No Tuition for Next M.B.A. Cohort at Arizona State
McCord Hall, one of the many halls within the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.
The diversity that Arizona State is seeking for its W. P. Carey School of Business goes beyond more familiar benchmarks such as race and gender.
The money for the program, called the Forward Focus MBA, comes from the endowment of William Polk Carey, a real estate investor whose foundation donated $50 million in 2003 to the business school that now bears his name.
Dean Amy Hillman said in a statement that a prospective student with a great start-up idea might balk at business school, because the cost “takes away from the capital needed for the start-up venture”. While the money was originally set aside for faculty recruiting, Hillman told the Wall Street Journal, the business school’s administration chose to spend it on students.
The current class of the two-year M.B.A. program has 86 students, but next year the school will offer a full ride to up to 120 students. The normal tuition fees for Carey’s full-time MBA program is $54,000 for Arizona residents, $87,000 for non-residents, and $90,000 for global students.
The business school enrolls more than 13,500 students in total, including more than 12,000 undergraduates and almost 800 students in its portfolio of M.B.A. programs, which includes part-time and online degrees.
Carey’s full-time M.B.A. student body is “a fairly traditional M.B.A. class”, in Ms. Hillman’s words, with the bulk of graduates going into technology, manufacturing and finance, according to school placement figures.
“I’m excited to see the healthcare specialization gain traction”, he said.
“I would really like it if the students…to the degree that they can upon graduation, I’d like them to pay it forward”, she said.
To a few extent, the scholarships are in keeping with Arizona State’s reputation for maverick moves in higher education. She says the scholarship will help people who wouldn’t normally be thinking about a graduate degree, or couldn’t afford it, attend school.