Whats a realistic budget besides tuition for an MBA at H/S/W? Deciding if I actually want to go and going into debt is one of the deciding factors (tuition will be pid by my company) and have heard people from my company who spent 100k+

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I got a full ride to my school and still easily spent over $100k on living and travel lol.

likehelpfulfunny

In total. It was probably closer to $150 for the ~21 months. Biggest expenses were rent, travel and social events.

The important thing to remember is that while “busy” you will have a lot more “discretionary time” in b school that you don’t have while working. How you choose to spend your time and money is up to you. Many of my friends and I reflected that we spent more per month as unemployed business school students than we did when we were working.

You can fill the time through paid activities like like joining clubs, going out for dinner/drinks/clubs/parties, seeing shows/games, and travel with many 3-day weekends. You’ll also have multi-week breaks for more extensive vacation.

You can do lower-key and lower-cost things like playing sports at the gym, hiking nearby, hanging out to watch movies, game nights, or recruiting for jobs on campus etc.

It’s hard to say whether you will or won’t go into debt without understanding your current savings/spending patterns today as well as where you currently live. Things are also complicated by likely under-spending during the pandemic.

If in a hcol or mcol city, you can start by assuming you won’t downgrade your lifestyle, see what you currently spend, and then plus it up either by 30% or by certain cost buckets depending no goals/interests.

likehelpful

Currently living in NYC. Total budget for the 21
months of the MBA are ~110k

likehelpful

Friend of mine estimated realistic CoAs for 2 schools, they ranged from 240-270k, so an additional 40-45k from each school’s estimated CoA.

You might have to run the numbers for your specific scenarios, here are a few things you could include:
- Realistic living expense
- Emergency allowance
- Career/recruiting expenses
- Club fees
- Travel
- Going out/alcohol
- etc

likehelpful

I can’t say, that decision depends on how resourceful the candidate can be and if the school would let them defer in the first place.

It’s worth noting that MBA internships pay $6-15k per month, and there are often part-time work opportunities on- and off-campus. Barring that, there could be third party scholarships, other types of loans, or liberal use of 0% APR credit cards.

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^same. About $120K across the two years I think

helpful

1,800 month x 21

Can you take out student loans to cover rent and discretionary expenses? I know student loans tend to have lower interest rates and defer during school so would prefer those over a personal loan. I only make 65k now and have 20k in non-retirement savings (approx 80k in retirement but would rather not take out from that). I also kind of feel bad asking my parents for money that I know I will spend on travel and alcohol.

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each school as a living expense/misc budget within the cost of attendance and you can take up to that amount in loans

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My M7 sent an advisory budget that suggested $55k on top of tuition each year, and cautioned that they found it likely to be conservative. So definitely can imagine six figures beyond tuition.

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