Comments about ‘Number of graduate students down for the first time in seven years’

That number will continue to fall from this time forward.

People are slowly coming to the realization that having a degree is no longer a guarantee of getting a good job. You are spending a lot of money, and not really getting much in the way of a return. Education is good, but only when the economy can support it... those days are over.

So mom and dad are starting to gain some wisdom and cutting off the free meal ticket pre-grad school. I believe this is why you are seeing a drop in the numbers. There are many grad school degrees worth working for, but it can be done without mom and dad's help and without student loans. Depends on how much you want it. If you aren't willing to work hard for it, you likely won't make it in the fields some of these worthwhile degrees will put you in anyway.

ClarkKent, the amount of parental support required varies widely with the field studied. Engineering and science graduate programs usually provide an assistantship or other financial support for living expenses and reduced, if not free, tuition, so the cost to parents in those fields should be minimal. If they don't offer one, they are not really serious about having you attend that school. I would advise against attending law or business school without a substantial scholarship.

I believe that too many people are going to college and not enough are training for trades.

My student loan debt came from graduate school, and I couldn't get a decent enough job to pay it off and help support my family. It still causes me frequent nightmares, and likely will until I die.

So I'm telling my daughter who's a senior in college--don't jump into graduate school! There are no guarantees, except for debt. Those who bemoan the reduction of graduate students simply aren't looking at the reality of this world today.

As has been said before, "It's the economy, stupid!"

It is unfortunate that so many young men and women have earned their degree only to learn that it does not guarantee them a higher paying job, or for that matter, any job at all. Many have acquired a large debt in student loans, which they are finding difficult to pay back. It would seem that the true education that they have gained is that the promise of higher earnings resulting from higher education, is nothing but a great fraud.

I think that people complaining about how grad school doesn't pay off are the people who shouldn't go to grad school. As Ripley said, many PhD programs will pay tuition and a stipend to anyone they admit. And even in the current economy, students in law and business programs can get full scholarships and oodles of interviews (seeing it happen to a friend right now). (I don't know for sure about medical school. It seems to be a different beast entirely.)

It's not that graduate school doesn't pay off - it's that it's not a magic ticket that pays off for everyone. If you're smart, can work hard, can do well in school, and make good choices about program/school, it totally pays off. But let's not call it a "great fraud" or "guaranteed debt" just because not everyone falls in those categories.

My perception is that students are looking for greater value today than they have in the past. The press about the ever rising costs of higher education combined with the realities of finding a good job in a tough market are causing people to weigh more carefully the value of a graduate degree. In the local area alone, one can pay $14,000 for a Professional MBA degree at UVU taught by Wharton, U of U Ph.Ds, etc... to $48,000 for a U of U Professional MBA taught by PhDs from similar schools. Both programs are offered by AACSB accredited institutions but vary in tradition and reputation with the U having the stronger research reputation. Professional MBA programs have a reputation of being cash cow's for business schools to support their other activities including research. Students know this and are rethinking the degree of debt they are willing to take on to support an institution's research agenda.

Mom of 8, don't blame grad school. Blame the program you picked.

Graduate school = big money for universities. Too many kids launch right into grad school without the benefit of any real world experience or context for what they are working toward. In some field, it is justified, like medicine. But in many others I feel these degrees should be pursued in tandem with real world work so that what they are learning is in context of something real, not just theory.

While I have two advanced degrees, most of what I use on a daily basis is what I learned from behind a desk at work. But that is just my experience.... people are different and learn in different ways.

I recently finished graduate school. I'd started before the economic downturn, and (like I did with my undergrad) I paid for it without parental support. Even with a scholarship, even though I paid in-state tuition at a public school, even though I worked part-time, used savings, and was very frugal, I still ended up with about $40,000 in student loan debt. Most of my classmates owe significantly more.

Prior to the recession, the job outlook for graduates from my grad school were excellent. Almost everyone found work, and the majority of those jobs were good jobs. Now, however, even many of us with fantastic grades and great resumes are unable to find work in the field. Many of us have families to support. Grad school, a great value a few years ago, lost its value in the recession.

Grad school is probably still a good value for those in the hard sciences and medicine. But otherwise, and especially if you currently have a decent job, I wouldn't recommend it.

Slickest sales people that I have ever encountered were my grad school faculty.

While many programs do hav assistanships and stipends for grad students the reality is that because schools are having to cut back they do so in the number of assistanships to offer. I know in my dept's case we dropped from around 40 assistantships 3 years ago to less than 25 this year. Many potential students won't leave a current job or be able to pay for this all on their own.

@Pagen | 1:56 p.m. Sept. 26, 2011

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say. Are you suggesting that affirmative action is causing incomes to grow at different rates?

The proposals to eliminate affirmative action have come after 30 years of differential wage growth. As you are here complaining about continuing trends in wage inequality, it would appear that affirmative action is either ineffective at stemming wage inequality OR it is perhaps having a learned helplessness effect on minorities and contributing to the problem.

Note that the source of the report is the Council of Graduate Schools, which obviously is feeling the threat to their lavish and tenured gravy train.

It is also odd that no one is up in arms over the "gender discrimination" which has many more females than males receiving the advanced degrees. But, I guess when your preferred minority segment is "unfairly" benefitting, that's okay.

Probably 25% of all graduate programs should be eliminated as worthless in the real world, and a drain on individual and academic resources with little or no benefit to anyone in the real world.

The graduates in know with degrees in business, engineering, science, and medical field are doing very well. Don't know about the other fields. I also see many engineers from India with graduate degrees in engineering who are doing very well here in the US.

@ Timj | 7:27 a.m. Oct. 3, 2011
South Jordan, UT
"I recently finished graduate school. I'd started before the economic downturn, and (like I did with my undergrad) I paid for it without parental support. Even with a scholarship, even though I paid in-state tuition at a public school, even though I worked part-time, used savings, and was very frugal, I still ended up with about $40,000 in student loan debt. Most of my classmates owe significantly more."

Timj, while I applaud you for your efforts, if you started grad school before the economic downturn then you started MANY years ago. Having a $40,000 debt that took several years to incur is really not that bad, when you think about it. I am very familiar with the debt some students chose to incur, as opposed to working hard and living frugally. Good luck to you. You will find a way to pay off this debt and it will be nothing more than a distant memory one day.

This was a rude awakening for me. I come frome a computer science/engineering background. I thought that a Bachelor's degree and a few industry certifications would guarantee me a good job. I was surprised when a number of employers (especially in the computational engineering sciences) were asking for at least a Masters before accepting an application. I am happily employed now after 9 years of work in the field and several more certifications, but I am still pursuing a Masters degree in the hopes of moving above a staff level position.

When is evrybody going to realize that higher education is a business? Nothing less. It all starts in High School with the Junior Colleges and Universities. Think about it.

A YouTube hit called College Conspiracy seriously questions the value of a college education. I think that some of their numbers are distorted; however, much of their message is sound.

Modern technology should make education almost free for non-laboratory classes. It is not that hard to record lectures and post them to a video streaming service.

College textbooks are a scam and have been for years. They revise the books at least every three years rendering the used books worthless. They need to end this scam. A University could consist of streaming video, an online library like Project Gutenberg, a tutoring center and a testing center, particularly for lower division classes. Private mentoring could be provided by people working in the profession. This would truly make the world a campus.

Same goes for high school in many instances.

Most of the jobs available to people holding advanced degrees are penthouse jobs. These jobs will not exist without the ground floor. We must do something to restore the manufacturing base of our economy or we are done for.

How many of our graduate students are foreigners?