Is the Cost of Grad School Worth It?

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mini graduation cap on moneyIt’s probably one of the biggest questions that millions of undergrad students and their parents ask themselves every time grad school enrollment becomes a consideration. And it’s with good reason, since the decision of whether you should or should not enter grad school should be carefully debated before thousands of dollars are spent on several years of further education.

While people with graduate degrees are statistically shown to earn more than their undergrad counterparts in equivalent fields — sometimes as much as 50% more — there are also plenty of graduate degree earners who find themselves buried in student loan debt, late to the career marketplace and without a high-paying career in sight.

So the question isn’t so much “Is a graduate degree worth the time and cost?” but “What circumstances make a grad degree worthwhile?” (Click here to tweet this thought)

Let’s examine:

 

The Time and Dollar Cost of Graduate School

When measured in terms of both money spent and time invested, grad school is not something to be taken lightly. Average costs for a graduate program of any kind in the US can vary quite a bit depending on program and school type, but it’s normal to pay between $10,000 and $15,000 a year for public universities and as much as $30,000 annually for their private university counterparts.

Time-wise, you’ll be looking at an investment of anywhere from one to three years for Masters programs and in other cases even longer, such as three to five years for PhD completion.

Clearly, graduate studies are investments that merit a careful cost/benefit analysis.

 

When Are Graduate Degrees Important?

Obviously, certain fields of study pretty much make a graduate program unavoidable (or at least extremely useful).

In fields like law, psychology and medicine, a graduate degree is obligatory for any sort of serious certification and future career advancement. In the hard sciences, such as physics, mathematics, biology and chemistry, students who want to pursue a serious and competitive post-education career path will almost definitely need graduate certification.

Completing graduate studies in these fields dramatically increases your likely earnings bracket. It also makes you a much more attractive hire to organizations and major companies.

The numbers back this up, for the above-mentioned fields and others. According to research conducted by Georgetown University, students who leave school with graduate degrees in medical programs can expect earnings 190% higher than those of their undergrad counterparts. Biochemical sciences majors can look forward to 102% earnings boosts, molecular biology grads can see 110% and chemistry grads can enjoy 98% better earnings.

These are just some of the examples of earnings increases. There are many others that apply to fields such as law, zoology, social sciences and physiology, and all of them consist of higher percentage earnings due to completing a graduate program.

The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that you should strongly base your decision to enter a graduate school program on the type of career you want to develop.

That said, there are also certain career paths that really don’t warrant the extra expense and time of post-undergrad studies. For these, the exact same cost consideration applies, but with a different recommended choice.

 

When Grad School Simply Isn’t Worth It

Going back to the same study (as well as other, similar evidence), we can see that expanding beyond undergrad studies in some fields simply doesn’t bring any benefit that would make the whole investment worthwhile.

In these studies, students who’d taken the time to go for graduate studies in areas like computer science, public relations and advertising, media and art-related courses all showed statistical career earnings that were never more than 15% above those of their undergrad counterparts.

Likewise, many who enter MBA programs or later decide to build careers in programming and software development often stand to gain surprisingly little from a large graduate school investment.

 

Alternative Options

If your plans are clear-cut and you’re determined to move into a career where graduate studies are necessary (and clearly beneficial to your future earnings prospects), then you should invest in a graduate degree only after shopping around for the best pricing and logistical options.

If, on the other hand, you’re someone who wants to make a living in areas where merit, practical experience, practical knowledge regardless of certification or other factors are more important than a graduate degree certificate, you should really explore non-graduate degree-oriented options. These alternatives might include more affordable part-time learning programs through universities or internships in a field that strongly interests you.

Bottom line: Use cost/benefit analysis, and base your decisions strongly on the type of career you want to go into.

 

Stephan Jukic is a writer for Olivet Nazarene University who loves to read and write about location-free business, portable business management and finance. When not busy writing or consulting on technology and digital security, he spends his days enjoying life’s adventures either in Canada or Mexico. Connect with Stephan on Google+ and LinkedIn.

 

 

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