 "Photo: Brian Tseng")
Many people decide to go to graduate school hoping that it will pay off in the long run, but is the time and money investment worth it?
Dick Dubanoski, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa dean of social sciences, said that many students choose to go to graduate school because it will help them in the profession that they choose – and in some professions, such as law and medicine, a graduate degree is essential. Another reason is to expand their “life horizons” and grow intellectually and emotionally.
“You have to know what you want to do with your life,” Dubanoski said, pointing out that some people have successful lives without going to college at all.
Economics professor James Moncur said in an e-mail that going to graduate school can increase a person’s lifetime earnings in some professions and open up more potential job opportunities, as some employers consider a master’s degree or Ph.D. a sign of intelligence and discipline, even if the person won’t use the skills they acquired in graduate school for the job. Moncur said some people are simply interested in a subject and want to learn.
“The additional study opens them up to a more varied set of interests and life experiences,” he said. “For these people, the degree is more consumption than investment.”
Xiaojun Wang, associate economics professor, said that the investment in graduate school depends on the individual.
“It might be worthwhile for your best friend, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is also worthwhile for you,” Wang said in an e-mail. “Individuals are heterogeneous, as we say in labor economics.”
Wang said that most people take a “sitting on the fence approach” and see if they can land a good job after they graduate, and if they don’t they’ll choose to go to graduate school.
“If the job market is bad, then they go to graduate school, getting upgraded while waiting for the market to improve,” he said. “This is reasonably smart.”
Wang said working toward a master’s degree or Ph.D. isn’t for everyone, and that for most people, graduate school is “like hell.”
“You have to work very hard to earn the degree,” Wang said. “Is it worth it? It depends on how prepared you are, and how much hard work and pressure you can take.”
Moncur said in addition to tuition, books and living expenses, going to graduate school takes away time from “getting settled into a career” and what a person could potentially be making working.
“Horror stories of humanities Ph.D.s reduced to driving a cab are legion,” Moncur said.
Dubanoski said that he didn’t know he was going to go to graduate school. Toward the end of college, he was “fumbling around” and started to talk to his mentors and advisers, who encouraged him to continue his education.
And he is glad that he did.
“I had a wonderful grad school experience,” Dubanoski said, adding that he is still in contact with all the professors at the University of Minnesota who mentored him on his way to a Ph.D. in child development.
Moncur, who will retire this month after more than 40 years of teaching and research, said graduate school was definitely worth it for him. He said his time teaching has been very rewarding, but not necessarily always in a financial sense.
“It’s not a 9-to-5 job, although it sometimes involves very long hours,” Moncur said. “I’ve been able to pursue self-defined intellectual interests rather than just following someone else’s orders.”
Dorothy Terry, a senior double-majoring in anthropology and classics who will be graduating next December, said she wants to go to graduate school.
“In the old days, you could get by with a bachelor’s, but these days you have to get a master’s,” Terry said.
Tim Shoaf, a junior majoring in computer science, said that he will be going to go to graduate school.
“In my field it is almost a requisite,” Shoaf said, adding that “you can’t really do much with a bachelor’s.”
Ryan Kam, a senior majoring in history who is graduating in the spring, said he isn’t sure yet if he wants to pursue a graduate degree.
“Possibly, but not immediately,” he said.
Kam said he might go to law school or maybe get a business degree, but he is also interested in federal employment.
“You don’t need to go to graduate school to do that,” he said. “It makes you more competitive, but sometimes experience can be enough.”
