From today’s Tuscaloosa News:
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20150919/NEWS/150929992/1291?template=printpicart
Regarding the low graduate school growth problem: I believe a potential “fix” for this is already in place, in that many students who can apply the extra semesters on their scholarships to graduate degrees will consider staying at UA to do so.
My son certainly is considering it.
If they can expand the University Scholars program, they can keep the undergraduate talent they have worked so hard to cultivate at UA in the graduate school.
I agree @Nerdyparent and think the students most likely to benefit from this present imbalance are current undergrads with good stats and resumes that the university might want to entice to remain for grad school (even beyond those who have scholarship monies left over they can use to complete a master’s degree).
What each student will have to decide is if taking a second degree from the same university (which is eyed with skepticism in some fields) is the way to go.
From my experience, getting a grad degree from the same school as one’s undergrad program is not an issue, at least if one is going to transfer to a more prestigious grad program for the PhD. In fact, I was recently in a grad program, and one of the top students attended the same school for undergrad. He did transfer to a more prestigious program, when his adviser left for that same school. His ability to transfer didn’t seem to be hampered by his Masters at his undergrad alma mater.
I wonder if UA could entice a lot of its best students to enroll in UA’s Masters level programs, help them get their masters, and then help them transfer to a more prestigious Grad program, where they can gain a PhD. Having bright grad students on campus for even just two years after their undergrad graduation could help fill lots of assistantships which would help UA profs with their research programs.
Of course, it would be optimal for UA if these students got their PhD at UA, but the brightest students will want to get their terminal PhD degree from a more prestigious grad program. Yet perhaps many of them want an edge over other applicants to top notch PhD progams. So maybe UA Grad school could be a place where a lot of bright students begin to develop a research CV that is enticing to more prestigious PhD programs. Maybe a Masters degree will give these students an edge over simple undergrads in gaining admission to really top notch grad programs.
Simply growing the grad school and improving the ability of profs to conduct research will improve the rep of UA Grad school so that one day, students will want to get their PhD there.
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It is often perceived as a disadvantage to continue your grad school education at your current undergrad institution. This is especially true for certain disciplines. The reasoning is many faceted but one of the primary concerns is exposure to new ideas and different approaches to research. Sometimes, it is too easy to stay in one’s comfort zone instead of moving on. However, there are pros and cons to both approaches.
Perhaps UA should try to bring some of their talented students who have gone on for masters level programs back to their PhD programs. Maybe they need to add some incentives to attending UA as a PhD student.
That’s a significant drop, I’m sure something is driving it, which UA will have to address.
You can’t build your grad school, without adding tenured or tenure-track faculty. UA has been adding adjunct faculty to handle the undergrad growth (which itself is a possible issue, raising the ratio of student to faculty), but it needs tenure faculty (and researchers) to build it’s grad school.
Grad students look for two things, faculty and funding (research support; RA and TA jobs). Provide both and they will come. UA needs to invest in tenured faculty, and then win more R&D funding, which in turn will draw grad students. Of course, that’s a lot easier to say than to do ($$).
FWIW, I looked at the enrollment census for this Fall, relative to last Fall, and see that enrollment in UA’s Engineering Grad programs is still rising, though at a somewhat slow pace. So it is possible that UA has decided to decrease a bit support for non STEM grad programs in preparation for more students enrolling in STEM grad programs. That might explain the significant drop in overall grad enrollment. Maybe UA wants a bigger bank for its graduate school buck.
Depends on what level of grad school education, really. Getting a doctorate from the same place you got your bachelor’s? Yeah, that looks weird. Getting a master’s and bachelor’s from the same place? I’ve never heard any issues with that, either from within academia or from my friends in industry and government.
@dfbdfb, would that also include STEM fields?
Most of the folks I know in industry who I’ve talked about this sort of thing with are in STEM fields (more E than STM, but those too), so yes.
@dfbdfb, very helpful. Thank you!
I’d really like to see UA expand its online graduate degree offerings and seek to become a preferred choice of companies looking to send their employees to graduate school. For example, Boeing will pay for its employees to get Engineering degrees though its Learning Together program. Both the University of Washington, Duke, and Villanova all advertise that they offer online masters degree programs geared towards industry professions. UA is a qualifying institution for the Learning Together program.
I’d really like to see UA partner with other universities for cotutelle or joint degree programs where students attend two different universities to earn their degree(s). The former is still quite rare in the US, but is quite popular in Canada and Europe.
I think the city of Tuscaloosa is helping with this problem:
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/11/taser_video_for_carol_in_tusca.html
If you’re truly concerned, @hpoirot, you should read this:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18941889/#Comment_18941889