Investing in the Future

Both Eduardo Sanchez ’07 and Gail O’Neill ’76 trace many of the benefits they’ve enjoyed in life back to their Columbia Business School MBAs. Those perks constitute far more than job opportunities, they say.

It’s about how I view and understand the world,” says Sanchez, who grew up in the South Texas border town of Laredo. “That dovetails into career opportunities, but it goes beyond my career, too.”

These days, both Sanchez and O’Neill are increasingly eager to find ways to extend those benefits to others, which is why they have stepped forward to establish CBS scholarship funds.

Sanchez has established a new scholarship, the Sanchez Family Scholarship Fund, while O’Neill is expanding a fund she previously created—the O’Neill Petals Scholarship Fund. Both alumni are deepening their commitment to supporting future CBS students through these philanthropic efforts.

“I’ve been able to see, over the past 20 years or so, the value that my time at CBS has brought to me in the real world,” Sanchez says. “I would like to make sure other people are afforded the same opportunity.”

During this academic year, more than 15 new scholarship funds have been created, thanks to the generosity of CBS alumni and friends like Sanchez and O’Neill.

The scholarship funds reflect one of Dean Costis Maglaras’ top priorities for the School, which is supporting students by increasing financial aid. After all, he says, the strength of the School is rooted in its people—and an exceptional student body is core to that foundation.

“Scholarships allow us to remain competitive and ensure that the best, most deserving students have access to a top business education, which will put them in the leadership ranks of global businesses,” 

• Dean Costis Maglaras

Acknowledging Real Barriers

While roughly 35 percent of CBS’s MBA students receive some form of institutional funding, the School’s existing financial aid budget reduces its ability to enroll more talented students with financial need. Adjusting for inflation and accounting for the boost in class sizes allowed by the new Manhattanville campus, the School is awarding a smaller share of aid than it did five years ago.

What’s more, the sustained focus on funding the construction of the Manhattanville campus—while well worth the effort and expense—siphoned significant funds that would have otherwise supported student scholarships.

“For the last 15 years, our peers have been building financial aid endowments while we were focused on building Manhattanville,” Maglaras says. “We couldn’t do both at once.”

Maglaras recognizes that for families whose annual incomes fall around the US median—about $80,000—the prospect of committing to $200,000 in loans for business school just doesn’t make sense, regardless of a student’s salary prospects after graduation.

“They won’t do it,” Maglaras says. But as he sees it, that should not mean the door to CBS is closed and locked to these families.

Eduardo Sanchez '07 with his wife, Vanessa

A Wider Range of Solutions

O’Neill shares a deep commitment to expanding access to a CBS education, believing it’s not only vital for students and the School but also essential to society at large. Though she did not receive financial aid herself and used modest student loans, meeting with scholarship recipients has shown her the impact of financial support. Hearing their stories has helped her see firsthand how navigating steep odds to access rarefied educational opportunities can change lives and yield mutual, generative benefits.

She applied to CBS in the 1970s to get an MBA as an indication of interest and intent to enter doors that weren’t always obvious or open to women at the time. She recalls that when she was accepted to CBS, women made up about 30 percent of the class—an unusually high figure for business schools at the time. Upon graduating, she started in consumer banking at Citibank, changed to private banking at Manufacturers Hanover and then spent most of the rest of her career in wealth management at Bank of New York.

O’Neill’s experience, and those of her peers, reinforced her belief that business schools like CBS have a unique role in shaping society.

“I hope business schools will be a source of solutions in the future,” she says. “Business school students need to figure out how to fix things or be part of the path to fixing things. Some things aren’t fixable in the short term, but we can still be solutions-oriented and beacons for others.”

This hope reflects the very reason O’Neill chose to establish a scholarship fund: “It’s a way of attracting the people who have the best shot at getting this done.”

Paying it Forward

Christian Carrion-Vera ’26 is a current CBS student and recipient of the Robert F. Smith ’94 Scholarship. He says the support was essential in reducing both the financial risk and opportunity cost of pursuing his MBA. As a first-generation student and the primary caretaker for his parents, the scholarship gives him confidence that he can meet his family responsibilities after graduation, he says.

“It has also served as a reminder of my responsibility to continue to pay it forward as a member of the Columbia Business School community,” Carrion-Vera says. “I truly feel blessed to have the opportunity to study here and to see a pathway to fields that are rarely attainable by people who grew up with public assistance and through the public education system in the Bronx, and I hope to open doors for others.”

Sanchez echoes the point about responsibility to the CBS community and says the feeling has only grown since his own graduation.

“Going to CBS is not a two-year exercise,” he says. “It’s a lifetime choice.”

Indeed, Sanchez believes that commitment extends well beyond the classroom.

“If one has the ability to help, in any way possible—whether through time volunteering or through other resources—they should,” he notes. “There is a responsibility that comes with checking that box that says, ‘I’m going to CBS.’ That doesn’t expire.”