One of these two numbers is a single fixed figure quoted on an admissions page. The other isn’t really a number at all until a candidate works out which of more than a dozen named scholarships they might actually qualify for. That difference alone says something about who each programme expects to be paying the bill.
The Fixed Number on the Executive MBA’s Admissions Page
Executive MBA fees for the Nanyang programme come to S$131,040 before GST, roughly S$143,114 once GST is added. That figure is paid in stages rather than all at once: a non-refundable S$21,800 enrolment fee on acceptance, then three further instalments through the programme’s first year.
- Covered by the fee: tuition, most teaching materials, meals during class sessions
- Not covered: accommodation, flights, or other travel costs for the overseas segments
- Extra budget typically needed: roughly S$12,000-S$15,000 for the UC Berkeley segment, S$5,000-S$8,000 for the Tsinghua segment
Add the overseas travel estimates to the base fee and the realistic total for a candidate handling everything personally sits noticeably above the headline S$143,114 figure.
Why This Fee Structure Assumes a Self-Funding Candidate
Nothing on the Executive MBA’s own admissions material points toward a scholarship programme, and that absence fits the profile the course is built for. A candidate with ten or more years of experience, several of them in senior leadership, is far more likely to be funded by an employer investing in a current executive, or paying the fee outright from personal savings, than to be seeking financial aid the way an early-career applicant might. The fee is quoted as a fixed cost because the audience it’s quoted to generally isn’t shopping around for a discount.
A Very Different List for the Full-Time Programme
Checking MBA scholarships in Singapore for the full-time Nanyang MBA turns up a genuinely long list, well over a dozen named awards, each aimed at a different kind of candidate rather than one generic pool of financial aid. A few examples show how specific the targeting gets:
| Scholarship | Who it’s for | Coverage |
| ASEAN Scholarship | ASEAN nationals (excluding Singapore) | Full tuition, monthly stipend, no bond |
| APEC Scholarship | APEC member nationals (excluding Singapore) | Full tuition, stipend, travel, insurance |
| SME Leader | Employed by a Singapore-defined SME | Partial |
| Women in Business | Women showing leadership potential | Partial |
Beyond these, the list runs further still: a Sustainability Leader award, a GLC Scholar award for government-linked-company employees, and regionally focused scholarships for African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and EU candidates, among others. Most of the awards listed cover only part of the tuition, but the ASEAN and APEC scholarships stand out for covering the full fee plus a monthly stipend, with no bond attached afterwards.
A Younger, More Varied Pool Behind the Long List
A two-year minimum experience requirement pulls in a much younger, more varied applicant pool than the Executive MBA does, and a varied pool is exactly what a long, narrowly targeted scholarship list is built to serve. Rather than one broad need-based award trying to cover every kind of applicant, the school has built separate scholarships around separate applicant profiles, nationality, sector, gender, sustainability focus, so that a much larger share of a diverse cohort has something realistic to apply for. External scholarships add a further layer on top, including regional awards like the K.N. Sellappah Memorial and globally open ones like the QS Leadership and QS Community scholarships, none of which are administered by the school itself.
That’s also why the full-time MBA’s real out-of-pocket cost is so much harder to state as one number. Two candidates admitted into the same cohort could end up paying entirely different net amounts, depending on which of these overlapping categories they happen to fit.
It’s worth checking eligibility early rather than late. Most of the scholarships listed above share a 30 March deadline, which sits well ahead of the final application round for the programme itself, so a candidate who waits until the last admissions round to look into funding may find the scholarship window has already closed even though the application itself hasn’t.
To find out which funding route applies to a specific situation, whether that’s an Executive MBA budget or a full-time MBA scholarship category, Contact Nanyang Technological University and speak with the admissions team directly.
