How to convince boss to subsidise MSc

[TheAntiGrinch]

Hello there!

I've managed to get an unconditional offer for a MSc course in a field related to my career, and am now trying to think of ways to fund it (it would cost £16000 for a 2 year, part-time program).

I've set up a meeting with the CEO this Wednesday to discuss the Masters and try and convince him to part-fund it. I'm just wondering whether you lovely Mumsnetters have any advice for the following:

• Realistically, how much would be the maximum you think I should ask the company to pay towards the Masters
• What arguments/justifications should I put forward
• Any tips on how to be more convincing
• Should I bring any materials with me to the meeting other than the course prospectus?

I'd also be really interested in hearing stories of your own experiences of work-funded Masters. I.e. how you either convinced your employer to fund it, and what tips and tricks you would suggest!

Further details/background information:

• The course would massively help my own career development, and would also directly benefit my team and potentially help us win bids on new projects. So I feel like I would have a good case to get it partly funded by my company.
• The company has just introduced a new Continuing Professional Development initiative, which I'll be using to justify my request for funding.
• I know that my company really want to keep me on (I almost left a few months ago as I had a great job offer from another company, but I ended up staying in exchange for a pay rise and a promotion)
• I have excellent appraisals and feedback from my managers
• At the moment I'm still a junior member of staff and have been working at current company for less than a year.

Sorry for the long post - am just really keen for this to work out!

Depending on the masters subject, it may be funded by the Apprenticeship levy. The Management ones are.

The best way is to highlight the benefits, have all of the facts and course details including the study time it requires, costs, location etc. It may be worth finding 2 or 3 different providers of the course.

A distant learning one vs attending uni each week will differ greatly in cost and time off.

With 12 months service, I would be looking to tie you in to the Company, with a clear progression plan. I would want you to pay back the fee if you left within 2 years too.

Sounds like you have done your research and its a case of showing your passion and interest in progression.

My advice is to write a formal business case, showing

return on investment financials
how much funding you are requesting
highlight your financial contribution
You could find out if there is an annual training budget allocation for each FTE and offset that budget£ against the contribution you're asking them to make, so it becomes a lower amount of funding.

Specify how the qualification is directly linked to your role and the business benefits to be realised by your increased skills.

Do they already have an education policy, if so ensure your proposal links to their policy.

Yes you need a business case. Adding to daisy chain comment, detail how your employer will benefit from you doing the course and how the benefits will be realised in practice. Be specific to show you have thought it out well.

Thank you for all your advice, I really appreciate it.

The downside would be that I'm definitely leaving the country in 2 years time (I'm living outside of the UK at the moment). For context, the average worker only stays in this country/city for around 2 years. However, as a result the business case will be hard to back up - I fully appreciate that an employer would want me to stay after the Masters is completed!

I'll definitely need to think further on tangible ROI for the company. It's a technical Masters, so would be immediately useful to the company skills-wise but is obviously very costly. I'm looking into scholarship and bursary options at the university but ideally would still get it part-subsidised by my employer!

It's a start-up company, so the CPD policy has only just been introduced in the last month and there is no real training or education policy/program in place at present.

All in all probably doesn't sound very likely to be funded but luckily the CEO likes me, so at least I've got that going for me!

Really it comes down to two things: that you convince them that the money they will invest is going to yield a financial benefit to them with you being more skilled. Ironically, you being highly appreciated and valued might go against you as they might decide you are already good enough for what they need, especially since you have been recently promoted.

You also need to convince them that if fits within their corporate strategy so look at their budget and where there is money for them to draw on.

What you need to be careful is not coming across as you are strongly here which is that you only care about getting money from them to benefit you rather than doing if to benefit the company too. The fact youve gone ahead and applied and waited to get an offer before discussing it with them might go against you. Also the fact that you were on your way out and only reason you stayed was due to them giving you more money might doubt your dedication to stay with them (as indeed you are already thinking you'll be out by the time the masters finishes).

Adding to the good advice to make it clear how you’re going to study without it affecting your job. I’d be concerned how you’d manage the two in tandem.

You also need to consider that they might ask you to sign a contract with staged repayments if you leave within a certain period. At 16K it would have a five year claw back period in my industry.

Based on your latest update, your rationale and approach to this sounds disorganised and inconsistent.

If you know you're planning to leave after 2 years, how can you contemplate requesting funding for a 2 year qualification that the company doesn't stand to get back any ROI. They aren't a charity to fund your education.

Believing it will be made easier because the CEO "likes you" is delusional. He wouldn't like you very much if he knew your plans!

Haha some great advice here. Thank you!

So some further background:

• I initially applied for this particular university as my husband was told there was a discount on courses for spouses. However university has since backtracked on that offer. So the initial plan was that I would pay 60% of the course fee and the university would subsidise the rest
• the Masters would immediately help my team and this is something I will emphasise. I'm working as a data analyst but what the team really needs is a second data scientist (this is feedback we keep receiving from the client side and is also holding us back from winning bids). The Masters course would improve my programming and data science skills and would be able to be implemented into my job immediately
• in terms of time management I've essentially done this before! I completed my full-time undergraduate degree whilst working 35 hours a week. Furthermore, all lectures are on evenings and on the weekend so that'll be fine.
• the fact that I'm staying for only 2 years is definitely the biggest sticking point. I'm just hoping that the CEO believes that the benefits I'll bring within those 2 years would justify a stipend of around £6000!

16000 is quite steep for a masters in data science. I don't know where you are in the world but I've just been accepted onto one with a 50% scholarship and it will be costing me £4K. Much more affordable than £16k. Are there any other universities you could apply for that are a bit cheaper?

Good luck

The downside would be that I'm definitely leaving the country in 2 years time

^So you want them to fund you but you are definitely leaving in 2 years?

I think you are being very cheeky and immoral asking for funding.

Immoral! They know that I'm leaving already! Unfortunately in this part of the world that's the minimum for courses. If it was the UK then it would be comparatively cheap as chips!

I've done online courses as well but I need something more structured.

Can't blame a girl for being optimistic

You're in cloud cuckoo land if you think you'll get funded for this. In what world do you live in where you're even contemplating the fact that you might? I've literally got a puzzled look on my face right now. None of your 'justification' is actual justification. Bizarre.

Ha! I'll let you know how the meeting on Wednesday goes

Please do! 😁

So you’ve been there less than a year and have already leveraged an offer from another company into a promotion and pay rise and now you’re going to ask them for another £6k a year to fund a qualification when you’re going to be leaving in two years’ time, ie. at the end of the course ?

Well, good luck is all I can say.

PS. Why not just get a career development loan ?

I have done a vocational undergrad degree, a regular undergrad degree and then the equivalent of a Masters in my industry. I think you are massively underestimating how much work goes into a post-grad qualification compared to an undergrad. Undergrad there is a reasonable amount of independent study, post grad virtually all is independent study. To do it well and work full time you have to make serious compromises to the rest of your life. My DD hates my post-grad qualification she feels it 'stole' her mum for 2years.
I own my own business which funded the post-grad it is only now 2 years after I have completed the qualification that the business is fully benefiting. Whilst I was studying i could implement small bits, but did not have the capacity to apply everything in full.
I am really glad I did it and yes the business has massively benefited, but I accept that it had a massive non-financial 'cost'.

Update:

CEO was really enthusiastic about the MSc and is keen for me to do it (he mentioned that this would complement company's current strategic goals and the type of bids company wants to win in future) and said that the course aligns with the company's CPD initiative.

He said that he'll get back to me next week once he's talked to the other directors, and will let me know how much they can offer and what the terms would be.

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions, CEO said that he could tell that I had really done my homework .

Better watch when the agreement comes with the expectation of you staying with the company 5 years after you've done you ms or all money needs repaying.

What boss would be stupid enough to pay for someone's masters knowing the moment they've graduated, they will be off to better pastures?

He suggested at the meeting that I stay 1 year beyond Masters completion (an additional 8 months after I intended to leave). We will see if that's what he sticks to but looks promising to me!

It's a very different working culture to the UK. Here the employers are desperate to keep employees for more than 1-3 years so this is actually pretty beneficial to the company overall.

Of course it will come down to how much he will agree to contribe, it could be £1,000. It makes no sense to invest much in someone who will only show the benefit of the investment for 12 months.

Ultimately they would be paying for it to benefit a competitor. The whole point of paying for studies is to encourage the person to stay whilst benefiting from their learning.

Forgot to post an update on my situation - in the end I managed to get a 50% discount from the university and my employer is paying the remaining 50% in exchange for me staying at the company for a year after my Masters is finished. I started the course this semester - which is very exciting!

This thread was super useful - lots of good points and arguments outlining why the company would not want to fund my further education, which meant that I could provide some solid pre-emptive counterarguments.

However a few responses weren't really constructive at all (e.g. "What boss would be stupid enough to pay for someone's masters knowing the moment they've graduated, they will be off to better pastures?" or "You're in cloud cuckoo land if you think you'll get funded for this" or "I think you are being very cheeky and immoral asking for funding." ). I wasn't asking "AIBU" so these types of responses felt a bit unwarranted...

But overall, I'm grateful for all the constructive advice I received. I'm very excited about this course and where my career is heading! Thank you!