Employer assistance for PhD tuition

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by searchingforPhD, Jan 13, 2006.

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  1. searchingforPhD

    searchingforPhD New Member

    Hi everyone,
    My employer has a generous tuition reimbursement program. Many employees take advantage of it at the bachelors and masters level. I did it also myself for my masters.
    I have now started my PhD studies and apparently I am the first in my company to do so.
    My manager is not happy to approve the payment (I guess it comes from his budget) and he wants me to justify why it is worth it for the company.
    Besides the personal financial benefits I feel obligated to all the future employees who will go down this path because as we all know precedence is above the written word!
    Can anyone help me in justifying a PhD in Business Administration? Anyone wants to share the policy at your company?
    Thanks!
    Searching for PhD :)
     
  2. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Actually, you might want to justify it in terms of the financial benefits to the corporation. Are there any articles in various miscellaneous and sundry obscure journals in the field of business that would indicate whether SOMEONE WITH A DOCTORATE IN BUSINESS would be more productive than, more capable than, or more able to generate a bigger return for the company than, A MERE MBA?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 13, 2006
  3. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Will your PhD deepen the competencies you already established at the MBA level? Will your PhD help you establish competencies in additional sub-disciplines of the business field? Is there a particular business area that your company needs an expert in that you would be willing to declare as one of your doctoral level competencies? For example, if your company needed to start a new division or a new subsidiary, could you take some entrepreneurship classes? Etc.?
     
  4. AuditGuy

    AuditGuy Member

    Can you tie a major assignment or even your dissertation to a project that would benefit the company?


    I did my thesis for my company and we both were happy.
     
  5. Shawn Ambrose

    Shawn Ambrose New Member

    I will echo the thought that if you write your dissertation on an issue within the company that might make a difference.
     
  6. PhD2B

    PhD2B Dazed and Confused

    Some time ago I recall Rich Douglas [or at least I think it was Rich] saying something to the effect of how he could charge clients more as result of having a doctorate. This could be a viable approach to justifying having your employer pay for your doctorate.

    Maybe Rich can recall the thread or elaborate on why he can charge clients more. Rich...
     
  7. blahetka

    blahetka New Member

    Well, if you want precedence, I had 2 companies that helped pay for the coursework for my doctorate. however, mine wad a DBA, not a PhD. I had an easier time with it because a DBA is a pratitioner doctorate, not an academic one.

    While I echo what the other posters stated, I would suggest you look for some concrete ways your studies will assist the company and then sell your heart out. Yes, in many companies, though tuition reimbursement is a company program, it is administered and budgeted at the local manager level. Therefore, you need to convince yourmanager it would be a good idea to invest in you.

    For example, in one situation I was able to build some good operations measures and statistics for the department I ran. We were usually within 1% of predicted workload. The only exception was 9/11, and then after a mid-month reset we were within 5% of predictions and then back to our usual 1%. Sales would give us a forecast, and I could predict headcount requirements. We had a visit from a sales rep that wanted to sell us a package for workload prediction. After his spiel, we showed him what we did, and he left shaking his head muttering his company could learn from us.

    Another example was the work we did to justify an automated call center application. We had to compete with other departments for some pretty scarce money. I had my team do some research, along with some testing, we put together the proposal, and at the steering committee meeting we got the funding. My exec looked like a star and the department was held as an example. Do you think he had reservations signing a tuition reimbursement form?
     

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