SURELY the best way to finance an MBA course is to find someone else to pay for it. Preferably someone who won’t ask for the money back with interest. That someone could be your boss.

Sid Newby, the vice-president for business development for the Nordic and Baltic regions at the Bank of New York in London, has full sponsorship for his executive MBA course at Cass Business School. The route to sponsorship was fairly painless, he says. First he had to gain the support of a senior manager, then put in writing how an MBA would benefit both him and the company. This was followed by an interview with HR. The bank gives him financial help and time off to study; in return Newby has agreed to stay with the company for two years after graduation.

He advises sponsorship seekers to make sure that their company is not just offloading spare budget — it is essential to make sure that MBA funding is part of a career development plan and progression within the firm, he says. “The most important thing is to understand the motivation, level of input and engagement of your employer. You need to be sure that they are not just sponsoring you financially, but also emotionally.”

Chris Jeffery, the director of the executive MBA programme at Cass, estimates that about half of those studying for the executive MBA are sponsored. Sponsorship varies from the full £35,000 cost of the modular two-year course to “a few thousand pounds”.

And it is not just big corporates who are willing to stump up the money to develop their future leaders. “We have seen an increasing number of government organisations and quangos which fully sponsor their high-flyers to attend.”

Jeffery says that the key to securing company sponsorship is the submission of a good business case to your managers. It should outline the benefits of the course for you but, more importantly, list the benefits for the company. Most business schools can help you to put this together.

But before you start looking into the boss’s eyes and seeing pound signs, Jeffery has a few words of advice: “Candidates looking for sponsorship should bear in mind that it is much more important that the company sponsors them in time than money. You can borrow the money, but you can’t borrow the time.”

• Next week: scholarships

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