As has been previously mentioned on this website, where you choose to earn your degrees can have a massive impact on how much student debt you ultimately need to borrow. Indeed, which schools you attend can impact tuition costs, the availability of financial aid, and how likely it is that you will obtain employment which will help you pay off your student debt. Previous articles on this website have discussed student debt considerations you should keep in mind when choosing a college or medical school, and future articles will discuss the law school selection process. This article discusses some factors to consider when minimizing student debt while attending graduate school as a master’s candidate or PhD student.
As previously mentioned, I earned an M.A. in American history for virtually no money through my college’s four-year B.A./M.A. program. I don’t want to rehash what I already related about how dual-degree programs can save you money, and feel free to check out my prior article on this topic. Although I used a non-traditional program to earn my M.A. degree, I learned much about graduate school through this process.
There are a number of different master’s programs out there in a variety of disciplines. Some people want to earn a master’s degree since they believe that this credential will help them stand out when applying for jobs. However, the reality is that having a master’s degree in a variety of liberal arts disciplines will make no appreciable difference on your job prospects. Indeed, I am not sure that my M.A. in American history helped me when searching for jobs other than as a conversation-starter during interviews. Unless you plan to work in academia or a related field, it might not make sense to earn a master’s degree in most liberal arts subjects.
In addition, financial aid is usually not readily available in graduate school. It is no secret that universities typically use master’s programs as money-makers to fund their PhD programs and other academic pursuits. If your parents are paying for graduate school, and you want to study a field that interests you, then you might want to earn a master’s. degree. For everyone else who is paying for graduate school themselves, it usually only makes sense to earn a master’s degree in a few situations.
One scenario in which it might make sense to earn a master’s degree is to boost your credentials when applying for PhD programs. Some individuals might not have satisfactory GPAs as undergraduates, but by earning a master’s degree, they might convince admissions officers that they can handle a PhD workload. I have also heard of people earning master’s degrees to boost their credentials for law school, but I would caution against this. Law school is expensive on its own, and I am skeptical that having a master’s degree would play a major role in being admitted to law school.
There are a number of master’s programs in which it might make sense to enroll, even if you need to borrow student debt to earn your degree. Many friends of mine attended journalism school, and they tell me all the time how earning a journalism degree helped them enter the competitive journalism field. There are only a few journalism schools that are typically worth the money, and these include Columbia, Northwestern and a few other institutions. If you are accepted to one of these schools, and you want to be a journalist, then you should consider obtaining a journalism degree even if you need to borrow student debt to do so.
In addition, some of my friends earned master’s degrees in financial fields in order to be eligible to take the CPA exam. If you want to be a certified public accountant, and you did not major in accounting as an undergraduate, then attending graduate school could be worth it despite the student debt you need to borrow. Still other friends of mine earned master’s degrees to be eligible to sit for the patent bar, and if you need to earn a graduate degree in order to obtain a valuable credential, then it might be worth it to borrow student debt to do so.
While on this topic, it is worth mentioning that it almost never makes sense to borrow student debt to earn a PhD. Most reputable PhD programs are free, and universities typically pay PhD students stipends for living expenses as long as they teach classes or perform other duties. I receive numerous emails from individuals who borrowed massive amounts of student debt to earn PhDs, usually from for-profit schools. This is very unwise, and you should be skeptical of PhD programs that cost significant amounts of money to attend.
It is also worth noting that PhD students typically earn master’s degrees for free on their way to obtaining a PhD. As such, if you want to work in academia, and are considering a master’s degree, you might want to obtain a PhD. This way, you can earn two degrees for the price of none.
In the end, every graduate program is different, and no advice can be universally applied to each and every program. However, there are many considerations you should keep in mind when minimizing the student debt you need to borrow to earn a graduate degree.