The query how can I negotiate on fee and save a substantial amount has lot of substance as you can get relief and reduce financial burden while pursuing your MBA, if you negotiate before depositing the fee as the B-school may not offer any concession on number of pretexts afterwards.
Yes, it is a fact that a canny MBA aspirant can negotiate the fee and get substantial concessions that will reduce the financial burden while you pursue your MBA in the B-school. Fee concessions could be in the nature of full or partial fee waiver, scholarship, discounts offered or not opting for international tours among other parameters.
Avoid deadline: check well before submission
Registration and submission of application to the B-school will finally result either in the offer of admission or rejection of the application. In fact the fear of rejection, if the fee is not paid by the mentioned deadline to the B-school, drives the applicant to hurry up and make payment of requisite fee demanded by the B-school. Later on candidates find it difficult to negotiate on high fee structure of the MBA programme even if they come to know that many of their peers negotiated hard on their fee and got the concessions.
The negotiations can take place better before you make any payment to the B-school, else you will be the loser once you are in their clutches after making payment of fee demanded by them.
Keep other options open: Negotiate in time
Before arriving at the decision and immediately after receiving the fee demand notice from the B-school, it is advisable to approach the B-school well in time so that your option to submitting your application to other B-school remains open. Discuss various options with the admission team of the B-schools how you can reduce your financial burden. If the B-school is highly ranked it may not offer direct fee concession or something but may have certain welfare funds to meet the situation or may offer some opportunity to earn while you learn. Other B-schools in 9 cases out of 10 would negotiate on fee, rest assured.
Fee waiver: Available full or partial
Many B-schools offer full or partial fee waiver to high performers in entrance exam like CAT/XAT; to the candidates with excellent academic profile; to candidates with weaker economic and social back grounds among other parameters.
The parameters are not very rigid, hence you can negotiate on it. Once it is approved in principle, you may get fee waiver in the range of 10% to 50% and in some exceptional cases upto 80%. Even if you get 10% fee waiver, out of the prevalent tuition fee in the range of Rs.7 lakhs to 15 lakhs for full MBA programme, relief of Rs.70000/- to 150000/- will substantially reduce your financial burden. The major advantage of fee waiver is that you get it before depositing the fee to the B-school. Hence the issue of getting the fee reimbursed or claiming the fee refund later wouldn’t haunt your mind.
Discount in fee
Another name of fee waiver is fee discount. However, discount covers more candidates but its nature is different. Since the fee is decided by the private B-school on its own in the specified range clubbing number of charges, expenses, remuneration etc. it may be pegged high by the B-school and later on is reduced a little by offering the discount.
If you are able to negotiate a bit more, you may get even higher discount than offered at the first instance. You may ask the B-school to waive certain charges imposed in the name of fee or have similar nature. The B-school may gladly oblige you and may offer you the said discount.
Scholarship
Almost every B-school offers scholarships instituted either by itself, its alumni, its promoter in the name of some eminent person to the meritorious students. The scholarships are also offered to the students who have scored high in the entrance exams, in academics or who have excelled in sports also. The B-school may add as many scholarships as it deems fit according to the category of students.
Before finalizing the admission in the B-school, you can check whether you nearly qualify for the scholarship, what is its amount. Not only this, it is better to approach the B-school and specifically ask them whether you can be offered the said scholarship for which you are eligible and what is the number of such scholarships that would be offered to the students.
If you get the scholarship, you can reduce your financial burden by about 10% or more of the fee. Since the scholarship is not directly linked to fee waiver, it would be available to you on the basis of your performance and will be of a reimbursing nature – paid after performance.
Foreign tour
Many B-schools have started foreign study tour to various foreign institutes or have engaged in international exchange programme. While some of them mention fee with or without foreign tour or international exchange, many are gradually clubbing it to the fee structure. The fee for foreign tour or international exchange programme runs in lakhs. You can categorically ask the B-school what difference it would make if you do not want to have the foreign tour. Initially, it is possible that the B-school may not agree, but rest assured it can reduce the entire fee required for foreign tour, if you do not propose to avail the facility.
In the upcoming MBA scenario, the B-schools have kept their admission process flexible with number of fee concessions available to compete and grow in MBA education market. Once you try and negotiate, you may get more pleasant surprises in your favour than you expected.
Please note these are the private B-schools and universities mostly who may offer such reductions in financial burden while pursuing PGDM or MBA. The facility may not be available at IIMs, or other Government regulated Universities or B-schools.
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