The future of graduate school

<p>Recent talk in the federal budget debate makes me wonder what the future holds for our kids that want to go to graduate school (not professional schools like law, biz or med). Will they be able to get into a PhD program? More importantly, will they be able to afford it?</p>

<p>Certainly, our kids that get into the elite programs will probably be funded. But that’s not most of them. Most will get offers from state universities, like I did, where they finance their way with a combination of teaching assistantships, research assistantships and federal loans.</p>

<p>Now, look at state universities across the country: increasing class sizes; cutting faculty; teaching fewer courses. Will there be more TAs (cheap labor?) or fewer? </p>

<p>Next, look at federal funding: no more subsidized loans for grad students; reduced research funding leading to fewer research assistants.</p>

<p>Are we heading to a time where only the truly brilliant or wealthy will be able to afford graduate school?</p>

<p>Your thoughts?</p>

<p>The increased demand for higher level education combined with cuts to federal/state educational subsidies is driving the price for graduate school up. It’s the same situation with undergraduate education, but with graduate school you’re dealing with a much smaller sampling of people. (So you get less fees and less money)</p>

<p>I tend to agree with you that the situation is just going to get worse over time.</p>

<p>If anything, we are in an ever-expanding educational bubble. Just a matter of time before it pops.</p>

<p>I worked at a state U where MANY students borrowed more than the $20,500/year Stafford limit to finance their degrees. They did not receive any funding, and they did not have jobs. They just went to school, borrowing for tuition and living expenses. The ones that floored me were the MSW students … a large number borrowed as much as they could possibly borrow, putting in budget adjustment requests to squeeze out as much COA as they could & borrowing grad PLUS loans in addition to the Stafford loans. I would often ask them if they understood what their repayment amounts would be, as well as what their earnings might be. Too many had their heads in the sand. I do understand wanting to get that degree, but it has to be tempered with an awareness of what borrowing large sums of money means in reality.</p>

<p>As long as there are students who think a masters in something-or-another guarantees a high paying job, there will be students who borrow too much for their degrees.</p>

<p>The days of easy, endless, taxpayer supported credit are behind us. The education market will adjust. It will take a little time to shake out, but there will be discounted graduate degree programs and fewer bells and whistles. The current crop of Phds are having a hard time finding good positions.</p>

<p>The US is producing far too many PhDs in non-technical fields and far too many lawyers from mediocre law schools. While I am not happy with the cuts in graduate and professional school loan subsidies that will go into effect next school year, they may have a cleansing effect in getting people to reconsider how they spend those years.</p>

<p>In many cases graduate school is not about making more money, it’s about learning more because it satisfies your curiosity or expands your knowledge… </p>

<p>As for not enough TA’s coming in, there’s a near infinite supply of foreign students that would LOVE to do the job…</p>

<p>agree with #5…</p>

<h1>5 raises an interesting question: Do we produce too many PhDs? (I’ll leave the lawyer issue to another discussion, especially because the popular press, like NYT, is on to the issue).</h1>

<p>I guess the answer depends on what you view as the purpose of PhD training. Certainly the traditional wisdom is that unless a PhD takes a higher ed teaching position, the training was a waste. Not sure that’s entirely true, given how few do get such positions (and certainly entrants are aware of the odds?), yet continue to seek the degrees. </p>

<h1>5 implies that the sciences are different. Are they?</h1>

<p>Finally, I note that in the bill that passed the house yesterday, one of the few cuts specified was for graduate student loans. What does that tell us about congressional support for graduate education?</p>

<p>I do think that graduate school will be limited if one is not from a wealthy family and not fortunate enough to land a funded program based upon student talent.</p>

<p>Years ago, I was aware of a situation where someone working for our school district attended law school (reimbursed as part of some continuing ed program for teachers). I don’t think that has been possible in our district for years, but 20 years ago it was possible. After she graduated from law school, she left teaching in our district. She was not required to limit her graduate courses to those in the education field!</p>

<p>I know someone else who was financing law school by taking a couple classes while working a full time job at a hospital. The hospital was reimbursing 85% of the cost as long as the employee got a B or higher. That was about 10 years ago. I wonder if that perk is still around.</p>

<p>I know someone else who was paying for their undergraduate degree 20 years ago by working PT as a butcher for a supermarket and taking classes. They also had the same 85% reimbursement rate for a B or better. I have not heard of similar stories in recent years.</p>

<p>I can’t see why we need all those Ph.Ds in technical fields when we can get all we want, often with better training, from India.</p>

<p>What we need is more Wal-Mart workers, and that’s what the bill reflects.</p>

<p>Son spoke to one of his favorite professors (state school) last week about the undergrad intro course for his major. Two sections are way oversubscribed - the third section may be too so he said that he’s going to add another section. He will need four TAs. Son is trying to decide on whether to do TA this fall. He already has a RA position lined up. The enrollments at the school for this major are way up from when son originally started.</p>

<p>So yes, more demand for state schools in undergrad leading to more overloaded professors and more TAs. The professor is outstanding but waiting in line outside his office for an hour after class to speak with him can be a bit much.</p>

<p>I do feel that there’s plenty of demand for tech people with Phds and Masters Degrees. In many cases, the undergraduate degree doesn’t cover that much (perhaps due to the larger load of non-major courses) in the way of specialty areas and you can get better coverage with advanced degrees. Some companies will train employees but more and more want you to get the additional stuff yourself.</p>

<p>I do think that it’s possible to be the “poor graduate student” doing TA/RA or both and getting through on the cheap. I see many such students around my son’s campus. They’re in apartments with four people in a two-bedroom - they get back to their apartments pretty late at night after long hours during the day and night. Many are Indian and Chinese and perhaps they are immigrants.</p>

<p>Big difference from spending $20, $30, $40 thousand (or more) a year funded by parents, relatives or loans. My graduate degree was funded by the companies that I worked for - and this is still a benefit at many companies and I think that there are some tax breaks for those companies.</p>

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<p>They have limits on how many they can produce. Most of our recent Phd hires are Chinese nationals that went to school in the US.</p>

<p>I’ve read some things indicating that Ph.Ds in the hard sciences are having as much difficulty landing jobs as everyone else. Many get caught in a revolving door of post-doc placements, never getting a “real” job.</p>

<p>I’m very disappointed by these cuts in general, but at the same time, I’m just not sure it makes sense to have this many people flocking to graduate programs. Especially nowadays I see its morphing into another industry, much like the undergraduate one…freshmen, sometimes highschoolers, already trying to game their resume for ‘graduate school’ which is utterly absurd. For the most part, these are research oriented degrees, training one to be a researcher in a particular area, not just another badge to collect for your resume (in the ‘more is better’ category of thinking) or something to do while you think about unemployment. </p>

<p>Only a small subset of students are going to have the inclination and passion for research- something one can only realize well into their first degree. And only a subset of schools are even offering enough to students to suggest even a hint of a possibility of a career afterwards. Nevertheless more than enough students go into graduate school for all the wrong reasons (often because they can’t think of what else to do or think it will help their resume, not because they are interested in research), and too many graduate schools are thrilled to accommodate them as extremely exploited cheap labor. It has been, for a long time, a very bad situation.</p>

<p>Our kids might go down this path, as their parents have done, but I would strongly discourage it unless they were strong enough to get into a strong school (ie. one that provides enough funding that does not require loans). Anything less is not a good use of one’s time. There is nothing wrong with doing RA/TA ships- that is usually par for the course at even the best universities (though this only makes sense if RAships involve authorship roles, and TAships are not so demanding that one’s graduation is delayed). That way its developmental and not just exploitative. I’d look carefully at how long it takes students to emerge from the programs and what kind of jobs they are getting afterwards.</p>

<p>Most of the explosion in grad school enrollments is due to the war in Viet Nam and the increase in demand for educational deferments. So let’s not pretend that all these programs and random Master’s degrees were started because society all of a sudden woke up and realized the need for more post-grad training in French Literature or Gender Studies.</p>

<p>These programs took off in our lifetime- and perhaps will be curtailed in our lifetime; and it’s probably a market correction 10 years too late.</p>

<p>I know kids who are applying for Master’s degrees as an avoidance technique- don’t want to be “underemployed” with just a BA, so they figure they’ll hide out in grad school for a while. They don’t think it will hurt even more to be underemployed with a Master’s degree? And more debt?</p>

<p>I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a situation where the cream of the crop gets funded- and everyone else finds something else to do with their lives. Do you really want to encourage your kid to rack up debt getting a PhD in a field where their prospects of employment are nil?</p>

<p>I just interviewed a guy who is ABD in an obscure field from an institution that at best is third tier. Now he wants to work in corporate America as… well, as anything. How has his 4 year rotation through a middling PhD program helped him? And what were his parents thinking?</p>

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<p>If you believe “The PhD Factory” article in Nature, the answers are yes and no (although STEM PhD studies tend to be funded so that the students typically are not accumulating additional debt for them).</p>

<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html]Home”>Education: The PhD factory | Nature]Home</a> : Nature News<a href=“article%20behind%20pay%20wall%20now;%20if%20%5Bi%5DNature%5B/i%5D%20is%20in%20your%20local%20library,%20look%20for%20it%20there%20(April%2020,%202011)”>/url</a>.</p>

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<p>Sometimes, people go to graduate school because the alternative is the unemployment line, at least during recessions. Graduate school matriculation for 2009-2010 civil engineering graduates appears to be significantly higher than for civil engineering graduates in previous years, for example.</p>

<p>blossom,</p>

<p>What makes you think the parents had any influence on their kid who is ABD in an obscure field and now unemployed? When I applied to grad school, my parents had no say, maybe because they contributed nothing to the cost. Of course I was an adult in my twenties. </p>

<p>But let’s turn the question around: How many parents received PhD from 2nd or 3rd tier institutions and regret it? Mine was from what many would consider second tier, and I certainly don’t regret it. I did not pursue research after finishing, but have made excellent use of the training in the biz world. </p>

<p>Would this work for humanities, though? Would the training be of value? I have no idea</p>

<p>^great question. So hard to extrapolate from singular experiences when so much variety in terms of graduate programs and future careers. I also think its healthy to have no regret and see benefits in paths we take (even if not objectively warranted), especially when we can’t readily evaluate and compare to the path we didn’t take. </p>

<p>I did a PhD in the top school in my field, fantastic funding, and only four years and secured top tenure track post…but it was so gruelling I can’t imagine I’d have felt it worth it without the career it gave me. Sure I’m very happy after the fact- love my career- but when I imagine my kids hypothetically taking the exact same path and outcome, I’m not sure I would want them to.</p>

<p>In any field, you should NEVER do a PhD if it’s not funded. Period. Even in state schools you can get funding through RA work. Also, check the tenure-track placements of the program you are applying to. If the last PhD they placed graduated in 1978 don’t waste your application fee. That was the case even before the crisis. </p>

<p>The reason professional masters programs are usually not funded is that they expect you to make big bucks after, that is not the case with research and academia which is why funding is important.</p>

<p>Also, there is a shortage of American PhDs also in non STEM fields. In the school I received my PhD (tier 1) their Economics department hasn’t had an American student in 3 years, and the Political Science department usually gets one a year (and both programs are ranked in the top 15 in the country, but are quantitatively oriented). </p>

<p>I think Law School and MBAs are more attractive to American students because they last less time and you make more $$$, and it used to be the case, but not anymore, that you could easily find a job. Given this change, I think there might be a decline in the number of law school applicants in the future.</p>