Harvard Business School Expands Financial Aid

Ten percent of MBA students to receive full tuition scholarships

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School (HBS) announced Tuesday that, effective immediately, it would begin providing scholarships that cover the total cost of tuition and course fees ($75,990) to MBA students “with the greatest financial need”—a group that includes roughly 10 percent of the degree program’s current student body. In addition, HBS will offer need-based scholarships to a larger number of students from middle-income backgrounds by expanding eligibility; currently about half of MBA students already receive need-based support, with awards ranging from $2,500 to $76,000 per year (the average for 2021-22 was $42,000). 

These changes are the most recent in a series of steps the school has taken during the past few years to make its two-year MBA program more affordable. Since 2019, HBS has held its tuition flat, and in 2020 the school revised its need-based formula to factor in socioeconomic background, along with personal income, assets, and undergraduate debt. In 2018, HBS created the Forward Fellowships, which provide $15,000 annually to lower-income MBA students who give financial support to family members while attending business school. In addition, HBS offers a need-based waiver of its $250 application fee. 

MBA students who qualify for need-based scholarships for tuition and fees will still have to pay their own living expenses, which average about $32,000 per year for single students in the Boston area. Between need-based and merit-based scholarships, HBS distributes about $43 million per year in aid. It’s need-based aid is the largest of any MBA program in the world. 

“Harvard Business School should be a place where the most talented future leaders can come to realize their potential,” said HBS Dean Srikant Datar in a press release announcing the aid expansion. “We know that talent is much more evenly distributed than opportunity.”

Read more articles by: Lydialyle Gibson

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