Congratulations! Now please hand over $100,000 and your first-born.

I have heard from my second and third business school. I got in! Now that business school is really going to happen, I am also figuring out what it means to be a full-time student again. The MBA programs I applied to cost around $150,000-$160,000 for two years: ~$50,000/year for tuition, books, and supplies, and an allowance of ~$25,000-$30,000/year for living expenses. No one ever said graduate school was cheap.

How do I plan to pay for this educational elephant? Fortunately, I’ve been able to save up and I am able to count on some family help. $50,000 comes from my personal savings from post-college work, $40,000 comes from inheritance from my grandmother, and my parents will probably help me out with another $10,000. So that’s $100,000 of tuition. The other $50,000 in living expenses will likely come from a combination of loans and freelance earnings during business school.

School #1 did not offer me any scholarship, so if I go there it will be for the full sticker price. In that case, I will probably have to take out $40,000-$50,000 in loans. They might be loans from the Bank of Mom & Dad with a Dear Daughter Discount, but it’s debt nonetheless. $40,000-$50,000 of repayment will require pre-tax earnings of $60,000-$70,000 to service, which is no small sum. This is a great institution and I feel very lucky to be accepted, but it will be a struggle to pass up the money offered by.. School #2.

School #2 is offering me a not-insignificant-amount of aid. Thanks to a scholarship, the tuition drops down to $27,000/year, and the total cost of attending business school falls to $105,000. If I choose this school, I have a very good chance of graduating debt free if I live frugally and make some side income during school. I don’t even have to fill out a FAFSA! What a coup that would be… if I can graduate from a great MBA program and still have ALL of my income be mine afterwards. Well, mine and Uncle Sam’s. This school’s reputation may be a little bit more regional than the other schools I have applied to, but I believe that all busines schools, with the exception of Harvard and Stanford, are regional in some ways. Bottom line, this school is a solid choice, with a strong alumni network, very down-to-earth people, and a robust recruiting pipeline for the industries I am considering.

School #3 is an Ivy (though the mere fact that it is an Ivy shouldn’t make my parents any more glad about the acceptance, it will. And I am happy because they are happy), and will tell me whether I get any scholarships in a week or two. School #4 will inform me of their acceptance decision in about a month.

CB has also applied to graduate school. He will hear back within the next month. If he gets in, he will have to take out some loans (which will then turn into our loans. Ah the joys of marriage). If he doesn’t get in, he will keep working and support me financially for a year so I can take out fewer loans (ah the joys of marriage) and reapply next year. I think he has a pretty good shot at acceptance, so I am planning as if we will BOTH be in graduate school, BOTH not making much money, BOTH taking out student loans. In that context, I am forced to think about my student loan situation much more carefully than I might otherwise.

How my attitude toward student debt evolved

Even a few years ago, I had resigned myself to taking on $80,000+ in student loans. It’s what almost everyone does and most graduates of top schools can find a job that will service that debt. According to the MBA website Poets & Quants, the average MBA debt load is north of well north of $70,000 (incidentally, all of my schools are on that list… not sure if that’s a good or bad thing).

But the more I thought about it and the more I calculated, the more I realized that I don’t want to graduate with a mountain of debt. Student loan debt doesn’t have to be a fact of life for me. Even if I do take on loans, I want to err on the side of conservatism. I’d like to be able to pay off my graduate loans in 3 years after school. My limit is $50,000 in loans for an MBA. Assuming a family loan interest of 5%, it’d take me $1,500 a month to be able to pay off the loan in 3 years. A big chunk of money, to be sure, but not impossible. If I can keep the loans down to, say, $25,000, I’d be able to pay it off in a little more than a year.

I truly love all of the schools I applied to, having made a decision very early on that I would not submit my application to a school unless I know I will be happy and excited to attend. So I have three great choices right now (hopefully, I will have four great choices once I hear back from School #4). Money is definitely a factor, but how big of a factor? I don’t know.

Apparently, I am.

I have received my first official acceptance of this application season, to one of “the 15 schools who make up the Top 10 MBA programs in the U.S.”*

I am so happy and grateful that all that legwork and homework have paid off. For this one school in particular, I attended their West Coast receptions 3 years in a row, when I first started thinking about an MBA. I visited the campus twice. I talked to probably 15+ people over a course of 2-3 years to try to get an understanding of what is important to me in an MBA program and what is unique about this school. For my other schools, I have done the same thing – multiple visits, many conversations with many folks, lots of hard thinking about what I value and what schools would best fit me and that I can best contribute to.

I’m not sure what the financial aid picture looks like just yet, but my fingers are crossed for some type of scholarship/grants.

It’s such a relief to know that I am actually going to school next year. I have a number of plans and goals for 2012, before the MBA (save $$, get married, travel) and during the MBA (make friends, learn new things, avoid the poorhouse). It should be an exciting year.

*The schools play musical chairs with rankings every year! One spots down, two spots up, and so on and so on. I don’t think you should ignore the rankings entirely, but it’s not dogma. I applied to schools in the Top 10 and Top 20, and I would be happy at any one of them because I know they fit my personality, will challenge me, and will help me accomplish my career goals.

A few weeks ago I attended a reception for an East Coast business school. I was surprised at how many alumni showed up, given that the alumni network out here in California must not be that big. I was very impressed by the speakers – their passion for their school obviously shows.

Here are a few of my thoughts (and it’s a big long post – you’ve been warned!)

…on business schools, alumni, and networking:

• From my experience, b-school alums seem so much more passionate and outspoken about their alma mater than students of most other graduate school (maybe except for law school). It might be the financial investment, but medical school students spend a lot of money on their schooling too – maybe doctors are just more reserved?
• Of course there’s a self-selection bias going on here – the alumni who are willing to make the time to come to these recruiting events are more likely to be ones who have been satisfied with their on-campus experience and post-MBA job situations.
• I chatted with a few alumni (including a senior executive at Disney and another executive who specializes in computer gaming security – very exciting!) and was impressed by how articulate and at-ease they were.
• The night was also great practice in how to gracefully enter and exit different conversation circles and how to react to lulls in the conversation (ask a lot of questions about the other person).

…on the next 50 years:

• China and US will be two of the biggest economic powerhouses in the world. There is a lot of money to be made in doing business in China – introducing Chinese consumers to American products and Americans to Chinese businesses. India, Brazil, Russia, etc. will be up there as well.
• There will be an unprecedented number of newly-created middle-class consumers, whose desire for products and services will be a huge driver in future economic booms.
• The boom in green / sustainable energy will be the pursuit of how to provide all these services and products to the newly created middle class in an environmentally-responsible manner. Because… if you’re going to tell the Chinese they can’t have XYZ nice thing that Americans have because we’ve already used the resources and now it’s time to conserve… good. luck.

…the economy, applications, and work experience:

• From my conversations, I was reassured that my unemployment / freelancing right now wouldn’t be held against me, especially in light of the economy. A few prospective students and alumni there were also in transition. Apparently, if you have to be unemployed and take a break, 2009 is the year to do it in.
• Speaking to the alums also reaffirmed my decision to work for a while longer before I go back to pursue an MBA. I told an alum about the possibility of going to work in China, and he strongly recommended that I do that before going back to school.

…women and the MBA:

• An alumna I spoke to graduated school in the mid-1980s, when the school only had 20% women. Now, top business schools generally have around 30%, 35% women, and a few (NYU Stern comes to mind) has breached the 40% mark.
• I don’t know if business schools will ever achieve parity between male and female attendance. Law school and medical school both have roughly 50% of men and women attending, so it’s a possibility, especially with the trend of more women graduating from college than men. And it’s not that far of a leap from 40% to 50%… is it? Though it has taken over 20 years to get from 20% to 30%.
• On the flip side, a lot of women didn’t grow up being interested in business (and I count myself among them), and business school tends to cut in the years (ages 26-30) when may women are looking to start a family. Ideally, I’ll be 26 when I start business school, and 28 when I graduate – this way I can get all my schooling done before 30. Grandmama would’ve been proud. My other grandma actually told me once that I shouldn’t date until I finish my masters. I love her emphasis on education and self-development!
• Every school reception I visited placed a great emphasis on increasing its number of women, so that is always encouraging. At business schools, there are also a number of women’s initiatives and “get-togethers”, often hosted / attended by traditional big recruiters such as consumer products companies, management consulting firms, finance firms, etc.

….business school lingo on salary and remuneration:

• One never “makes a lot of money” after business school, one “achieves a financially rewarding career” by “creating value through risk-taking, creativity, and innovation.”
• Graduates don’t “make $xxx,xxx in their first post-MBA job”, instead, they “are valued by the marketplace, and that value is reflected in their compensation.”

I realize that money is not the be-all and end-all of things, not by a long shot, but cf course, I want to have a financially rewarding career. I don’t think there’s any shame in that. What I came away from this reception was a renewed sense that business is exciting and it’s challenging. And right now, I’m young and I can take risks. And I do want the grounding that a solid business education can give me. And in a few years, I’ll be ready to go back to school.