So, is there a downside to leaving college with an mba after 5-6 years as long as you don’t have to borrow more than $10-20K to do so? The downside I can think of is that you can’t later apply to a top 20 and you put off earning for 2 years. Thoughts?</p>
<p>At this time you’ll be an MBA student… figure it out! But seriously a lot of mba students at harvard squander money into fancy cars so they’re accessible income seems lower to financial aid officers. Seriously, it’s in Ahead of the Curve. Great book for b-school lookers.</p>
<p>I gotta agree it must seem like a joke that a 17 year old is alreeady thinking about business school. Everyone gets stressed with colleges and starts thinking about their life 10 years in advance. But another question, say you are a liberal arts major at a NESCAC where most people go to grad school after, do most people enter the workforce and then go to Grad school, or do they follow their peers and go to business or another grad school after?</p>
<p>Idinct, I don’t think businesses are paying for employees to leave for the two year full-time programs and many have put their funding for part-time programs on hold. Most of my friends at b- schools are taking out loans, which is terrible since many are graduating without jobs and are willing to take lower pay.
As for S1, I’m not surprised about the rejection from the Columbia Exec program based on the years of work experience.</p>
<p>Urm, I just attended my 5th yr reunion and many of my peers have completed grad school, are currently attending or are in the process of applying. Don’t know what the breakdown is of those who went immediately after, but seems like by our next reunion most of us will have masters.</p>
