It’s conventional wisdom that when the economy is bad, college enrollments are up. Yglesias recommends that 2008-2009 college grads, unable to find employment*, should go to grad school.
Bad idea. There are two kinds of graduate school.
- Kinds you pay for. Law, MBA, most master’s programs. Professional degrees.
- Kinds you don’t. Ph.D. programs.
There are some cross-overs, but I will ignore them. (If you’re getting a scholarship to Columbia law, odds are you didn’t just decide to study law because the economy was bad.)
In the first category, one does a short (two-three year) program, incurs a soul-crushing amount of debt, and then has a degree which arguably makes one more employable. As Neddy is fond of saying, “J.D. is not Latin for ‘meal ticket'”, and it’s entirely possible that one’s employment prospects are just the same two-three years down the road, except now one has even more loan payments.
It’s also not clear how long this economic downturn is going to last. It would suck if one found an expensive place to hide for two years only to learn in 2011 that 2008 was really thought of as the last good year….
In the second category, ugh, please don’t. A Ph.D. program is a multi-year commitment. And while there’s no reason to be ashamed of beginning a Ph.D. program and leaving having discovered you don’t want to do it, there should be something wrong with starting a Ph.D. program (and eating up funding**) in bad faith.
More to the point, a Ph.D. program is not just like undergrad. Undergrads never believe this. There’s a world of difference between liking history or English and being good enough at it to produce it. It can be very rewarding, but it’s essentially a low-paying job that no one thinks is a job (“Are you still in school? When are you joining the real world?”)
I would recommend to anyone considering graduate school, especially in the humanities, that they work a year or two first. One of two things will happen: you’ll realize that you only wanted to go to graduate school because you were comfortable with being good at school, and, look at that! You’ll have a career! Or, you’ll realize that you really did have a love for the subject, and you have interesting things to say about it. In which case, you’ll go into graduate school with a clearer idea of why you’re there, and with a little more cash in your pocket.
But this is not meant to be a system to babysit you because no one handed you an i-banking check upon graduation.
*This is advice targeted at elite college grads whose trouble seems to be not that they can’t find any job, but that they can’t find the kind of job that they’d expect to get. We’re not talking laid-off-from-the-Chrysler-plant territory here at all.
**No loans for a Ph.D. Don’t even consider it anything that isn’t saying full-tuition, and some sort of fellowship/teaching income. The market is just too bad, and the job doesn’t pay enough, for hundreds of thousands in loans to be a good risk.
The Edge of the American West 
24 comments
January 9, 2009 at 8:47 am
Crazy Little Thing
Good points, all. I’d like to add: there’s no guarantee that even if you love what you’re going to a Ph.D. program for that your love won’t diminish over the four to seven years you’re there.
And: you’re entering a flooded job market. This job market was flooded well before the economic downturn, and signs are that it won’t be getting better anytime soon.
And: most fellowships aren’t updated frequently enough for cost-of-living increases, so you’ll likely have to take several other jobs over the course of your Ph.D. experience, jobs that aren’t commensurate with your experience.
And: ad infinitum. (NB: I’m a relatively happy Ph.D. student working on his dissertation.)
January 9, 2009 at 8:58 am
Shorter dana. « The Edge of the American West
[…] 9, 2009 in history and current events | by eric Should I go to grad. school because of the […]
January 9, 2009 at 9:01 am
N. Merrill
Hmm, another point to make, in addition to yours: people often go in to the PhD program thinking, oh, why not, but they fail to account for the increased psychological difficulty of leaving as time goes on. Partly it’s because you’re poor, which makes the insecurity of departing worse, and partly it’s because the “leaving is failure” mindset rubs off, and partly you’ve just gotten used to it…so there’s a danger about future preferences here.
January 9, 2009 at 9:02 am
Vance
Rubs off, that is, onto you, rather than off you. (At least that was my experience.)
January 9, 2009 at 9:03 am
eric
the increased psychological difficulty of leaving as time goes on
Burke is good on this point.
January 9, 2009 at 9:05 am
dana
And, of course, Neddy, you might just find that you go to grad school to avoid the economic downturn, and finish your degree at the beginning of the next one. And wouldn’t that suck?
January 9, 2009 at 9:29 am
spence-bob
Good points, all. I’d like to add: there’s no guarantee that even if you love what you’re going to a Ph.D. program for that your love won’t diminish over the four to seven years you’re there.
That’s exactly what happened to me. It’s a tough situation when that happens, and I’ve seen friends of mine get very depressed by it.
January 9, 2009 at 10:52 am
Josh
I would recommend to anyone considering graduate school, especially in the humanities, that they work a year or two first. One of two things will happen
There’s actually a third option that you didn’t take into account: you’ll realize that while you’d still really like to grad school, the job market for Ph.D.’s is miserable enough that it doesn’t make sense for you, and while you may end up finding a career that works out for you there will always be a sense that you really *should* have gone to grad school. This third option usually results in making vaguely self-pitying comments on academic blogs.
January 9, 2009 at 10:54 am
Megan
I am no fan of grad school, but I will say that the two years I spent getting an engineering masters are my security for the rest of my life, especially because I did a specialized type of engineering. Then and now there are far more jobs in ag engineering then there are graduates in ag engineering.
My Ph.D. program was a disappointment and I’ve never used the law degree, but when I wonder how I’ll make it if the depression gets so bad that the state lays off workers, I am always confident that there will be ag engineering work.
If you want grad school to improve your chances of employment, an engineering masters in something people need will do that.
January 9, 2009 at 11:15 am
Theodore Scott
There are graduate programs out there that don’t incur “a soul-crushing amount of debt”.
It pays to look abroad. There are complications, but it can be much cheaper if you are careful.
Over on Matador Abroad there is a short article profiling several cheap places to get a graduate degree.
http://matadorabroad.com/7-countries-where-graduate-school-is-a-fraction-of-us-costs/
January 9, 2009 at 11:21 am
marshall
You’re making assumptions both about the area within which you choose to pursue a Ph.D–and consequently the skills you learn–and the type of career you pursue after you complete the program. While certainly your nostrum applies for those who are inflexibly committed to a job in academia, and who perhaps pursued a Ph.D. in the Humanities, graduates from the social or applied sciences interested in a non-academic career confront a more inviting job market than others. Although I don’t, on a daily basis, use the narrow theoretical knowledge I accumulated in graduate school to solve problems or puzzles, I do use the broader, less specialized tools–analytical, statistical, etc.–I learned in graduate school and apply them in a work environment that I would not have enjoyed had I not pursued a Ph.D. In this sense, I do think the Ph.D., while grueling, can substantially improve career prospects, if not broaden them.
January 9, 2009 at 11:36 am
Sifu Tweety
I am no fan of grad school, but I will say that the two years I spent getting an engineering masters are my security for the rest of my life, especially because I did a specialized type of engineering.
While certainly your nostrum applies for those who are inflexibly committed to a job in academia, and who perhaps pursued a Ph.D. in the Humanities, graduates from the social or applied sciences interested in a non-academic career confront a more inviting job market than others.
Indeed, applied sciences and engineering always seem to get left out of the mix in these sorts of calculations. Getting a JD is no guarantee of good employment, but getting a Masters in mechanical engineering may be a rather different story.
January 9, 2009 at 11:51 am
teofilo
This discussion crops up a lot on academic blogs, particularly those focused on the humanities, and when it does it generally seems to be understood that in this context “should I go to grad school?” means “should I enter a PhD program in the humanities?” As multiple people have now pointed out, the situation is completely different in the sciences, and even more so in the applied sciences, where “grad school” is a quite different experience, and one that often provides practical, technical skills (or at least a credential indicating the presence of those skills to potential employers) that can indeed make it a good idea careerwise.
Given that context, I agree totally with Dana’s post. Since I am in fact applying to grad school, however, I feel like I should add further context and flesh out the varieties of “grad school” a little more.
The field in which I’m applying, urban planning, is somewhere in between the two types of grad school programs Dana identifies. It’s a profession, and the degree is a two-year professional master’s degree, but it’s a profession that doesn’t pay very well, so the amount of debt expected is considerably lower than in, say, law school. It’s still not quite like a PhD program, however, so while there is often quite a bit of funding available, and programs tend to offer their students as much as they can, a lot of people do end up taking out loans which take a long time to pay off. This may make it seem like a particularly bad type of graduate program to attend, especially right now, but I think I have sufficient fallback options that I can just not go if I don’t get enough funding.
I’ve been out of school for a couple of years and had time to think this over, and I feel a lot more certain of what I want to do that I did right out of college. Nothing is a complete certainty, of course, and an economy like this makes things even less predictable, but I think I’m doing the right thing. Time will tell.
January 9, 2009 at 12:57 pm
andrew
It seems pretty clear to me that to get the kind of job I want in the future, I’m much better off having an MLS. And I’d be applying for MLS programs this year regardless of the economic situation (unless I were already in the process of making a lot of money in a job I wanted to keep).
January 9, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Bitchphd
The other irritating thing about the “to back to school” advice is that everyone is *cutting enrollments.* None of the people saying “to back to school” ever seems to acknowledge this or think about what it means.
January 9, 2009 at 1:33 pm
andrew
I’ve gotten the impression that some of these Masters programs are real moneymakers (partly because it’s funding, not enrollment that’s getting reduced).
January 9, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
To make a boring observation partly contained in *, how good “Go to grad school” is as a bit of advice will depend on your other options.
In these times, I’d probably encourage people to apply to more graduate programs than I would at other times. Sure, your chances of being accepted are worse due to enrollment cuts, but since there’s a much greater risk of not getting any other job, you should apply more broadly. Studying something you find interesting for two years, breaking even financially, and walking away with a useless Masters may be superior to your other options.
January 9, 2009 at 2:51 pm
dana
I was focusing on the humanities, and you’re right to call me on it. But in my defense, Yglesias’ post about people who don’t know what to do and are considering law school because they can’t get a good job tend *not* to be the hard science people or the engineers, who have somewhat better career prospects both with the B.S. and the Ph.D. So I left them out.
I’ve gotten the impression that some of these Masters programs are real moneymakers (partly because it’s funding, not enrollment that’s getting reduced).
Mmmhmmm.
January 9, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Brad
I’ve gotten the impression that some of these Masters programs are real moneymakers (partly because it’s funding, not enrollment that’s getting reduced).
Mmmhmmm.
At my PhD granting institution, I know that there was a push for Masters programs across many disciplines to make more money. Most of these were short, intensive programs, ~1-2 year, with no financial support. The requirements were (I am not making this up) courses that were required for PhD programs, and thus already being taught, along with a small Master’s thesis.
I am not sure that this is ethical, but it sure did raise some money…..
January 9, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Marshall
“At my PhD granting institution, I know that there was a push for Masters programs across many disciplines to make more money. Most of these were short, intensive programs, ~1-2 year, with no financial support. The requirements were (I am not making this up) courses that were required for PhD programs, and thus already being taught, along with a small Master’s thesis.”
There’s no more shameless example of this than the “Executive Master’s” offered by many flagship state colleges in the applied sciences. The tuition is often outlandishly high and, because the tuition and fees are often paid by employers, there’s an element of fiscal illusion where enrollees are unconcerned about the quality and usefulness of the program, and are more concerned with the pedigree associated with earning a degree from the institution. The degree itself is a signal to potential employers, irrespective of rigor of the program, even though it seems to be a sham/cash cow.
January 9, 2009 at 7:21 pm
David
I would add that hiding in a M.A. program isn’t as big a deal as hiding in a PhD program. Big public schools often provide some support to MA students in the humanities (who are then used as adjunct faculty or paper graders). These programs usually take a couple years and perhaps one might mature a bit and figure out what do with one’s life.
I’d add that it does suck to have graduated into one economic recession at the turn of the century and to be on the verge of graduating into an even worse one now.
January 10, 2009 at 9:16 am
Cugel
“There’s actually a third option that you didn’t take into account: you’ll realize that while you’d still really like to grad school, the job market for Ph.D.’s is miserable enough that it doesn’t make sense for you, and while you may end up finding a career that works out for you there will always be a sense that you really *should* have gone to grad school.”
That’s why I decided not to get a Ph.D. in History and got a law degree instead. Now at least I get to charge a decent hourly rate instead of saying “Oooh! An opening in my field at the University of Oklahoma! I’ll submit my application along with 150 other candidates! And if I get the job I get to move to Oklahoma! Whoo! Hoo!”
But, I still find I’m more interested in history, economics and political science than in law as a subject (not that law is all bad, it’s not).
January 11, 2009 at 9:54 am
11 January 2009 « blueollie
[…] Here is a caution to those who think that applying to graduate school merely because one didn’t get a go…. […]
January 11, 2009 at 5:10 pm
steven crane
no.
flat no.
it is hard enough for us out here who are college dropouts (or people with BAs from lower-tier universities) to get entry-level, $30k/year jobs. we don’t need a bunch of fancy-degree people competing for the same things.
(i do unskilled labor in a warehouse at $12/hour. i felt like i was gentrifying up the joint until i found out my new cow-orker has an MFA.)