Pay less, achieve more: KU’s affordable online MBA tuition

Jeremiah Nast:
Welcome, everyone, to the KU Online MBA Programs Financial Aid Q&A webinar. We're going to get started off here. We do have a guest coming up, but first I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Jeremiah. I may have spoken with many of you over the phone. I am an admission outreach advisor for Everspring, who works on behalf of this program. I am also a student in this program. I've been working with it for a while. I loved it so much I decided to pursue it. And Diego, would you like to introduce yourself?

Diego Guerrero:
Thank you, Jeremiah. So I'm Diego Guerrero. I'm one of the Financial Aid Advisors or Financial Aid Counselors, excuse me, with KU. I am one of three right now, currently soon to be six. But if you ever had any sort of Financial Aid questions, questions about the Enroll and Pay website, questions about your plans that involve your Financial Aid, I would be one of the most immediate resources that you could contact and make use of.

Jeremiah Nast:
Perfect. All right. So as we get started with our presentation here, Diego is gonna go through a lot of information. He has an abundance of it. There's bound to be some questions that come up. I'm gonna encourage everyone to use the Q&A feature on the bottom of your screen. If you have questions, log it in there. We will get to them at the end. Diego's going to go through what he has to go through, and then we'll see if everything gets handled just kind of naturally throughout the process. But if you do have questions, we wanna make sure that we're getting those handled for you. So put them in the Q&A feature. Please do that rather than the chat feature. That allows us to handle them more easily, and we wanna make sure everyone's questions get heard. But Diego, I'm going to go ahead and get you going here in just a second.

Diego Guerrero:
Thank you. So to start, what are the costs of my graduate educations? Normally, the price per credit hour for this program is, as you can see there, $865 right, per credit hour. I believe the normal amount of credits required for the program is 42, hence the $36,330 estimated total program cost down below. We're trying to estimate any sort of fluctuation in the tuition and fees as best we can. But we do give a heads up that they might change in the future. This is the cost. As of right now, I checked this today just to make sure. That's really it for this slide. We can go to the next one. What is the estimated cost of attendance? The Financial Aid office uses the federal model to estimate a student's anticipated educational expenses.

These categories haven't really changed that much since they were originally introduced, and they just cover reasonable expenses that you're bound to have, both things that are charged by the university, such as the tuition and fees, possibly housing and meals, depending on your situation, as well as expenses that you may or may not incur while at the university. Books and supplies, transportation, personal expenses. Normally, when a student first files their FAFSA, our office will use some of that information as well as some local and institutional estimates to come up with their cost of attendance or their budget, as it becomes known.

Eventually, we would share that information with you, and it can be sometimes a useful way to anticipate what your educational expenses might be. But the other purpose that this serves is that it tells the government how much Financial Aid you can receive, and that includes everything, scholarships, grants, and primarily loans. If you ever find yourself in a situation where your cost of attendance does not allow you to receive more aid than you need, please reach out to the Financial Aid office, 'cause that's when we can initiate a process of the cost of attendance appeal. I would just explain the process to you at that time and give you the resources to get started.

We may end up having to adjust your cost of attendance based on either your bill, right, bill charges that weren't originally included in the estimate, or based on documentation of your off-campus expenses, your rent, car repairs, if you have to purchase a book somewhere else, anything like that. Reach out to us, and we can go over what those expenses are and see if we're able to adjust the budget, the cost of attendance, so that you're able to receive more Financial Aid and cover those expenses.

So, how do you normally apply for Financial Aid? Well, the first step would be you fill out the FAFSA. You have to go to studentaid.gov The upcoming academic year is the '23, '24 academic year. That's going to be from fall 2023 to spring 2024, and at least, Katie Lawrence, I would also include the summer 2024 semester. Based on your financial information, how many people are in your household, your age, a variety of different qualifiers, the FAFSA will come up with a figure that we use to determine your eligibility for different types of Financial Aid.

That's the expected family contribution. We also have an in-house process for international students. That's the Institutional Student Need Analysis Worksheet, which is a mouthful. We usually just say ISNAW. A minority of people say ISNAW. That's okay. That's essentially the analog to the FAFSA. While the FAFSA is for domestic students, the ISNAW is for international students.

It gives us a rough idea of what your expected family contribution would be. Unlike the FAFSA, this does not lead to immediate access to Financial Aid because it's not connected to any sort of like a federal program or a state program, but there are some institutional grants and scholarships that may take need into account, and for that, you would need to have that documented in the system. So you have to fill out an ISNAW, and if you're an international student, I always recommend filling it out either way, just in case. So what types of Financial Aid are available to me as a graduate student?

So for the most part, the most immediate form of Financial Aid that will be available to graduate students is going to be loans. We did share these resources here, and it's possible that, you may want to get them from, Jeremiah later on. I think we're having some [laughter] That's okay. No worries. I can send you those links later if you need them. To be honest with you, for the most part, a lot of Financial Aid, need-based Pell grants, or state grants are mostly for undergraduate students.

There's not a lot of need-based aid for graduate students, but we did share these resources in case you're able to, find some kind of, scholarship that you might be interested in KU Academic Works or, the Graduate Funding portal. A lot of them it would have to do with, research or benefits that would be more and more available for students studying on, like the campus, right, not online.

Nevertheless, it never hurts to look. That's what I always say. Your loan options, I will say ultimately how you choose to pay for school is up to you. But these options are listed in the order that I would recommend them. If a student came to me seeking to, finance their education as a graduate student, the first option that I would suggest is the, unsubsidized direct loans for graduate students. You have to file a FAFSA every academic year in order to qualify for this, and the maximum amount is $20,500. That has to fit within your cost of attendance. So if your loan offer is smaller than that, there's no need to be concerned.

That would be normal. The lifetime limit that you can have as a graduate student for these loans is, $138,500. So normally until a student, hasn't, exceeded their annual loan limit, or if they find themselves in a situation where they have reached their lifetime loan limit, it's not really up until that point that I would consider looking into the other alternatives. But if you do need it, especially if you need to cover off-campus expenses then the next option would be your Graduate PLUS Direct Loans.

If you had the experience as an undergraduate student to, have your parents take out a PLUS Loan for you, this would be somewhat familiar. They work in a similar way. And Graduate PLUS Loans wouldn't really be included in a student's aid package, so you wouldn't directly get a Graduate PLUS Loan offer after filling out your FAFSA. Instead this is something that you would've to seek out yourself, but you can find it very easily on the same website where you file the FAFSA, that's studentaid.gov. You can complete the application.

There is a credit check involved. If passed, good to go. You sign your master promissory note and in a few days we should have that information at the Financial Aid and Scholarships office. If for whatever reason you cannot pass the credit check, that's okay. You can always have... You have the option to just reapply with a co-signer backing you up for that loan application. And technically, there's really no annual limit or lifetime limit for Graduate PLUS Loans. You can borrow as much as you need, but it has to fit within your cost of attendance within your budget.

If you need a little bit extra, you can always look to KU Endowment. They are a nonprofit organization supported by donors, and they provide Financial Aid, support and assistance exclusively to KU students. For graduate students, the annual loan limit is $6,000. Your aggregate limit is gonna be $12,000. There's the link there, on the PowerPoint. You can again get that from Jeremiah if you need it. I think that can be a good option sometimes, especially if you don't necessarily need to, take out such a large amount of money that, would require a Graduate PLUS Loan. But you still need a little bit more than what you can get just through the regular unsubsidized, Direct Loans.

And lastly, private or alternative student loans. I've been getting this question a lot recently actually, of is it true that Private Loans are always worse than the Federal Loans? The answer is no. It is possible that you'll be able to find a Private Loan with a better interest rate, a, repayment plan that you'd like better, a Private Loan that works better for you. But that's the catch. You have to go out there and find it. You have to do the research. We, the Financial Aid counselors are not able to recommend a Private Loan lender to you other than KU Endowment.

So this is why this would be option number four. I would suggest everything else before suggesting a Private Alternative Loan, but if you need it and you find one that works for you, I think it can be just as valid. And good of an option to finance your education. And we do keep that list of, loan lenders that other KU students have used in the past, just for your convenience. So when will Financial Aid disperse? Normally Financial Aid disperses, 10 days before classes start? That means that we will take whatever the funds are there for the loans that you have applied for, and we will use them to pay whatever is on your bill.

Normally that'll be your tuition. Any remainders, of that disbursement would just be issued back to the student directly as a refund by default. This happens via pay per check. Obviously you don't want that. You want to make sure that your preferences are set to, direct deposit so that you can get your money as quickly as possible. Normally it takes just a couple days for disbursement to happen, and same for refunds. They might take out one business day or two to, process. I think that's it from me, right, Jeremiah?

Jeremiah Nast:
All right. Yeah. And we will get back to you for some Q&A...

Diego Guerrero:
Okay.

Jeremiah Nast:
But getting into kind of like, how do you get to the point where you would be working with someone like Diego, setting up a financial plan for yourself? As far as the deadlines for the upcoming semester, the final application deadline is August 7th, 2023.

Jeremiah Nast:
So there is time for that, but there are... You'd wanna be in contact as soon as possible with classes that start August 21st. And as far as that, those admissions requirements, a Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution or equivalent. They do prefer a GPA of 3.0 or higher. But if you're not at that level, please reach out.

There's every student is evaluated on holistically. So we'd love to speak to any students about kind of what may be best for them. There's no GMAT required. There is a separate assessment. It's called an executive assessment. There are two different routes that students may take. One would be if students do qualify for a waiver for that.

Best way to see if you've qualified for a waiver is to talk with someone like me or one of my colleagues looking into that. Feel free to give me a call. I'll give my phone number here by the end. But as far as what's required for the actual application, they would need your resume. They'd prefer two or more years of work experienced.

Once again reach out if you have questions. There's, everyone's situation is different and certainly we wanna help as many students as we can if you're qualified for the program. They would need three letters of recommendation, a personal statement, those letters of recommendation, you're looking at professional or academic letters of recommendation.

Just get their names put into the application itself. It will reach out to them on your behalf. So you wanna give them a heads up first. The personal statement, normally looking at 600 to 1000 words about why you'd be a good fit for the program. That application is online.

There is an application fee of $65 for US residents, or $85 for international applicants. Do reach out to us. There may be some ways that we may be able to help you out with that for qualifying students. The only way to know would be to talk to us, but certainly happy to talk to students about that application fee.

All right, so we made record time there, but it does look like we have a couple of questions for Q&A. With these pulled up. We have an anonymous attendee had asked about, "For the online program, are there book fees?"

Diego Guerrero:
To my knowledge, there's no book fees, right? We have to account for books and the cost of attendance because we assume that you'll be buying books, but you don't necessarily have to buy them at KU. I'm pretty sure that KU will not be charging you a book fee. I've never seen that before.

Jeremiah Nast:
So anecdotally, 'cause I am a student in the program, your courses may have books. The costs may vary. Where you look for it. There's places that offer books for digital rental for... There's just so many different ways. So that $36,330 number does not include the cost of books. Other than that, the question was, does this apply to the online MBA? I don't necessarily know what that was referencing.

But what we have been speaking about to this point has been the online MBA program. If you have a specific question you can feel free to reach out to me after the webinar today. I'll drop my phone number before. Well, I won't drop it. I will give it to everybody. I will give you all my phone number to give a call and ask questions if you have more specific questions.

Diego Guerrero:
Yeah.

Jeremiah Nast:
You share the application fee part of the presentation. Okay. I'm interested to know... I don't really understand. So were you looking at this for this part?

Okay. So they were hoping to see this slide. So this is what's required for the application itself. Happy to walk everybody through these. Once you've started your application, me or someone like me would be able to actually see what's there, what's completed. It'll also give you a nice application checklist so that you can see what is needed for your actual application. Lots of application questions. [laughter]

Paige, if your last day for your classes is August 8th, and the deadline for applying is August 7th, can they waive some time for the official transcripts? One thing to know about the transcripts is that what's required for the actual... For submitting your application is a copy of official transcripts. Normally if you're in your last semester of classes, you can get a copy of your official transcripts that would indicate that you would be about graduate. That is normally enough be considered for your application itself. You would need official transcripts with your graduation date on them by the end of your first semester. Potentially, Paige, that would be a possibility. That's a really interesting way that that ended up working out with the 8th and the 7th. But I think that most likely that would be something that would be able to be worked out if that's the case. I would just get a hold of those transcripts and we'd see what we could do.

Can this deck be accessed somewhere else later on? If you would like it, if you want to reach out to me at jnast@ku.edu I would be able to send you whatever information you were looking for specifically from it. I also... This webinar itself will be recorded, if you would like to receive a recorded version of this webinar.

Attend class in person if offered as an online MBA student.

Unfortunately, that is not an option for the a hundred percent online program. The way that the course is stretched... Or structured with the cadence and everything. It is offered as an entirely online alternative, so there would not be any campus courses. However, you would be a KU student, so things at the campus that you would be looking to access, like essentially, like the library or anything like that, you would be a KU student, but you just would be not able to participate in the campus coursework.

Okay, I think this one may be for both of us. [laughter] Here we go. So if accepted into the program, but you defer to start at a later term, accepted to fall '23, but looking at winter '23, due to the potential delays in loan financial aid, is that common? Is there a valid reason to defer to a later term? Diego, I guess a great place to start with answering this question would be how long would you normally see something like FAFSA taking to process?

Diego Guerrero:
Normally I would say if you file your FAFSA on Monday, at the latest by Friday, the financial aid office should have access to it. Now, I'm saying at the very least, we will receive what they call the FAFSA response file, would be able to see it. It doesn't mean that your financial aid will be processed in that time. It's still a bit of a manual process for the financial aid office to post all your loans. And in the case of a graduate student, that's usually just the one, I would say at the most, maybe like, I don't know, a week and a half. After that, if you don't hear anything or you don't see any changes in enrollment pay, that is the time to reach out, send me an email, call somebody so we can look into it 'cause it should not take that long. Yeah, it should not take that long.

Jeremiah Nast:
All right. And that was posted by an anonymous attendee. Reach out to your admissions outreach advisor as well. If it's something that we certainly want to make sure that if you're moving in the right direction for you, so if there's anything that anybody can do to help even if it were just someone pointing you in the right direction to speak with someone like Diego, I know that we'd be happy to accommodate that.

How many hours a week do you spend working on it?

Alan, was that question concerning the online MBA, how many... An hourly work, it does state on the website that most students are looking at 15-20 hours per week of coursework. It really does vary from student to student. There's no, with this being an asynchronous course, there's no dedicated login times or anything like that. It may take you less time than that, it may take you more time than that, but it is flexible. And I can say that as a student within the program, I don't have any required login times, but I do have deadlines and due dates. So it is a substantial amount of work, but it does fit really nicely around the other things in my life.

How long does it take to complete the program?

The program is built to be taken one course at a time over 27 months. That would be from start to finish, taking courses year round, one at a time. There are... Courses for this program are a little bit different. They are eight week courses, so all the courses are eight weeks long other than the capstone, which is 14. You can think of it as being like two courses pushed together. But they are... You take the courses then year round over those 27 months. Other than boosting my CV... Alan, I will get to the, I do want to make sure we cover student's questions about the program itself, about the, get to any financial aid questions. Alan, if need be, I can certainly call you after we get off here and we can talk about that. We'll get to these other questions first. But I do have a lot to say about that. Let's see here.

Okay. So this is from Jacob for you Diego to confirm most financial aid given out for this program is in the form of loans, and there likely aren't scholarships available for this program to reduce the cost of the program.

Diego Guerrero:
True. Yes. That sounds about right. I'll be honest with you, that's what I would usually see. And that is what the financial aid office would most usually handle. Opportunities that are outside of what the federal government can offer, or private loans you would usually get from your particular department, so you might want to inquire about that further with your department or the program advisor, or you could even ask with Jeremiah as well to see what might be available. But for the most part, anything that's tied to the FAFSA side is what we would be handling, and that's going to be your loan options essentially.

Jeremiah Nast:
Alright. Is there an option to get accelerated? As far as the timeline being those 27 months there, I would say to, it would be something that you would want to make sure that you were in contact with a student success coordinator if that was something that you were looking at doing, potentially accelerating this program from. It's built to be completed one course at a time for over 27 months. It's not necessarily an option to speed it up, but they may be able to help you out, but it'd be something that would have to be something built out specifically for your situation. Not every course is offered in every semester. And they would want to make sure that they were setting you up for success. So, to answer, the program is built to be completed one course at a time over 27 months.

It's not an option to double up through the entire thing and finish twice as fast, but they would help you out best they could based on what was available and your specific situation.

Are students from different educational backgrounds accepted?

I gotta say, it really depends on the question. I don't know if I necessarily understand it. Students from different educational backgrounds... The program itself, and I'll go back to the admissions requirements here. As far as for the requirements, if you're looking at having a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution, the educational type from that may... I would say to speak with someone like me to walk you through what your educational background, and what it may look like for you...

If you were... It doesn't require that you have an undergraduate degree in business or anything like that. As I mentioned before, I personally, my undergraduate degree was not in business. I had an interdisciplinary studies degree, just a general liberal arts degree. And that, it may affect your admissions process into the program, but it's certainly, if you have, if you have any questions about if you specifically, what your admissions process would be like, it would normally be a good idea to just give me a call, help you out in the best way possible.

Can the program be slowed down? Hoping to not have classes year round and take my time through the program.

That's a great question. I will cover part of this and then I'm going to ask Diego to hopefully cover maybe part of it. Potentially. The program does need to be completed in... The length of the program is not supposed to exceed seven years, which is a very long time, and I hope you don't take that long. But if you were looking at stretching it out, you would just want to speak with people like, someone like Diego as well to make sure that you weren't... Could you explain any potential issues with that as far as potential financial aid and taking fewer courses?

Diego Guerrero:
Yeah, so really the only thing that comes to mind in a scenario like that would be the, they're called the SAP standards, and that's S as in Sam, A as in Apple, P as in Peter. That's Satisfactory Academic Progress, it's a federal regulation to... It is a metric of how well you are doing in school, that you're meeting certain academic standards and that you are completing your course load in a timely fashion. Now, what that timeframe should be depends on the program, it depends on the reasonable expectations set between the department and the program itself. It's hard to say if there's a timeframe where you should be completing this just off the top of my head, but I would say, if you're concerned about that, you should definitely reach out to us so we can look more into it.

I have seen students, not in this particular program who take "too long" for whatever it is that they're doing, and at a certain point you become ineligible for federal financial aid. There's other things that would always be available, but that one in particular would be in jeopardy if you take "too long." We do have, I guess you could call them fail-safes for situations like those, so never be afraid to just reach out and see what can be done because there's, for the most part, always something that we can try to figure out, okay?

Jeremiah Nast:
All right. And it doesn't look like we have any more questions about that, so I can go back to Alan's question about the purpose of how an MBA can help you out other than just boosting your CV. And one thing that I've noticed from going through the program myself is that... I call it speaking the language of different departments. It certainly does help me out to understand not just what I'm being asked for from other departments as I work with them, but the root of what they're looking for. Helps me communicate very well with different people doing different jobs and that type of thing, to be able to help facilitate as best as possible moving forward. Obviously, a lot of students enter an MBA program looking for that boost for their resume to look better.

But a lot of it does go to not only, like I said, the knowledge gained throughout the program. I do... There is also opportunities for some networking as well. I personally I'm not local to KU. I actually live just west of Chicago, but I was on campus just a few weeks ago for the MBA leadership summit that was offered for online students to come and attend and network. And it was great to meet some of my classmates and go through and get an idea of what things were were like, and then make some great connections there as well. So there are a lot of great reasons too to doing that. Alan, I know you also mentioned being an analyst negotiator leader. Yeah, I mean it. Having a holistic viewpoint of business and understanding of the parts that make up the whole is really at the crux of what's using an MBA as a base to build your career off of.

So hopefully that answers your question. I know I get super jazzed up when talking about it, so if I got overly buzz-wordy, I apologize, but hopefully that helps out a bit.

It does look like we got a chat in. It was... Awesome. So, all right. We are out of questions currently. We will wait for a couple more here to see if anybody has any more questions. You guys really fired off a lot. That's awesome. It shows that you guys are engaged in the process. So any questions at all about... Oh, here we go.

What areas or careers can one expect to pursue after graduation?

That is an awesome question. It really... I feel like I say this too much. It depends. An MBA is purposefully broad. A lot of people are looking at using an MBA as a catalyst for upward mobility. And that doesn't seem to be located in one specific direction, especially for an MBA. I've helped students with their journeys towards the program in about as many different areas that I can think of, whether it be healthcare, whether it be finance operations at the... Really anything. I mean, I guess not anything it's... But like I said, it is very broad and the goal is that it gives you a base to build up from. So as you're looking at having a career that shows... A degree, that shows that you're serious in your career, that's why a lot of people end up looking at MBA programs.

All right. Jacob has a question about the deadline. So was the August 7th the application deadline to apply for the MBA program to start in fall 2023?

That is correct. That is the deadline. Make sure to be in contact with your admissions outreach advisor. We are here to help. And the closer we get to that deadline, the more of a bottleneck form, so please reach out. We are happy to help and make sure that everything is in by that point in time. Not saying that if you give, for people that like to take their time, that if you give me a call on August 6th that I won't try to help you, but it really is a nice process to go through if you give yourself some time.

How long does one class take before the next starts?

So the classes other than the capstone, the capstone is like two courses pushed together, but the classes are eight week classes. It's generally eight weeks. There may be a week or two in between, or potentially even a week or two overlap between courses, but by general rule, you're taking one eight week course at a time throughout the entire year.

And Diane asked: How many students are accepted each semester.

And it really, it depends. The program is... It's not necessarily something where there's a standard number of students accepted each semester. The program would like to accommodate as many students as long as they're qualified for the program as possible, and that there's enough course professors to be able to effectively engage with them. But there's not a standard number each semester that's going to be accepted higher or lower. The idea is to help students who are qualified for the program move towards it.
[pause]

Catch my breath a little bit. [laughter] Any other questions concerning, once again, the admissions process, the program itself? Diego is a great resource for questions about anything on the financial side of things. Feel free to drop those into the Q&A and we will get them answered, if not, I may give y'all some time back here in your night.

Alright. Well, I guess that, I guess we will call it a little bit early. If anyone has any questions, here, maybe if we go back... If you are looking for our email addresses, there they are. Diego, that's diegofas@ku.edu I am at jnast@ku.edu You're also welcome to give me a call, it's not on the screen, but at 785-727-1204, extension 314. I am always happy to answer as many questions as possible.

As I mentioned, if you do have questions about anything like the potential waiver for the assessment, or if you have questions about the potential waiver for the application fee, or someone would like me as a great fit to know if that's something that you may qualify for. But with that, as it does not seem like we have any other questions in the Q&A at this point in time, I do want to say thank you so much to Diego Guerrero for helping us out with the, to look at the financial side, what's available. And Diego, do you have anything to finish off with?

Diego Guerrero:
No, other than just, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come in and chat with you guys here today. And I just wanted to reiterate what Jeremiah said, we are here to help you, really any questions that you might have, I'm just, I work everyday, so please feel free to reach out to me, I'm happy to assist.

Jeremiah Nast:
And Sam. And we did get a thank you. You're very welcome, Paige. Everyone have a great night and, yeah, rock chalk.