MBA friends Magazine MBA friends Magazine 1 issue | Page 3

Perhaps even more interesting is the situation with business schools (MBA or EMBA
programs). Unlike undergraduate studies, which are still mostly funded by the state,
which brings a general perception that this kind of education is therefore "free", for MBA
programs it is already common, that they are payable. And quite often, it means
directly from your own pocket. From this raises a question: if you already pay for
school, why should you even donate for its functioning? The answer to that might then
be: if the tuitions are sufficient only for the basic functioning, the donations would be
needed for that "extra" for the development of research, which ultimately contributes to
the quality of the offered programs. If we go one step further in the questions and
answers, we come to the alumni donations, which will make them say; why should I
donate to improve the program, when I've already passed, it will not be of any use to
me... and so on. Let’s return at the international (mainly American) examples and try to
answer this question by drawing a parallel and learning from their experiences. Why
and how international business school alumni donate?

Figure 1: Amount of funds available to "Endowment" funds at individual business school