MBA News: Brendan Baker’s Novel Approach to Financing an MBA

We have to wonder whether MBA candidates will be shaking their heads and guffawing at Brendan Baker or jealously admiring what he is doing? Mr. Baker was admitted to the Said school at Oxford, but, possibly because he has already worked in the field of social entrepreneurship and plans to continue in this field post-MBA, (“I’m not going to be a banker afterwards, so the price tag is prohibitive”) he is short on funds to pay for his education. So, he has gone online via his blog, $3 Buck for Brendan, in order to ask you (that’s right, you!) to help pay for his education. Baker is asking 30,000 strangers to donate three dollars each in order to help finance his education. In exchange, beyondthe social good that he will generate post-MBA, Baker will send a tiny piece of his degree to contributors and is even willing to sell sponsorship of his thesis to an individual or corporation. Does his approach sound crazy? Well, so far, 3,418 donors seem to think that it is a perfectly reasonable approach and have donated $10,256.