Fuqua is giving back to active-duty U.S. servicemen and women who have served their country in war and otherwise.
Since 2004, the Fuqua School of Business has partnered with the United States Military Academy at West Point to provide top military officers an opportunity to attend business school at no cost to the individual. Officers with the highest performance and leadership capabilities are selected by West Point to attend MBA and other degree programs nationwide, conditional on further military service after graduation. Nomination by West Point does not guarantee the soldiers’ acceptance into the business school of their choice.
Fuqua’s participation in the partnership echoes a growing trend of military officers seeking an MBA education programs with the intention of staying in active duty.
“All of the candidates accepted through the program served as distinguished company commanders who have served in the U.S. Army,” said Liz Hargrove, associate dean for admissions at Fuqua. “This is a mutually beneficial partnership enabling the USMA the ability to send up to two officers per year to learn at one of the world’s top business schools.”
The typical MBA class consists of 442 students, according to Fuqua’s website.
If accepted into Fuqua, the soldiers’ cost of attendance is shared by the U.S. government and Duke University, Hargrove noted. The post-9/11 GI bill allows anyone who has served in combat to receive financial support in attaining an undergraduate or graduate degree. The government has a cap on the amount of money it will provide for educating soldiers, but colleges and universities have the opportunity to reduce the amount of debt a veteran will incur in obtaining a degree. The program with West Point is an arrangement separate from other scholarships Duke offers military personnel.
Maj. Neil Hollenbeck, a second-year MBA candidate at Fuqua, is one of the students admitted through the arrangement with West Point. Hollenbeck said most business schools value the applicants’ military experience.
“Most business programs value military experience,” he wrote in an email Tuesday.
Schools such as the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College have similar programs with U.S. service academies, including West Point and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
After graduation, Hollenbeck plans to be an academic instructor in the Department of Behavioral Science and Leadership at West Point. Most Fuqua students with military background have left the military and are entering civilian careers after graduation.
Capt. Jacqueline Harris is a first-year MBA candidate at Fuqua who also was admitted through the program. Harris, who completed her undergraduate studies at Wake Forest University in 2005, was stationed in Missouri and at Fort Hood before she was deployed three times overseas: twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. She noted the parallels between the way business is conducted and the way the military operates.
“For me, it was an easy translation to move from the Army—where it is all about teamwork—to Fuqua, where teams are important,” said Harris, who will teach at the Department of Systems Engineering at West Point after graduation.
Attending Fuqua, she said, provides the unique opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and the various branches of the military—something usually impossible given her rank.
“A lot of the knowledge will help me when I continue [serving] outside of the classroom,” Harris said.
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