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Paul Blakeslee is married, has four children and works full time as a reactor engineering supervisor at Southern California Edison. He's also getting his MBA at California State University, San Marcos, and his employer is picking up the tab.
"It certainly takes a load off my mind, not having to come up with the extra money to provide for my schooling. It would have been distracting for me to take from my disposable income to go to school, although I still would have done it," says Blakeslee. Normally, Southern California Edison would have provided several thousand dollars a year toward the cost of Blakeslee's education. Instead, he was awarded a $50,000 grant to spend on any business program he wanted.
"And there are no post-MBA conditions associated with it," he says. "My company has simply been very generous."
Blakeslee's good fortune aside, that generosity isn’t as prevalent as it was in the 1970s, says Nancy Rohland, director of enrollment management at National University. But in the last five years, full funding of MBA degrees has become more common for large employers. In San Diego, companies like Qualcomm, BFGoodrich Aerospace Aerostructures and Sony pay full tuition for some of their employees to get master's degrees in business.
"It went from a high in the 1970s and decreased through the 1980s, into the early 1990s, especially in Southern California because of the recession," says Rohland, who has spent 20 years in academic administration. "During tough times, tuition reimbursement is one of the first benefits to go. Most companies don’t eliminate it but reduce the amount they are willing to provide employees. Recently, it’s started to increase. I would say the average now is reimbursement of between $3,000 to $5,000 a year."
The U.S. Department of Education reports the average tuition aid received by U.S. employees in 1995-96 was $2,451. About 16 percent of MBA students that year received tuition help from their employers. Of the graduate students who received aid, 14.2 percent were studying business or management; all other fields of study — such as engineering, life sciences or computer science — attracted less than 7 percent of students.
Much depends on where a company is headquartered. Candace Williams, head of SDSU's executive MBA program, says the tendency is for corporate headquarters to provide more tuition reimbursement than division offices. "Some of these positive corporate policies, such as tuition reimbursement, might not even exist at the division level. In any given year here up to 80 percent of our students are receiving some assistance from their employers. I'd say — and this is a ballpark average — up to 20 percent over the years have had full tuition support," she says.
 Among programs, however, that number varies. At United States International University, about 8 percent to 10 percent of graduate business students receive employer reimbursement for all or most of their tuition. The university has a 25 percent matching program in place, so the most a company has to contribute to fully fund an employee's education is 75 percent.
At the University of California, Irvine, 54 MBA students — out of a class of 580 — are being reimbursed 100 percent of tuition by their employers. But most area colleges don’t track tuition reimbursement information, deeming it confidential.
National University's Rohland says in the '80s she saw students getting their MBAs at their company’s expense and then leaving for another job. "Now companies spread out the benefit in part for employee retention. But I have to say in the last five years I haven't heard retention named as a problem. That doesn’t seem to be the issue now. I think there is a lot of loyalty on the part of employees to their employers. They want the organization to feel the benefit of its investment," she says.
Christine Probett, director of business acquisition at BFGoodrich Aerospace Aerostructures Group (formerly Rohr Inc.), graduated from SDSU's executive MBA program in 1997. BFGoodrich paid the tab. As for the loyalty it might have inspired in her, Probett says she was loyal to the company even before the tuition benefit was granted. "Of the three of us who went through the program, each of us was offered broader opportunities and for two of us, we received promotions," she says.
Probett says the program gave her and her fellow students exposure and visibility they might not otherwise have had. "Just to get into the program we were screened by upper management and received periodic reviews throughout. We selected as our final project an issue at the company that needed to be researched and resolved. Because of that we had a lot of contact with senior management, working on a list of problems and making recommendations," she says. "We were able to make a meaningful contribution back to the company in return for what they gave us. It was good for the company and for ourselves — a true 'win-win' experience."
Ricardo Alvarez, a product manager at Boeing in Irvine, is two years into his three-year MBA program, which Boeing is funding. "They didn’t ask for a commitment from me afterwards, but I think it will increase my loyalty to the company anyway. I really do appreciate the fact that they are paying for this and that they think education is important. And there is definitely a commitment aspect for me because they are paying for it," he says.
Alvarez says it’s a positive investment for the company in other ways. "I’m already finding that much of what I’m learning is relevant to my area. I can apply it here. And that means the company gets something out of this program too."
Qualcomm offers its employees an on-site, fully funded, executive MBA program in conjunction with San Diego State University. Classes take place twice a month, on Fridays and Saturdays, and Qualcomm gives employees time off to attend while still paying their full salaries. The company also reimburses up to $5,250 per year for programs at other educational institutions, as long as the degree is job-related and the employee earns a grade of B or better.
 It’s not just private industry that sees the recruitment value in tuition reimbursement. Haywood Moore, senior human resources analyst at the San Diego County Water Authority, says for the last three years the authority has reimbursed up to $4,000 a year for education related to an employee's job, much of that toward MBA degree programs.
"We reimburse 100 percent up to $2,500 and 50 percent from that point up until $4,000. It’s a big selling point for us," says Moore. "We had one candidate that had three years of college and wanted to finish and go to grad school. He also had a wealth of experience. The tuition benefit in that case was a very effective recruitment tool. We ask for a one- or two-year commitment afterwards, which protects our interests."
Donna Fremed, director of global human resource development at Sony, says the MBA tuition reimbursement program there is still in its informal stage and employees are given the go-ahead to attend graduate school on a case-by-case basis. Sony recently announced it will partner with UCLA to educate its top employees, grooming them to be the company’s future technical leaders.
"Some recent statistics say that one-fifth of the country's largest companies will be losing 40 percent of their top level talent in the next five years," says Fremed. "There is a shortage of qualified replacements. Sony decided to grow their own leaders, rather than bringing in people from outside the company."
Sony is handpicking employees it deems appropriate to be technical leaders in a rapidly changing technological environment. A few Sony middle managers worldwide will come to Los Angeles for a year to obtain master's degrees in Management from UCLA. All students have to meet UCLA's MBA entrance requirements, which include taking the GMAT exam. The program launched in September; one San Diegan was a member of the inaugural class.
Although education is something many companies are committed to, the price of investing in one's own is high. "For Sony, the cost is equivalent to one year of an MBA degree at a top 10 school for each student," says fremed, although the company doesn’t see it as a true expenditure. "Sony is investing in these people so they will stay and grow with the organization."
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