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Let’s imagine that, after careful research and honest soul-searching, you’ve decided to take an EMBA. You’re a mid-level professional with a full-time job and have been in the market for at least 5 years. You’re aiming for a promotion, or wish to change departments within your company, and feel confident that a knowledge update will help you achieve your goals. On the one hand, you want to study core business skills, develop your personal brand and enlarge your professional network. On the other, you aren’t ready or cannot leave your job. The variety of teaching and learning modalities offered by most EMBAs suits your availability while giving you the kind of academic and social opportunities you’ve been longing for.

Now, let’s imagine your boss agrees with you and offers to sponsor your studies. Maybe there’s an internal professional development program for employees that covers EMBAs. Maybe you’ve impressed HR executives or other relevant decision-makers. The main point is that you need money, and your company is willing to give you some (or all) of it. Sounds great, right? Yet there are some things to consider before simply accepting such a generous offer. This blog post is about the upsides and drawbacks of corporate sponsorship.

Recommended: MBA vs EMBA: choose the one that’s right for you

Why is your company interested in financing your EMBA?

First of all, even a partial investment in your EMBA can be highly profitable for your employer. Before you got that proposal of financial assistance, someone has looked at your resume and at your current responsibilities within the company. That person has calculated how an EMBA may help you do your job saving the company time and money and has done the corporate math (and has factored in the tax deductions available for companies that invest in employee training). Common justifications for corporate sponsorship of EMBAs include eliminating the need to outsource certain tasks (that you’ll be able to take on yourself after the program) or of hiring extra employees. Another possible scenario has to do with talent retention: helping you go back to school is one way of delaying that promotion you want while keeping you tied to the company.

Upsides of corporate sponsorship

The main advantage of corporate sponsorship is job security. Unlike many of your EMBA fellow students, you can get your degree fairly certain that you won’t have to spend a fair amount of time looking for a post-graduation job. In other words, no company invests in an employee to fire him or her after. On the other hand, writing you a cheque is a promise as good as any to respect the time you’ll need to study and carry out your EMBA student duties (avoiding a lot of unnecessary stress). Finally, corporate sponsorship is good for personal morale: if the company didn’t believe in your potential, you wouldn’t have their support.

Recommended: How to approach your employer to finance your MBA

Drawbacks of corporate support

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Many wannabe EMBA students sign corporate sponsorship agreements neglecting to read the fine print and find themselves having to turn down alluring job offers resulting from EMBA networking. This leads to frustration and poor job performance – not to the promotion they’d hoped for. In fact, companies usually require you to commit to them for a period of up to 5 years after the completion of your studies in exchange for their contribution to your tuition fees. What’s more, some companies include promotion-blocking clauses in the sponsorship agreement, and/or clauses that legally prevent you from working for certain firms (mostly competitors) once you leave your current job.

Our advice is simple: negotiate. Adjust the amount of money you accept from the company to the security-mobility balance that suits your ambitions. Good luck!

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