MBA & Business Education Guide 2005: Funding your studies
MBAs don't come cheap, especially if you are an executive with a mortgage and family. Financing a business education requires serious planning, but there are ways of realising your dream.
Take out a personal loan. Remortgage your house. Apply for a scholarship.
Blow your savings. Whichever way you decide to pay for your course, MBAs don't come cheap. Tuition fees alone will set you back anything from £12,000 to £40,000-plus, depending on which business school you attend. On top of that, there are living expenses, which will be particularly steep if you study in London or the south-east of England, and even higher in certain parts of Europe. Add to this expenditure on travel, course materials and, for full-time programmes, the 'opportunity cost' of being out of a job, and you're looking at a hefty bill.
Take 34-year-old Stephanie France, for example, who is due to complete her full-time MBA at Bradford School of Management this year. She has already forked out £16,950 for tuition fees, but estimates that the total price tag will be closer to £55,000, once she's taken into account living costs, books, stationery and, crucially, the loss of earnings from her previous job as a design and project sales manager.
