The credentialism is real! I'm a librarian, which is a field that already requires its own masters degree (don't get me started on that), but since I work in higher ed, unless you have a second masters, you probably won't get interviewed or hired anywhere. When the search was open for my boss's position, the position description only required the single masters degree in library science; but my credential-loving library director only interviewed people with PhDs.
After I had been at my current job for a while, I took a minute to read through my actual job description (which wasn't available to me when I actually applied to the job, because it's "proprietary"), and found that because my job was described more as an instructional designer-type job, which has very little to do with my day-to-day work, I was actually graded in a lower salary band because my job didn't actually even require the library science masters! I had been told that a large part of the reason I was hired is because I have two masters.
tl;dr You need a masters (or more) to get the job, but then you're not actually paid as if you have the masters.
Good, I look forward to hearing more, and am happy to be a source, too. I learned a lot from some great people in my MLIS, but there's a base layer of farce about the whole thing. It seems generally recognized in the field that the real training occurs, well, in the field, which prompts the question of why we aren't operating under some kind of apprenticeship model. But that would require figuring out how to pay apprentices some kind of meager salary for the work they're doing, within institutions that are already cash-strapped. Add to that the professional anxiety that many librarians feel, either due to the sense that we're "not needed anymore because we have Google" or, in academia, that we don't work in a "real" discipline and are therefore a bunch of para-academics trying to run with the big dogs, and then add to that the way that an MLIS/MLS is a good way to pull debt-fueled tuition dollars to keep an academic institution afloat, and well, you get a really good recipe for the focus being on the degree as an entry ritual rather than thinking about what methods actually get us the skills and knowledge we need.
Yessss complaining about my MLS is my favorite thing to do! I learned *so little* in my program. I learned how to bullshit on very little effort which I suppose is a skill? I got out lucky with only about $10k of debt because I went in state and lived at my mom’s and was working 30 hours/week for the feds.
It did give me a thing to do after college, it did allow the government to keep employing me as a paid intern, and I did meet my wife there, so like, worth it, but not because of the program itself at all.
Oh and do I use the degree? Definitely not. I still work for the government and I make way more than any librarian I know including federal librarians. (My wife is one, she’s like one of two people I know from library school with a successful library career.)
I'm going slightly against the grain and saying my MLIS actually allowed me to get on a solid career track and now have a lucrative tech job. I share many of the complaints and criticisms of MLIS programs here, but I do also believe that it can be a useful degree... if you're creative at marketing the skillset and don't want to be a librarian. So... there's that. My program at least had significant overlaps with an engineering program and a communications program, so a lot of our faculty and elective courses were shared. Those people in my program (myself included) who had an interest in the digital side of LIS were able to get some more technical classes under our belts and network with people in the private sector in our city. Many have gone on to careers in technology--whether we work at actual tech companies or in technical/digital roles in smaller organizations. But an MLIS certainly isn't a required degree for most of those jobs--it was just a way in the door.
That said... I think the more traditional library school bits of my program were, academically, a joke. And many people who wanted to go in traditional library roles struggled a lot to find employment. So in the end I feel like I paid a ton of money to essentially take classes from other programs and then get in the right networking circles, none of which are focused on the library world. Which just seems silly but also par-for-course for a lot of academia.
Another Masters program that requires more work than it is worth (and results in low-paying jobs) is the Masters in Social Work (MSW). Some of the recent information technology degrees are equally hollow. Universities will do anything to get more tuition money and build their departmental empires.
When Hannah Gray was President of the UofC she decided to get rid of the Library School, claiming it didn't have the prestige of other depts at Chicago. That was an obvious lie that was easily refuted via citation statistics, so Hannah backed off and gave the real reason - the Library School didn't bring in enough money. The UofC admin then offered the Library School a second chance: if within a year or so they started bringing in big funds they could stay. They could have done so since there was a serious demand for library education in the Chicago area, but the faculty weren't interested in that and so let it die. Rosary's (now Dominican Univ.'s) Library School was left as the only Library School in the area, though inconveniently located. I very much doubt that anything was sold by the UofC; after all, what assets would there have been to sell?
I had a friend in the last class, and I think you're right ... I think they sold their *assets* to Rosary, the only MLS school left in the Chicago area after 1990.
Instructional Design Librarian here, too! I work at a very small 4-year comprehensive with a saturation of masters programs surrounding us so whenever we hire, we get a lot of credentialed librarians with NONE of the skills we actually need lol The field is moving more towards curriculum design, instructional design, project management, community engagement, data management but you still get none of that training in grad school so what good is the degree. It's also really hard to work with the undergrads who will be graduating into a rigid economy, with student loan debt and very few social supports.
(This next part is a little off topic but I'm thinking about how my masters degree changed my life.)
I come from a very working class background with 2 college degrees in my family and it's taken me years to stop being grateful for the tiny raise or a funded professional development opportunity. I identify with the feeling of having "bought" my way into a community and opportunities I never would have had otherwise and feeling the corresponding imposter syndrome (I'm too poor to be here. I don't deserve this, etc.). It's taken me years to see that my position in this world has been a product of systemic factors: being born to boomers who were able to attain economic growth, attended an affordable U of Wisconsin school, married a gen x-er with generational wealth behind him, choosing not to have children. Anyway, deep thoughts for a Wednesday morning lol
I too am an academic librarian. I accrued like $150k at least in student debt to get my MLIS, and I will ***never*** be able to pay it back. The program I went to is at a state school, but is a fee-based program so it's priced like a private school. They're also one of the "top-rated" programs, which the admin could not shut up about but which wasn't reflected in the quality of most of the classes. I don't have a second masters which meant I couldn't even apply for a lot of the jobs I was interested in.
I am one of the lucky ones, in that I was able to work at an actual library during grad school, which got me a temporary position after graduation that eventually got me my current TT position at a private 4-year university where I am paid poorly but not horribly. I have friends from grad school who still (5+ years later) haven't gotten a full-time and/or permanent position.
Library school, IMO, is a scam, and librarians should be trained primarily on the job or in some sort of apprenticeship. Everything I learned in grad school was at my job, and in all the billions of interviews I did before finally landing my current position, not once did anyone ask specifically about my school experience. Turns out nobody cares that you went to the #2 library school in the country.
Ouff .. I hear you ... I got an MLIS from U of I Urbana Champaign about 10 years ago. Spent about 8 months applying to any sort of library job and got zero interviews. Ended up teaching ESL as it is something I enjoy and I am apparently good at; maybe it has to do with the fact that I am fluent in 3 languages and speak another one fairly well.
Just another person with an MLS that I do not use chiming in to say hello to everyone! I try not to focus too much on the fact that I do not need it for what I do because then I just get annoyed and frustrated. I work in Prospect Research in a University development office and I absolutely love what I do but I did not need the degree and one reason I have stayed in the role I have is so that I could actually pay off my grad school debt (which I finally did last year, 9 years after graduating which felt lucky) I wrote more about my experience and my financial story here if anyone is interested: https://inalj.com/?p=108045
I have a masters in Children’s Literature (lol I know but it was actually an amazing experience) and am about to start an MLIS program this fall. These comments are by turns helpful and frightening. At this point I just feel like I’m flinging myself into the void and hoping I land somewhere.
Also I definitely recommend seeing if you could work part-time or volunteer in a library (if you don't already)! I worked in an academic library in a low-paid intern position while I got my MLIS online and I think my work experience was what got me a decent job right after graduating. (But of course, working in a low-paid position like that isn't feasible for everyone, which might just be part of the reason librarianship is so white!)
Good luck to you! I mean that very sincerely! I personally think you just have to be very intentional with your time in graduate school. Look at job descriptions that you might want and work hard to incorporate that into your learning. Ask questions of professors to get opportunities that might make you a better candidate for the career you want. I got a lot out of library school because I put a lot in. I know plenty of people who didn't challenge themselves enough and found it boring. Well, go figure. If you don't put a lot into it, you won't get a lot out of it!
Thank you so much! This program seems very bent on helping students find careers and encourages intentional course planning and skill building from the get go. I plan to reach out to a professor in youth services who’s open to advising and appears pretty “with it” in terms of what’s currently desirable in the field.
These comments are very, doom-and-gloom. My MLIS was a pathway towards my current role as a librarian, though academically it was not very challenging and I'm not convinced it's a needed degree. However, right now there are lots of library positions out there (my library has 5 tenure track positions open!) but you might have to move in order to find something. I worked a year in a middle-of-nowhere public library before moving to an for-profit university in another state before finding my current position in a rural university.
Good Luck in it!! Find any library related internship, apprenticeship, and if the school has a student work program that may have a student library position. Even check the university's library if they have a student library position (sometimes the school's student work program and library work opportunities don't synchronize, so watch carefully). That's a huge problem with the MLIS, I had to find student jobs related to information and records management while studying in the program to ensure I got "real experience" while paying rent, food, tuition, etc. It's the only way.
Strong agree with all this! I fell for it and got a subject masters which was useless in terms of education (but I did meet my best friend in the program, so it wasn't a total waste).
And professional degrees like the MLIS are also often cash cows for the universities! They accept so many more students than there are jobs in the field, and because the program is not "academic," there are few scholarships available, so students just rack up debt and then struggle to find jobs. So frustrating.
I am also an academic librarian, and I have heard a lot about the pressures for getting a second masters (or more) in the field, but at least at my current institution, most of us have "only" our MLIS (or equivalent). I have lots of feelings on the requirement of an MLIS to be a librarian, but after seeing some of these tuition numbers from other master's programs, I realize how relatively affordable many MLIS programs are.
Another aspect of this credentialism is how these programs are staffed by academics who can't get tenure-track positions but are desperate to work in "academia." A number of my fellow PhDs have taken roles as directors and coordinators of these "cash cow" programs and it's a nightmare job. The students are pissed about the quality of the programs and demand more than they're getting (rightfully so, for $50k/year!) -- and they have to be regarded more as customers than students. These programs are just an extension of the academic pyramid scheme and it's really awful.
This is super interesting as someone who flirted with the idea of doing grad school in the humanities / social sciences but ended up deciding to get a MBA instead. I will say that while MBAs are wildly expensive (over 70K in tuition alone), especially at my M7 program, it was fascinating how much detailed salary / job numbers were provided as a prospective student (down to sector breakdowns, % of students receiving nonprofit fellowships the school provided vs. those that applied, etc.), versus the "soft sell" focused on the life of the mind of more academic programs. I kind of preferred the transactional nature of the MBA admissions process - "we are charging you a lot because this credential will make you lots of money afterwards, and tuition/COA is basically mapped onto your willingness to pay given this projected return" despite the fact that I would've 100% been an academic if it were just up to me - I guess if I'm going to be a commodity, I at least appreciated the institution being honest about it.
I also majored in social science in undergrad, so I feel that I made the right decision not wasting time doing social science MS like some of my undergrad friends.
I still feel that the MBA tuition is overpriced but as an international student, I also get to earn 6 figures salary after graduation in the US, which I wouldn’t be able to achieve without the MBA program.
I'm the parent of a rising senior in high school and I see some of the same themes in the college application "game." The marketing to my daughter by schools that are way out of her reach is sickening to watch. These schools, like University of Chicago!, are eager for her application fee and her presence in the increasing denominator of applicants (while keeping the numerator quite fixed.) Worst of all, it's emotionally manipulative of these schools to make her think she has a chance when she has essentially none of being admitted. It's quite disgusting.
Also, I can tell you as a professor that schools advertise what are very common services/majors/opportunities as if they are unique to that school. So when your daughter is choosing between schools, watch out for that.
I went to a regional SUNY for my undergrad, then stayed at that regional SUNY for my masters. That got me full scholarship + funding offers for my PhD at every school I applied to, but I did not apply for any in major cities because I didn’t have the money to live in NYC or the like. Lots of professors around me went to fancy schools, accrued lots of debt doing so, and we have the same job.
The meritocracy aspect is so key. I graduated from undergrad in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in English from a small liberal arts college and it was the recession so I had no plan post-graduation. My professors encouraged me to continue another two years at the college for an MA in English because I was a passionate student and could use the degree to leverage myself when the economy got better. I would be one of the students to beat the odds, I thought! I enrolled in the program on a whim and was immediately accepted. Three days before the semester started (and the tuition bill was due) I got cold feet and withdrew. I just couldn't justify the cost (I wish I remember what it was - it wasn't outrageous but still would have put me tens of thousands in debt).
Later, with my husband's emotional and financial support, I went into urban planning for grad school at a different university (an HBCU, actually) and also worked and paid my way as I went (which meant it took me five years to do a two year program). I was able to take on a minimal amount of debt as a result ($10,000). Again, I was encouraged to go the Higher Ed route because I was a great student and would beat the odds! I seriously looked into PhD programs in Winter 2019/2020 with the plan to apply in Fall 2020...and then the pandemic happened.
What's so hard is that I sincerely believe that my professors were steering me in that direction for good reasons. They saw my capabilities (even as I felt impostor syndrome) and believed in me. However, as college and university administrations grew and student populations grew, tenured positions didn't. I saw it happen in both schools where tenured faculty retired/died/left and their positions were replaced with adjuncts. Every university program's best student could apply but there just isn't enough spots in graduate programs or tenure-track positions for them.
The other key, I think, is that current tenured faculty have survivorship bias. They themselves beat the odds, so it's much easier for them to see their best and brightest students beat the odds, too.
Oh hey, I also did a 2 year planning degree on the 4-year schedule! I was amazed at how many schools, when I was looking, advertised their MUP program as "full time or part time," but when you actually looked closer, there were required classes scheduled in the morning and afternoon, so good luck working around both of those. Having an actual part time friendly class schedule really, really narrowed down my choice of where to apply more than any other factor.
Yep, that was a huge factor for me, too! The trade off is that it's hard to get students and program alumni involved in anything extra, which makes the community feel lacking, but the ability to able to work a traditional 9-5 while going to school is important!
Definitely - I remember the full time students having a very strong "cohort" community due to being in the same classes in the same sequence, and the part time folks were less cohesive of a community. I didn't see full time school as an option for myself, and in retrospect I definitely would have regretted full time school financially. As it is my biggest regret is that between being in a new city and being busy, I was pretty lonely!
Truly said, Em. Both in my undergrad and graduate programs I would try to find evening classes because many of the students there were working full-time, and so were more practical in their outlook and sense of purpose. That collective focus often prompted the professors to focus on the practical, marketable skills and to bloviate less about their personal philosophy. As I noted in another post, that focus helped me to gain a practical skill set for my English major that was useful in the working world.
I'm another English major who beat the odds. Fortunately my undergrad department was writing-oriented, and I used that skill to get into technical (computer) editing and writing, and then to publication department management and project management. I learned that there are only a few types of writing that companies will pay good money to get. To stay employed, be part of the solution.
This is so teeth-grindingly enraging. I ended up doing my master’s (in medieval art history, that most lucrative of fields!!) at the University of St Andrews largely because the cost of tuition for the whole degree (for an international student no less) + living expenses in the most expensive town in Scotland + flights back and forth + the occasional tourist jaunt was still SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than just one year of tuition alone for a master’s at Columbia/equivalent.
Reading this, I was thinking about my husband’s law degree. He’s English but we were living in Boston when he persuaded his employer to pay for a law degree, so we looked into Harvard because it was right there, and found that it was not only 50K per year (in 2001) but he couldn’t have a job while he was doing it. He looked back into England and found that he could do a law course that cost so little—like your example, even with flights and other expenses—that the entire degree would be just a few thousand. I think he had to devote less time because he already had a PhD in another field, but still the difference was beyond absurd.
By the way, we met while I was studying abroad at St. Andrews! Love that place.
One of my favorite places on the planet! Even if the Tesco's is apparently the most expensive in the UK. :)
But yes-- the cost difference is ridiculous. My best friend, a lawyer, is married to a fellow lawyer and their student loans together are half a million dollars. HALF. A. MILLION. And she's a public defender!!!!!!!!!
That is atrocious! You’d think a public defender could get loan forgiveness, too :/
I do love St. Andrews! Fell in love with almost everything about it immediately. And then got super broke because I was not accustomed to going out for a pint almost every day of the week! No regrets, though 💗
Off-topic, do you mind sharing where he did his law degree? I am in a quite similar position – nonlaw PhD, possibility of doing a funded by degree, and a preference for doing it in the UK. I’m trying to figure out which programs would be a good fit.
Back on topic, I also have a UK masters degree. I was lucky to have external funding but they are absolutely cash cows. Lots of international students who get no funding and pay significant amounts for their degrees.
He did it in Birmingham. A two-year course if I remember? His PhD was in physics, so completely unrelated :) The law course was really good, and then he did the barrister course in London.
Yeah, if I remember in St. Andrews, the international students were a big source of revenue. I was only there one semester and my college’s financial aid applied to the tuition and room/board, but I still ended up overdrawing my bank account. My husband went bachelor’s through PhD there and never paid a thing, but his PhD was externally funded (through the Ministry of Defence). But the law degreee system seems financially accessible, too.
What I find particularly interesting is the magnitude of difference for cash cows at St A's/British schools in general and here in the US. I didn't receive any aid for my MLitt but the tuition was still a fraction of what I would have paid at a similar institution here. Granted, I only had to pay that difference for one year (another benefit of doing a master's abroad instead of a 2-year stateside program), but the costs were not even remotely comparable for the same lovely but useless degree.
Out of curiosity, does your husband practice law now in the US or in the UK? (If the US, was it easy to find employment afterwards? I've somewhat aware of the hoops foreign-trained lawyers sometimes have to go through to practice as a lawyer in the US.)
He doesn't. He thought about taking the bar when we lived in New York, but had no real need because his job didn't require it. Now we live in Montana, and the barriers are much more robust and he'd have to do some more certification or something. It does vary widely by state, so it'd be worth looking into if you're thinking about it.
We weren't living in the UK at the time, but if we were he would have done that thing where you follow a judge around on their circuit or something. I can't remember what it's called! He was called to the bar in Inner Temple, and would have gotten the following thing through there. But again, he wouldn't really have been able to have a regular job while doing that. Huge class barriers, which weirdly vary because in the US it was a barrier to getting the degree, but in the UK it was a barrier to the final hoop for getting through to a job.
I did, too! I wasn't there nearly as much as my husband but went with him a few times and wandered the city for hours while he was in class. We didn't cross over with you -- I think he finished his JD in 2005, if I remember. Were you working there?
It was some "cultural exchange" type situation through the university I was at. Not sure what the Brummies exchanged for me, but I had a great time! I spent a lot of time at the uni, but did get to wander around with a camera and a map a decent amount. Really enjoyed the people of that town and to this day I have not found a balti restaurant as good as the one around the corner from my flat.
Thank you! I have friends who work at Birmingham (in my PhD field), so it’s good to know it’s a solid option. I do actually work on law already, but in an academic social science discipline, and I’m at a point in my career where an actual law degree would be beneficial.
I thought it was a really good program (this was before we had kids, so I had time to browse his books and give feedback on his papers). I’m sure you have people you can ask about it, but he wouldn’t mind chatting if you get to that point.
Fascinating that so many responses come from people who went to the University of St. Andrews. I spent a year there myself, after finishing prep school as an underachiever with no prospects for elite university in the US. In fact, I was not able to sufficiently burnish my late-teen resume, but my eyes were opened to a lot by the experience.
Yeah, I’m very intrigued by this mini-thread here. I toyed with the idea of going back to do a PhD in Logic but instead married the guy I’d met there. St. Andrews has some interesting magic going on.
It does. The northern latitude makes it's years extremely interesting. I love the tiny little snowflakes, like frozen falling fog. I loved walking home from the dorms shaped like a boat to St. Regulus at three in the morning when it was already light and seeing the crows sleeping standing up on the sidewalks.
For me it was a largely cultural experience, as well as needing ten months distance from my family.
I loved walking places and never knowing if I was going to be soaked by a wind-driven rainstorm when I got there. And the idea of short-term library loans where you got a book for two hours and could take it to a coffee shop to do research. And the sea. And the really great but also kind of bitingly mean professor I had for a Scottish history class. So much to love ...
Was it Professor MacDougal? I also had a Professor Graham for Moral Philosophy who I liked quite a bit. To your point in another reply that you had trouble understanding what the expectations were academically, I felt the same.
What I remember clearly about reading Scottish History was that there was a disparity in early written records so beyond the semi-mythic stories about Robert the Bruce, little was known about long periods save that they culminated in something irritating to the English, because there are written records of the English making war on the Scottish and then going back to England. That notion of knowledge coming from contemporary documentation is actually something that has served me well in reading History.
I wish I remembered! Suppose I could try to look it up. He was Scottish himself, if I remember. The course started with Mary, Queen of Scots, and ended with James I/II (the title was the actual years but that was the range covered). He had a very dry wit and didn’t seem to like students much. I always felt awfully stupid in his tutorials.
Regarding the expectations, I remember feeling very at sea with papers. I’d always been good at papers but this was the first time I understood why students wanted to know what professors were looking for. I didn’t get good marks but could also never figure out what I was doing wrong. I think it was just a completely different style of scholarship that I’d never learned.
To return to the topic, I was at St. Andrews in 1987-88, and international students were paying significantly more than British students then. I think there was even some discussion among us foreign students about the money the university charged us. It was a pittance compared to US college tuition, though.
I was there in 1997. Looked into transferring for my final year of college but the cost was prohibitive (a good thing really, as I went to a wonderful college and got a great classic liberal arts education there—I just fell in love with St. Andrews but had trouble understanding what the expectations were academically and would have floundered). But a lot of my now-husband’s friends were American students, and they were definitely of a different socioeconomic class.
I got my history undergrad at St Andrews and I was able to make the case to my parents to go abroad because even with living expenses/flights/etc it was *so* much cheaper than any American school I got into. I have been thinking about getting a masters since graduating in 2015 but I would only consider doing it in the UK because it's so much more affordable (I know, I know, I won't do a masters! I actually had a professor talk me out of it right before graduation because I didn't want to leave St Andrews and could hop right into an Intellectual History M Litt very easily there)
I did my MFA in London fo the same reason—the price in the US was double at the time, so even with a bad exchange rate and living in London, I still took on less debt than I would have with a US based program.
Hey! I did my MLitt in Mediaeval Studies at St Andrews after undergrad! I saw it as a testing ground for if I wanted to go on to a PhD without having to make the commitment to apply to PhD programs or a way to boost my resume if I went on to do library school (was planning on academic librarianship, which basically requires a second MA). I ended up going the latter route and then ended up in an entirely different field (which luckily pays me enough to pay off my loans from St Andrews hah).
I have Opinions about how 1yr master's programs in the UK are often cash-cows for the university since the majority of international students have to pay full fees, but at the same time it was still a real program in a real department. And it was still cheaper to have a "degree-granting holiday in Scotland" than trying to do the same in the US since I graduated in the recession.
oh woah, my childhood best friend studied medieval history at the University of St. Andrews for her bachelors and PhD. It would be wild if you knew her!
Wow! She got her PhD in 2016 so you might have known her. Her first name is Liz (I don't really want to give away anymore identifying info on a public post without her permission)
I can attest to credentialism. I'm a Columbia J-School grad. The amount of money paid for the degree plus the living expenses (NYC) is staggering.
First of all, the quality of the education leaves a lot to be desired. Often you got (or get) professors who are retired journalists and are using the school as a pension substitute or complement (I don't mean this disrespectfully, journalism is woefully underpaid as you very well know) and often you went to classes where the first thing the towering figure said was "you can't teach journalism."
In my particular case, I got an internship at what once was a very prestigious paper and is currently bare-bones (thank you, predatory hedge funds). I have to say that the main reason I got in was that the school did have an exclusive internship program with the paper. Otherwise I wouldn't have stood a chance.
But the problem is that I was nowhere near making a keep-my-head-above-the-water salary. Living expenses (plus I was in a city with crappy public transport, a car was mandatory), repaying tuition costs and paying rent meant that I was actually losing money by working at what I wanted to do.
In the end I had to quit journalism, and although I did enjoy my time at Columbia and NYC, I have to say that a decade later the degree is nothing more than a nice scroll hanging in one of my walls; a conversation starter when people come over: "Yes, I'm a graduate of the most prestigious journalism program in the world... No, I no longer work in journalism...".
If you don't mind saying, what field do you work in now? This comes from someone who is currently a journalist and occasional looks at the exit door. I have also taught about applying to Columbia's J-School to get a leg up in the journalism industry but I know ultimately the only thing it will do is put me in debt, which I'm deeply afraid of as I'm lucky to not have any undergrad debt.
I currently work in PR. I know people say you're working for the devil, but the world is not black or white. It's a paycheck and it's health insurance. It's also no furloughs, which are more common across newsrooms.
Sure, you're not Woodward or Bernstein, but you can make a down payment on a house or save for retirement.
Even though you are still not working in Journalism, I think the PR firms would still value your degree from Columbia. It is just that Journalism is a dying breed in the age of social media. Kudos to your decision! (My wife is an ex-journalist)
The undergrads at UChicago also look down on MAPH/MAPSS students, so they really just get no respect all around.
As an additional note about UChicago and its relationship to graduate school, when I was an undergrad there, they would boast about having the largest percentage of their alumni go on to complete graduate school. Five years, two masters, and $40,000 later (only because I happened to get funding and in-state tuition), I am not convinced this is something to brag about! As an institution, they really feed into the overall predatory nature of higher ed right now.
I toured Pomona as a high schooler and they shared the % of students going on to grad school and when asked the % that got jobs after graduation they said they'd have to get back to us. I remember my dad and another dad making eye contact like...yikes
Oof this ended up being a surprisingly emotional read for me. I graduated from a master's program at Columbia in 2020 that had a striking amount of similarities to the program at the University of Chicago described here. I also fit the bill for the high-achieving student who applied for lots of PhD programs but didn't get into any. I accepted the offer of a spot in my MA program as it came with a partial scholarship but in hindsight the program really shut down any meaningful efforts to do due diligence before I accepted.
About a semester into the program I realized I no longer wanted a PhD and just wanted to be back in financial crimes, where I'd been prior to grad school. For quite a while after graduation I was deeply angry about the decision I'd made to go to grad school and the debt I'd taken on. It just didn't feel worth it. Once I landed a job in my desired field making nearly double what I'd been making as a contractor pre-grad school, I felt a bit less mad about the whole thing as it seemed like I'd actually have a shot at paying off the debt I'd accrued. If I could do things differently, I wish I had been more open to considering another gap year to really think about my options. There was just such an acute sense of urgency to get back to school that baffles me a bit looking back on it.
What continues to frustrate me about the situation is how poorly my academic mentors in undergrad prepared me for the current state of academia. They warned me about the shrinking number of tenure track positions but never discussed the fact that the pathways they took in their careers just don't exist anymore. I loved what I studied in undergrad and my MA but given the state of the field, there just isn't a feasible option to get a PhD without me footing most, or all, of the bill.
I graduated in 2020 as well, from a graduate program I realized that I didn’t actually want. For me it was a Masters in Sustainable Transportation from UW, a 3 year part time online degree, and I hard relate to feeling such a sense of urgency about applying. At the time I was working in a different field from my undergrad that didn’t pay much and I just wanted a way out and grad school felt like the only way. After graduating I realized I was passionate about the subject but not about the actual work and now I’m back in the same field I was in before, just with more debt. I was so glad when student loan payments were put on hold for the pandemic but I’m not sure what will happen when they get reinstated in a few months.
This line: "The spoken and unspoken message: you didn’t get grad school this time. But you’re grad school material!" just stood out to me. Grad school is hard financially, emotionally, physically. Everything about it is hard. I would rather do another Ph.D. than do another MA degree. The stress levels in that one year were so off the charts. I know that grad school is a tangled web around one issue, capitalism, but I think there is something too about what happens when we do have people who should not be in grad school attending grad school. Not because they're not ~good enough or smart~ enough, but because it can be such a difficult time and since they're seen as cash cows and no human beings, what that type of experience will do to them.
The lack of mentorship, the lack of accountability for tenured profs who know they are shilling, that the idea 'never go to a program unless you're fully funded' isn't common anymore, that there aren't enrollment caps on programs...jfc and we wonder how we've gotten into this state
I remain so thankful that one of my referrees told me "don't go unless you're funded, go to the one that funds you more" and it's something I now tell people contemplating grad school. Between having tuition paid plus a small stipend and living with family, I got out of grad school with $5k in loans (I mean, I had like $45k from undergrad, but not doubling it is great!).
I often think of a couple of young women in my cohort who went straight from undergrad to grad and were just constant balls of worry and anxiety and didn't have either the skills nor the life experience to put grad school in perspective. While I had really struggled with anxiety, procrastination, and grades-as-worth in undergrad, spending two years working in the real world, in a field where my decisions could be literally life-or-death really helped me put grad school in perspective (and ironically made me a much better student with far higher grades than when I was all about what the grades meant for me).
Thank you for sharing your experience and that reflects what's happened with my Ph.D. After the MA, I was burnt out, tired af, and knew I needed to get some non-academic life experience. So I worked for a couple of years but then realized if I really did want that Ph.D. (and I want it even more now than I did then) that I was in an optimal time in my life to pursue it but that I needed to do my research, interview potential supervisors, ask about funding, etc. It's been a much better experience because there was more time taken, more maturity, and tbh, not going to grad school because 'I guess I'll go to grad school'. I have a lot of thoughts on this topic lol
You got the issue wrong: it’s a tangled web around the desire to be in the Club for Smart People. The most capitalist grad programs are often the most transparent and best run.
I am in a Clinical Pastoral Education unit this summer that is a requirement for most Master of Divinity programs. In addition to paying for the Master of Divinity, there is an additional cost for the CPE program. We spend 2/3 of our time doing the work of the chaplains at the hospital, but we have to pay the cost of tuition (and our own meals). Because the unit is full time, most of us cannot work additional jobs to help cover the cost of tuition. I know this all isn't as bad as what you describe in the article, but it does seem unfair not to get a stipend or some compensation because we are actually doing the work of the chaplain, and paying to do it.
I’m beginning to wonder if all graduate programs are inherently predatory under our current economic conditions. I say this as someone who went to a small liberal arts college in New England, then to a completely unprestigious master’s program, and later a prestigious (but not Ivy) PhD program — and then left ABD. As foolish and impractical as I was in my early 20s, I managed to accept as gospel (thankfully!) the advice from my undergrad professors that I should only go to grad school if I don’t have to pay for it and to not, under any circumstances, pay for a terminal MA degree. I so desperately wanted to do my MA at UVA, it it would have costed at least $80k (this was 2007), but despite my obsession with prestige and desperation to ascend my socioeconomic class via education, I blanched at the thought of more loans and declined the offer. I’m grateful every day for the decision my 23 year old self made. I now work on a college campus, and feel simply terrible for the grad students and adjuncts I encounter.
My undergrad thesis advisor told me to never do any non-professional masters that wasn’t fully funded, and to never do any professional masters that wasn’t at least half covered by a scholarship, and boy she really saved me with that advice. A lot of peers from my graduating class went on to do MAs in things like public policy or international studies at prestigious universities with no clear goal in mind, and only realized yrs down the line that those universities just saw them as a cash source and not much else.
I ended up doing my MA at a state school in New England that had a reciprocal agreement with all the other NE states for their residents — basically, if your home state university didn’t have that degree, you could go to another NE state university for in-state rates. This particular program also gave tuition remission and TAships since there was no PhD program. Honestly, it’s a small miracle that I didn’t end up with a ton of grad school debt. As I said above, I think about it every day!
I was also given that advice by my father (who had left a public university PhD when he was ABD to get an MBA). And when I was considering MA programs in English, my undergrad advisor at my Ivy League school insisted that I attend the lower-ranked MA program that had offered me full funding rather than one of the prestigious universities that wanted me to pay. I am thankful everyday for that advice. I learned a lot, was accepted into a good PhD with funding, and completed all my education with no debt. I can look back on my 10 years of MA/PhD as a valuable growing experience and interesting use of my brain in my 20s-30s while I started my family rather than as an ruinous waste of my best years. (I now work in secondary education rather than higher ed, so my degrees prepared me for my work but weren't necessary to get the job).
I will certainly give my own children the same advice.
Love this topic! Last year during the pandemic my younger sister “got into” DU for a Master’s in Elementary Education. She was elated, thinking the program was elite. I had some experience working with the DU Morgridge College of Education through an education nonprofit and found any faculty I had interacted with to be ridiculously out of touch with the realities on the ground in education. I begged my sister not to take on $50K in debt for a year-long program from a College of Education that ranked 113th (Boise State University and LCSC rank significantly higher for about half the cost). Also, she did the program during the pandemic year, which meant she was unable to set foot in a classroom and did student teaching via Zoom — hardly a real practicum, but DU had no qualms charging full tuition for the experience. I recruited my brother to help talk her out of it, too. He got his MA paid for through an assistantship working for a football team. I got my MA through Teach for America. We assured her had we not had full scholarships we just wouldn’t have gotten the degrees because they often aren’t worth the money.
She ignored us, unfortunately, went through with it (her best friend told me she just needed that paper to feel better). She also hated the program and has decided not to become a teacher. She just got a job working for an education software company making less than the amount of her student loan debt. Starting salaries for teachers in Denver Public Schools are so low I am incredulous the DU degree is attractive to anyone anyway. What a scam!
"Found any faculty I had interacted with to be ridiculously out of touch with the realities on the ground in education" ... I had this exact problem in my undergrad journalism program. I didn't actually gain most of the skills I needed until I was actually on the job. I've long joked that the first two years of employment was my master's degree, except that I earned the equivalent of what I would have paid for an actual degree.
I'm a librarian. I got my library degree in 1987 from a state university after spending a year at a prestigious private university working towards a MA in history. That prestigious private university was charging about 3K per class in 1984/1985. Why was I surprised - my "little ivy" undergrad university increased total fees from $6500 to $14000 in the four years I was there (1980-1984).
My profession is mostly white, middle-aged, and female (although the majority of "important" positions in the field are still held by men). I have had many conversations with folks about diversifying the field, and I always return to money. Why would anyone get into debt upwards of 75 - 100K to work in a field where the median salary in a major metropolitan area is about 50K? And if you want to be an academic librarian, you are pressured to obtain a second masters degree to be a "subject specialist," which is a joke.
Until recently, you could obtain a BA in librarianship. But those degrees are not certified by the American Library Association, which means you can't get a job with just a BA. But a person can learn everything they need to learn to start out in the field with just a BA - so why do we continue to burden people with the expense of one or two graduate degrees when the necessary skill set can be obtained with just a BA?
I wish I remembered the details better, but when I was applying to grad school, one of my undergrad advisers warned me away from even applying to a specific PhD program because, IIRC, it funneled people into an expensive masters program and created a "snake pit" environment by pitting people against each other for funding post-masters. It may even have been Columbia. And that was the 1990s. I know things have gotten so much worse.
Hi I’m a MAPSS graduate so this was hard to read. I actually went to an Ivy for my undergraduate, but decided to switch into the social sciences for grad school and was mystified when I didn’t get into PhD programs for two years straight. In hindsight, I just didn’t know what I was doing and had 0 mentorship. This is one of the risks with going to a prestigious undergraduate program. My professors didn’t really have time for me. And I was afraid to ask for help. Having been accustomed to always being The Best Student, I was vulnerable to the siren song of the MAPSS program, which told me “we are the best anthropology department in the world and you will be lucky to work with us. Our graduates get into all the best PhD programs.”
I did make lovely friends there. I did get into a Phd program after that and am now a professor. But it was one of the worst mental health times in my life. My program advisor “preceptor” (an advanced student in the PhD program) was a monster. It essentially cost me my marriage too.
And the extra kicker- I still have only paid those student loans down to $65k. I’ve given up hope of paying them off, even as I save for my own kids’ college.
My dad has a PhD. I’m neither first gen in college nor did I go to a less prestigious school for my BA. But I was vulnerable nonetheless.
The credentialism is real! I'm a librarian, which is a field that already requires its own masters degree (don't get me started on that), but since I work in higher ed, unless you have a second masters, you probably won't get interviewed or hired anywhere. When the search was open for my boss's position, the position description only required the single masters degree in library science; but my credential-loving library director only interviewed people with PhDs.
After I had been at my current job for a while, I took a minute to read through my actual job description (which wasn't available to me when I actually applied to the job, because it's "proprietary"), and found that because my job was described more as an instructional designer-type job, which has very little to do with my day-to-day work, I was actually graded in a lower salary band because my job didn't actually even require the library science masters! I had been told that a large part of the reason I was hired is because I have two masters.
tl;dr You need a masters (or more) to get the job, but then you're not actually paid as if you have the masters.
going to talk a lot about the MLIS/MLS in the next installment!
Good, I look forward to hearing more, and am happy to be a source, too. I learned a lot from some great people in my MLIS, but there's a base layer of farce about the whole thing. It seems generally recognized in the field that the real training occurs, well, in the field, which prompts the question of why we aren't operating under some kind of apprenticeship model. But that would require figuring out how to pay apprentices some kind of meager salary for the work they're doing, within institutions that are already cash-strapped. Add to that the professional anxiety that many librarians feel, either due to the sense that we're "not needed anymore because we have Google" or, in academia, that we don't work in a "real" discipline and are therefore a bunch of para-academics trying to run with the big dogs, and then add to that the way that an MLIS/MLS is a good way to pull debt-fueled tuition dollars to keep an academic institution afloat, and well, you get a really good recipe for the focus being on the degree as an entry ritual rather than thinking about what methods actually get us the skills and knowledge we need.
I and my 70k debt and MLS degree and my non-library job have feelings about that!!!
Yessss complaining about my MLS is my favorite thing to do! I learned *so little* in my program. I learned how to bullshit on very little effort which I suppose is a skill? I got out lucky with only about $10k of debt because I went in state and lived at my mom’s and was working 30 hours/week for the feds.
It did give me a thing to do after college, it did allow the government to keep employing me as a paid intern, and I did meet my wife there, so like, worth it, but not because of the program itself at all.
Oh and do I use the degree? Definitely not. I still work for the government and I make way more than any librarian I know including federal librarians. (My wife is one, she’s like one of two people I know from library school with a successful library career.)
I'm going slightly against the grain and saying my MLIS actually allowed me to get on a solid career track and now have a lucrative tech job. I share many of the complaints and criticisms of MLIS programs here, but I do also believe that it can be a useful degree... if you're creative at marketing the skillset and don't want to be a librarian. So... there's that. My program at least had significant overlaps with an engineering program and a communications program, so a lot of our faculty and elective courses were shared. Those people in my program (myself included) who had an interest in the digital side of LIS were able to get some more technical classes under our belts and network with people in the private sector in our city. Many have gone on to careers in technology--whether we work at actual tech companies or in technical/digital roles in smaller organizations. But an MLIS certainly isn't a required degree for most of those jobs--it was just a way in the door.
That said... I think the more traditional library school bits of my program were, academically, a joke. And many people who wanted to go in traditional library roles struggled a lot to find employment. So in the end I feel like I paid a ton of money to essentially take classes from other programs and then get in the right networking circles, none of which are focused on the library world. Which just seems silly but also par-for-course for a lot of academia.
Another Masters program that requires more work than it is worth (and results in low-paying jobs) is the Masters in Social Work (MSW). Some of the recent information technology degrees are equally hollow. Universities will do anything to get more tuition money and build their departmental empires.
U of C had one of THOSE going too ... but they sold it! For millions I'm sure!
Actually, I think they got rid of it (along with Columbia) because it lacked academic prestige and generous alumni. You need at least one of the two.
When Hannah Gray was President of the UofC she decided to get rid of the Library School, claiming it didn't have the prestige of other depts at Chicago. That was an obvious lie that was easily refuted via citation statistics, so Hannah backed off and gave the real reason - the Library School didn't bring in enough money. The UofC admin then offered the Library School a second chance: if within a year or so they started bringing in big funds they could stay. They could have done so since there was a serious demand for library education in the Chicago area, but the faculty weren't interested in that and so let it die. Rosary's (now Dominican Univ.'s) Library School was left as the only Library School in the area, though inconveniently located. I very much doubt that anything was sold by the UofC; after all, what assets would there have been to sell?
I had a friend in the last class, and I think you're right ... I think they sold their *assets* to Rosary, the only MLS school left in the Chicago area after 1990.
One of my library school professors did a PhD in library science at U of C back in the 60s, when they still had a library program! He had...stories.
Instructional Design Librarian here, too! I work at a very small 4-year comprehensive with a saturation of masters programs surrounding us so whenever we hire, we get a lot of credentialed librarians with NONE of the skills we actually need lol The field is moving more towards curriculum design, instructional design, project management, community engagement, data management but you still get none of that training in grad school so what good is the degree. It's also really hard to work with the undergrads who will be graduating into a rigid economy, with student loan debt and very few social supports.
(This next part is a little off topic but I'm thinking about how my masters degree changed my life.)
I come from a very working class background with 2 college degrees in my family and it's taken me years to stop being grateful for the tiny raise or a funded professional development opportunity. I identify with the feeling of having "bought" my way into a community and opportunities I never would have had otherwise and feeling the corresponding imposter syndrome (I'm too poor to be here. I don't deserve this, etc.). It's taken me years to see that my position in this world has been a product of systemic factors: being born to boomers who were able to attain economic growth, attended an affordable U of Wisconsin school, married a gen x-er with generational wealth behind him, choosing not to have children. Anyway, deep thoughts for a Wednesday morning lol
"you're not actually paid as if you have the masters" THIS THIS THIS
I too am an academic librarian. I accrued like $150k at least in student debt to get my MLIS, and I will ***never*** be able to pay it back. The program I went to is at a state school, but is a fee-based program so it's priced like a private school. They're also one of the "top-rated" programs, which the admin could not shut up about but which wasn't reflected in the quality of most of the classes. I don't have a second masters which meant I couldn't even apply for a lot of the jobs I was interested in.
I am one of the lucky ones, in that I was able to work at an actual library during grad school, which got me a temporary position after graduation that eventually got me my current TT position at a private 4-year university where I am paid poorly but not horribly. I have friends from grad school who still (5+ years later) haven't gotten a full-time and/or permanent position.
Library school, IMO, is a scam, and librarians should be trained primarily on the job or in some sort of apprenticeship. Everything I learned in grad school was at my job, and in all the billions of interviews I did before finally landing my current position, not once did anyone ask specifically about my school experience. Turns out nobody cares that you went to the #2 library school in the country.
So you didn’t think about long-term finances before starting? I mean c’mon! Borrowing $150,000 to be a librarian? WTF.
Ouff .. I hear you ... I got an MLIS from U of I Urbana Champaign about 10 years ago. Spent about 8 months applying to any sort of library job and got zero interviews. Ended up teaching ESL as it is something I enjoy and I am apparently good at; maybe it has to do with the fact that I am fluent in 3 languages and speak another one fairly well.
Wow, a "proprietary" job description--gotta love the creative use of IP horse shit to further exploitation.
Naturally the salary was proprietary too, so I just had to name a figure and hope it wasn't too much/too little.
Dang, they're really keeping it classy. I'm trying to guess which hedge fund with an educational arm you're working at.
Just another person with an MLS that I do not use chiming in to say hello to everyone! I try not to focus too much on the fact that I do not need it for what I do because then I just get annoyed and frustrated. I work in Prospect Research in a University development office and I absolutely love what I do but I did not need the degree and one reason I have stayed in the role I have is so that I could actually pay off my grad school debt (which I finally did last year, 9 years after graduating which felt lucky) I wrote more about my experience and my financial story here if anyone is interested: https://inalj.com/?p=108045
I have a masters in Children’s Literature (lol I know but it was actually an amazing experience) and am about to start an MLIS program this fall. These comments are by turns helpful and frightening. At this point I just feel like I’m flinging myself into the void and hoping I land somewhere.
Also I definitely recommend seeing if you could work part-time or volunteer in a library (if you don't already)! I worked in an academic library in a low-paid intern position while I got my MLIS online and I think my work experience was what got me a decent job right after graduating. (But of course, working in a low-paid position like that isn't feasible for everyone, which might just be part of the reason librarianship is so white!)
Good luck to you! I mean that very sincerely! I personally think you just have to be very intentional with your time in graduate school. Look at job descriptions that you might want and work hard to incorporate that into your learning. Ask questions of professors to get opportunities that might make you a better candidate for the career you want. I got a lot out of library school because I put a lot in. I know plenty of people who didn't challenge themselves enough and found it boring. Well, go figure. If you don't put a lot into it, you won't get a lot out of it!
Thank you so much! This program seems very bent on helping students find careers and encourages intentional course planning and skill building from the get go. I plan to reach out to a professor in youth services who’s open to advising and appears pretty “with it” in terms of what’s currently desirable in the field.
These comments are very, doom-and-gloom. My MLIS was a pathway towards my current role as a librarian, though academically it was not very challenging and I'm not convinced it's a needed degree. However, right now there are lots of library positions out there (my library has 5 tenure track positions open!) but you might have to move in order to find something. I worked a year in a middle-of-nowhere public library before moving to an for-profit university in another state before finding my current position in a rural university.
100% believe it was an amazing experience. Were money no object, Masters in Children's Lit would be my dream.
Good Luck in it!! Find any library related internship, apprenticeship, and if the school has a student work program that may have a student library position. Even check the university's library if they have a student library position (sometimes the school's student work program and library work opportunities don't synchronize, so watch carefully). That's a huge problem with the MLIS, I had to find student jobs related to information and records management while studying in the program to ensure I got "real experience" while paying rent, food, tuition, etc. It's the only way.
Good luck!
HA, thanks for sharing this.
Strong agree with all this! I fell for it and got a subject masters which was useless in terms of education (but I did meet my best friend in the program, so it wasn't a total waste).
And professional degrees like the MLIS are also often cash cows for the universities! They accept so many more students than there are jobs in the field, and because the program is not "academic," there are few scholarships available, so students just rack up debt and then struggle to find jobs. So frustrating.
I am also an academic librarian, and I have heard a lot about the pressures for getting a second masters (or more) in the field, but at least at my current institution, most of us have "only" our MLIS (or equivalent). I have lots of feelings on the requirement of an MLIS to be a librarian, but after seeing some of these tuition numbers from other master's programs, I realize how relatively affordable many MLIS programs are.
Another aspect of this credentialism is how these programs are staffed by academics who can't get tenure-track positions but are desperate to work in "academia." A number of my fellow PhDs have taken roles as directors and coordinators of these "cash cow" programs and it's a nightmare job. The students are pissed about the quality of the programs and demand more than they're getting (rightfully so, for $50k/year!) -- and they have to be regarded more as customers than students. These programs are just an extension of the academic pyramid scheme and it's really awful.
This is super interesting as someone who flirted with the idea of doing grad school in the humanities / social sciences but ended up deciding to get a MBA instead. I will say that while MBAs are wildly expensive (over 70K in tuition alone), especially at my M7 program, it was fascinating how much detailed salary / job numbers were provided as a prospective student (down to sector breakdowns, % of students receiving nonprofit fellowships the school provided vs. those that applied, etc.), versus the "soft sell" focused on the life of the mind of more academic programs. I kind of preferred the transactional nature of the MBA admissions process - "we are charging you a lot because this credential will make you lots of money afterwards, and tuition/COA is basically mapped onto your willingness to pay given this projected return" despite the fact that I would've 100% been an academic if it were just up to me - I guess if I'm going to be a commodity, I at least appreciated the institution being honest about it.
M7 MBA + 1
I also majored in social science in undergrad, so I feel that I made the right decision not wasting time doing social science MS like some of my undergrad friends.
I still feel that the MBA tuition is overpriced but as an international student, I also get to earn 6 figures salary after graduation in the US, which I wouldn’t be able to achieve without the MBA program.
I'm the parent of a rising senior in high school and I see some of the same themes in the college application "game." The marketing to my daughter by schools that are way out of her reach is sickening to watch. These schools, like University of Chicago!, are eager for her application fee and her presence in the increasing denominator of applicants (while keeping the numerator quite fixed.) Worst of all, it's emotionally manipulative of these schools to make her think she has a chance when she has essentially none of being admitted. It's quite disgusting.
Also, I can tell you as a professor that schools advertise what are very common services/majors/opportunities as if they are unique to that school. So when your daughter is choosing between schools, watch out for that.
I went to a regional SUNY for my undergrad, then stayed at that regional SUNY for my masters. That got me full scholarship + funding offers for my PhD at every school I applied to, but I did not apply for any in major cities because I didn’t have the money to live in NYC or the like. Lots of professors around me went to fancy schools, accrued lots of debt doing so, and we have the same job.
The meritocracy aspect is so key. I graduated from undergrad in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in English from a small liberal arts college and it was the recession so I had no plan post-graduation. My professors encouraged me to continue another two years at the college for an MA in English because I was a passionate student and could use the degree to leverage myself when the economy got better. I would be one of the students to beat the odds, I thought! I enrolled in the program on a whim and was immediately accepted. Three days before the semester started (and the tuition bill was due) I got cold feet and withdrew. I just couldn't justify the cost (I wish I remember what it was - it wasn't outrageous but still would have put me tens of thousands in debt).
Later, with my husband's emotional and financial support, I went into urban planning for grad school at a different university (an HBCU, actually) and also worked and paid my way as I went (which meant it took me five years to do a two year program). I was able to take on a minimal amount of debt as a result ($10,000). Again, I was encouraged to go the Higher Ed route because I was a great student and would beat the odds! I seriously looked into PhD programs in Winter 2019/2020 with the plan to apply in Fall 2020...and then the pandemic happened.
What's so hard is that I sincerely believe that my professors were steering me in that direction for good reasons. They saw my capabilities (even as I felt impostor syndrome) and believed in me. However, as college and university administrations grew and student populations grew, tenured positions didn't. I saw it happen in both schools where tenured faculty retired/died/left and their positions were replaced with adjuncts. Every university program's best student could apply but there just isn't enough spots in graduate programs or tenure-track positions for them.
The other key, I think, is that current tenured faculty have survivorship bias. They themselves beat the odds, so it's much easier for them to see their best and brightest students beat the odds, too.
And often they just can't accept how difficult the odds actually are.
Survivorship bias is a great way to put it. It’s often the only advice they have because it’s the only professional experience they have.
Yes, this. So glad you said this and put it into that lens - really helps me.
Oh hey, I also did a 2 year planning degree on the 4-year schedule! I was amazed at how many schools, when I was looking, advertised their MUP program as "full time or part time," but when you actually looked closer, there were required classes scheduled in the morning and afternoon, so good luck working around both of those. Having an actual part time friendly class schedule really, really narrowed down my choice of where to apply more than any other factor.
Yep, that was a huge factor for me, too! The trade off is that it's hard to get students and program alumni involved in anything extra, which makes the community feel lacking, but the ability to able to work a traditional 9-5 while going to school is important!
Definitely - I remember the full time students having a very strong "cohort" community due to being in the same classes in the same sequence, and the part time folks were less cohesive of a community. I didn't see full time school as an option for myself, and in retrospect I definitely would have regretted full time school financially. As it is my biggest regret is that between being in a new city and being busy, I was pretty lonely!
Truly said, Em. Both in my undergrad and graduate programs I would try to find evening classes because many of the students there were working full-time, and so were more practical in their outlook and sense of purpose. That collective focus often prompted the professors to focus on the practical, marketable skills and to bloviate less about their personal philosophy. As I noted in another post, that focus helped me to gain a practical skill set for my English major that was useful in the working world.
Good call on going for an Urban Planning program, which has clearer practical (employment) applications.
I'm another English major who beat the odds. Fortunately my undergrad department was writing-oriented, and I used that skill to get into technical (computer) editing and writing, and then to publication department management and project management. I learned that there are only a few types of writing that companies will pay good money to get. To stay employed, be part of the solution.
This is so teeth-grindingly enraging. I ended up doing my master’s (in medieval art history, that most lucrative of fields!!) at the University of St Andrews largely because the cost of tuition for the whole degree (for an international student no less) + living expenses in the most expensive town in Scotland + flights back and forth + the occasional tourist jaunt was still SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than just one year of tuition alone for a master’s at Columbia/equivalent.
Reading this, I was thinking about my husband’s law degree. He’s English but we were living in Boston when he persuaded his employer to pay for a law degree, so we looked into Harvard because it was right there, and found that it was not only 50K per year (in 2001) but he couldn’t have a job while he was doing it. He looked back into England and found that he could do a law course that cost so little—like your example, even with flights and other expenses—that the entire degree would be just a few thousand. I think he had to devote less time because he already had a PhD in another field, but still the difference was beyond absurd.
By the way, we met while I was studying abroad at St. Andrews! Love that place.
One of my favorite places on the planet! Even if the Tesco's is apparently the most expensive in the UK. :)
But yes-- the cost difference is ridiculous. My best friend, a lawyer, is married to a fellow lawyer and their student loans together are half a million dollars. HALF. A. MILLION. And she's a public defender!!!!!!!!!
That is atrocious! You’d think a public defender could get loan forgiveness, too :/
I do love St. Andrews! Fell in love with almost everything about it immediately. And then got super broke because I was not accustomed to going out for a pint almost every day of the week! No regrets, though 💗
Off-topic, do you mind sharing where he did his law degree? I am in a quite similar position – nonlaw PhD, possibility of doing a funded by degree, and a preference for doing it in the UK. I’m trying to figure out which programs would be a good fit.
Back on topic, I also have a UK masters degree. I was lucky to have external funding but they are absolutely cash cows. Lots of international students who get no funding and pay significant amounts for their degrees.
He did it in Birmingham. A two-year course if I remember? His PhD was in physics, so completely unrelated :) The law course was really good, and then he did the barrister course in London.
Yeah, if I remember in St. Andrews, the international students were a big source of revenue. I was only there one semester and my college’s financial aid applied to the tuition and room/board, but I still ended up overdrawing my bank account. My husband went bachelor’s through PhD there and never paid a thing, but his PhD was externally funded (through the Ministry of Defence). But the law degreee system seems financially accessible, too.
What I find particularly interesting is the magnitude of difference for cash cows at St A's/British schools in general and here in the US. I didn't receive any aid for my MLitt but the tuition was still a fraction of what I would have paid at a similar institution here. Granted, I only had to pay that difference for one year (another benefit of doing a master's abroad instead of a 2-year stateside program), but the costs were not even remotely comparable for the same lovely but useless degree.
It would be interesting if someone did a deep research dive into economic structures for universities and their funding in different countries.
*deleted cause I re-read my post and it was off-topic :)
Out of curiosity, does your husband practice law now in the US or in the UK? (If the US, was it easy to find employment afterwards? I've somewhat aware of the hoops foreign-trained lawyers sometimes have to go through to practice as a lawyer in the US.)
He doesn't. He thought about taking the bar when we lived in New York, but had no real need because his job didn't require it. Now we live in Montana, and the barriers are much more robust and he'd have to do some more certification or something. It does vary widely by state, so it'd be worth looking into if you're thinking about it.
We weren't living in the UK at the time, but if we were he would have done that thing where you follow a judge around on their circuit or something. I can't remember what it's called! He was called to the bar in Inner Temple, and would have gotten the following thing through there. But again, he wouldn't really have been able to have a regular job while doing that. Huge class barriers, which weirdly vary because in the US it was a barrier to getting the degree, but in the UK it was a barrier to the final hoop for getting through to a job.
I spent the summer of 2006 in Birmingham! I did not, however, have the good sense to get my JD there. Loved that city a LOT.
I did, too! I wasn't there nearly as much as my husband but went with him a few times and wandered the city for hours while he was in class. We didn't cross over with you -- I think he finished his JD in 2005, if I remember. Were you working there?
It was some "cultural exchange" type situation through the university I was at. Not sure what the Brummies exchanged for me, but I had a great time! I spent a lot of time at the uni, but did get to wander around with a camera and a map a decent amount. Really enjoyed the people of that town and to this day I have not found a balti restaurant as good as the one around the corner from my flat.
Thank you! I have friends who work at Birmingham (in my PhD field), so it’s good to know it’s a solid option. I do actually work on law already, but in an academic social science discipline, and I’m at a point in my career where an actual law degree would be beneficial.
I thought it was a really good program (this was before we had kids, so I had time to browse his books and give feedback on his papers). I’m sure you have people you can ask about it, but he wouldn’t mind chatting if you get to that point.
Fascinating that so many responses come from people who went to the University of St. Andrews. I spent a year there myself, after finishing prep school as an underachiever with no prospects for elite university in the US. In fact, I was not able to sufficiently burnish my late-teen resume, but my eyes were opened to a lot by the experience.
Yeah, I’m very intrigued by this mini-thread here. I toyed with the idea of going back to do a PhD in Logic but instead married the guy I’d met there. St. Andrews has some interesting magic going on.
It does. The northern latitude makes it's years extremely interesting. I love the tiny little snowflakes, like frozen falling fog. I loved walking home from the dorms shaped like a boat to St. Regulus at three in the morning when it was already light and seeing the crows sleeping standing up on the sidewalks.
For me it was a largely cultural experience, as well as needing ten months distance from my family.
I loved walking places and never knowing if I was going to be soaked by a wind-driven rainstorm when I got there. And the idea of short-term library loans where you got a book for two hours and could take it to a coffee shop to do research. And the sea. And the really great but also kind of bitingly mean professor I had for a Scottish history class. So much to love ...
Was it Professor MacDougal? I also had a Professor Graham for Moral Philosophy who I liked quite a bit. To your point in another reply that you had trouble understanding what the expectations were academically, I felt the same.
What I remember clearly about reading Scottish History was that there was a disparity in early written records so beyond the semi-mythic stories about Robert the Bruce, little was known about long periods save that they culminated in something irritating to the English, because there are written records of the English making war on the Scottish and then going back to England. That notion of knowledge coming from contemporary documentation is actually something that has served me well in reading History.
I wish I remembered! Suppose I could try to look it up. He was Scottish himself, if I remember. The course started with Mary, Queen of Scots, and ended with James I/II (the title was the actual years but that was the range covered). He had a very dry wit and didn’t seem to like students much. I always felt awfully stupid in his tutorials.
Regarding the expectations, I remember feeling very at sea with papers. I’d always been good at papers but this was the first time I understood why students wanted to know what professors were looking for. I didn’t get good marks but could also never figure out what I was doing wrong. I think it was just a completely different style of scholarship that I’d never learned.
"Interesting magic" is by far the best descriptor I've read for the place.
💞
To return to the topic, I was at St. Andrews in 1987-88, and international students were paying significantly more than British students then. I think there was even some discussion among us foreign students about the money the university charged us. It was a pittance compared to US college tuition, though.
I was there in 1997. Looked into transferring for my final year of college but the cost was prohibitive (a good thing really, as I went to a wonderful college and got a great classic liberal arts education there—I just fell in love with St. Andrews but had trouble understanding what the expectations were academically and would have floundered). But a lot of my now-husband’s friends were American students, and they were definitely of a different socioeconomic class.
I got my history undergrad at St Andrews and I was able to make the case to my parents to go abroad because even with living expenses/flights/etc it was *so* much cheaper than any American school I got into. I have been thinking about getting a masters since graduating in 2015 but I would only consider doing it in the UK because it's so much more affordable (I know, I know, I won't do a masters! I actually had a professor talk me out of it right before graduation because I didn't want to leave St Andrews and could hop right into an Intellectual History M Litt very easily there)
I did my MFA in London fo the same reason—the price in the US was double at the time, so even with a bad exchange rate and living in London, I still took on less debt than I would have with a US based program.
Hey! I did my MLitt in Mediaeval Studies at St Andrews after undergrad! I saw it as a testing ground for if I wanted to go on to a PhD without having to make the commitment to apply to PhD programs or a way to boost my resume if I went on to do library school (was planning on academic librarianship, which basically requires a second MA). I ended up going the latter route and then ended up in an entirely different field (which luckily pays me enough to pay off my loans from St Andrews hah).
I have Opinions about how 1yr master's programs in the UK are often cash-cows for the university since the majority of international students have to pay full fees, but at the same time it was still a real program in a real department. And it was still cheaper to have a "degree-granting holiday in Scotland" than trying to do the same in the US since I graduated in the recession.
oh woah, my childhood best friend studied medieval history at the University of St. Andrews for her bachelors and PhD. It would be wild if you knew her!
I finished my master's in 2014 if that helps!! For a relatively small university, so many people have connections there!
Wow! She got her PhD in 2016 so you might have known her. Her first name is Liz (I don't really want to give away anymore identifying info on a public post without her permission)
That's alright-- I don't think I know her as the various graduate degree programs are fairly siloed anyway. But a lovely coincidence all the same! :)
I can attest to credentialism. I'm a Columbia J-School grad. The amount of money paid for the degree plus the living expenses (NYC) is staggering.
First of all, the quality of the education leaves a lot to be desired. Often you got (or get) professors who are retired journalists and are using the school as a pension substitute or complement (I don't mean this disrespectfully, journalism is woefully underpaid as you very well know) and often you went to classes where the first thing the towering figure said was "you can't teach journalism."
In my particular case, I got an internship at what once was a very prestigious paper and is currently bare-bones (thank you, predatory hedge funds). I have to say that the main reason I got in was that the school did have an exclusive internship program with the paper. Otherwise I wouldn't have stood a chance.
But the problem is that I was nowhere near making a keep-my-head-above-the-water salary. Living expenses (plus I was in a city with crappy public transport, a car was mandatory), repaying tuition costs and paying rent meant that I was actually losing money by working at what I wanted to do.
In the end I had to quit journalism, and although I did enjoy my time at Columbia and NYC, I have to say that a decade later the degree is nothing more than a nice scroll hanging in one of my walls; a conversation starter when people come over: "Yes, I'm a graduate of the most prestigious journalism program in the world... No, I no longer work in journalism...".
If you don't mind saying, what field do you work in now? This comes from someone who is currently a journalist and occasional looks at the exit door. I have also taught about applying to Columbia's J-School to get a leg up in the journalism industry but I know ultimately the only thing it will do is put me in debt, which I'm deeply afraid of as I'm lucky to not have any undergrad debt.
I currently work in PR. I know people say you're working for the devil, but the world is not black or white. It's a paycheck and it's health insurance. It's also no furloughs, which are more common across newsrooms.
Sure, you're not Woodward or Bernstein, but you can make a down payment on a house or save for retirement.
Even though you are still not working in Journalism, I think the PR firms would still value your degree from Columbia. It is just that Journalism is a dying breed in the age of social media. Kudos to your decision! (My wife is an ex-journalist)
The undergrads at UChicago also look down on MAPH/MAPSS students, so they really just get no respect all around.
As an additional note about UChicago and its relationship to graduate school, when I was an undergrad there, they would boast about having the largest percentage of their alumni go on to complete graduate school. Five years, two masters, and $40,000 later (only because I happened to get funding and in-state tuition), I am not convinced this is something to brag about! As an institution, they really feed into the overall predatory nature of higher ed right now.
I toured Pomona as a high schooler and they shared the % of students going on to grad school and when asked the % that got jobs after graduation they said they'd have to get back to us. I remember my dad and another dad making eye contact like...yikes
Oof this ended up being a surprisingly emotional read for me. I graduated from a master's program at Columbia in 2020 that had a striking amount of similarities to the program at the University of Chicago described here. I also fit the bill for the high-achieving student who applied for lots of PhD programs but didn't get into any. I accepted the offer of a spot in my MA program as it came with a partial scholarship but in hindsight the program really shut down any meaningful efforts to do due diligence before I accepted.
About a semester into the program I realized I no longer wanted a PhD and just wanted to be back in financial crimes, where I'd been prior to grad school. For quite a while after graduation I was deeply angry about the decision I'd made to go to grad school and the debt I'd taken on. It just didn't feel worth it. Once I landed a job in my desired field making nearly double what I'd been making as a contractor pre-grad school, I felt a bit less mad about the whole thing as it seemed like I'd actually have a shot at paying off the debt I'd accrued. If I could do things differently, I wish I had been more open to considering another gap year to really think about my options. There was just such an acute sense of urgency to get back to school that baffles me a bit looking back on it.
What continues to frustrate me about the situation is how poorly my academic mentors in undergrad prepared me for the current state of academia. They warned me about the shrinking number of tenure track positions but never discussed the fact that the pathways they took in their careers just don't exist anymore. I loved what I studied in undergrad and my MA but given the state of the field, there just isn't a feasible option to get a PhD without me footing most, or all, of the bill.
I graduated in 2020 as well, from a graduate program I realized that I didn’t actually want. For me it was a Masters in Sustainable Transportation from UW, a 3 year part time online degree, and I hard relate to feeling such a sense of urgency about applying. At the time I was working in a different field from my undergrad that didn’t pay much and I just wanted a way out and grad school felt like the only way. After graduating I realized I was passionate about the subject but not about the actual work and now I’m back in the same field I was in before, just with more debt. I was so glad when student loan payments were put on hold for the pandemic but I’m not sure what will happen when they get reinstated in a few months.
This line: "The spoken and unspoken message: you didn’t get grad school this time. But you’re grad school material!" just stood out to me. Grad school is hard financially, emotionally, physically. Everything about it is hard. I would rather do another Ph.D. than do another MA degree. The stress levels in that one year were so off the charts. I know that grad school is a tangled web around one issue, capitalism, but I think there is something too about what happens when we do have people who should not be in grad school attending grad school. Not because they're not ~good enough or smart~ enough, but because it can be such a difficult time and since they're seen as cash cows and no human beings, what that type of experience will do to them.
The lack of mentorship, the lack of accountability for tenured profs who know they are shilling, that the idea 'never go to a program unless you're fully funded' isn't common anymore, that there aren't enrollment caps on programs...jfc and we wonder how we've gotten into this state
I remain so thankful that one of my referrees told me "don't go unless you're funded, go to the one that funds you more" and it's something I now tell people contemplating grad school. Between having tuition paid plus a small stipend and living with family, I got out of grad school with $5k in loans (I mean, I had like $45k from undergrad, but not doubling it is great!).
I often think of a couple of young women in my cohort who went straight from undergrad to grad and were just constant balls of worry and anxiety and didn't have either the skills nor the life experience to put grad school in perspective. While I had really struggled with anxiety, procrastination, and grades-as-worth in undergrad, spending two years working in the real world, in a field where my decisions could be literally life-or-death really helped me put grad school in perspective (and ironically made me a much better student with far higher grades than when I was all about what the grades meant for me).
Thank you for sharing your experience and that reflects what's happened with my Ph.D. After the MA, I was burnt out, tired af, and knew I needed to get some non-academic life experience. So I worked for a couple of years but then realized if I really did want that Ph.D. (and I want it even more now than I did then) that I was in an optimal time in my life to pursue it but that I needed to do my research, interview potential supervisors, ask about funding, etc. It's been a much better experience because there was more time taken, more maturity, and tbh, not going to grad school because 'I guess I'll go to grad school'. I have a lot of thoughts on this topic lol
You got the issue wrong: it’s a tangled web around the desire to be in the Club for Smart People. The most capitalist grad programs are often the most transparent and best run.
I am in a Clinical Pastoral Education unit this summer that is a requirement for most Master of Divinity programs. In addition to paying for the Master of Divinity, there is an additional cost for the CPE program. We spend 2/3 of our time doing the work of the chaplains at the hospital, but we have to pay the cost of tuition (and our own meals). Because the unit is full time, most of us cannot work additional jobs to help cover the cost of tuition. I know this all isn't as bad as what you describe in the article, but it does seem unfair not to get a stipend or some compensation because we are actually doing the work of the chaplain, and paying to do it.
I’m beginning to wonder if all graduate programs are inherently predatory under our current economic conditions. I say this as someone who went to a small liberal arts college in New England, then to a completely unprestigious master’s program, and later a prestigious (but not Ivy) PhD program — and then left ABD. As foolish and impractical as I was in my early 20s, I managed to accept as gospel (thankfully!) the advice from my undergrad professors that I should only go to grad school if I don’t have to pay for it and to not, under any circumstances, pay for a terminal MA degree. I so desperately wanted to do my MA at UVA, it it would have costed at least $80k (this was 2007), but despite my obsession with prestige and desperation to ascend my socioeconomic class via education, I blanched at the thought of more loans and declined the offer. I’m grateful every day for the decision my 23 year old self made. I now work on a college campus, and feel simply terrible for the grad students and adjuncts I encounter.
My undergrad thesis advisor told me to never do any non-professional masters that wasn’t fully funded, and to never do any professional masters that wasn’t at least half covered by a scholarship, and boy she really saved me with that advice. A lot of peers from my graduating class went on to do MAs in things like public policy or international studies at prestigious universities with no clear goal in mind, and only realized yrs down the line that those universities just saw them as a cash source and not much else.
I ended up doing my MA at a state school in New England that had a reciprocal agreement with all the other NE states for their residents — basically, if your home state university didn’t have that degree, you could go to another NE state university for in-state rates. This particular program also gave tuition remission and TAships since there was no PhD program. Honestly, it’s a small miracle that I didn’t end up with a ton of grad school debt. As I said above, I think about it every day!
I was also given that advice by my father (who had left a public university PhD when he was ABD to get an MBA). And when I was considering MA programs in English, my undergrad advisor at my Ivy League school insisted that I attend the lower-ranked MA program that had offered me full funding rather than one of the prestigious universities that wanted me to pay. I am thankful everyday for that advice. I learned a lot, was accepted into a good PhD with funding, and completed all my education with no debt. I can look back on my 10 years of MA/PhD as a valuable growing experience and interesting use of my brain in my 20s-30s while I started my family rather than as an ruinous waste of my best years. (I now work in secondary education rather than higher ed, so my degrees prepared me for my work but weren't necessary to get the job).
I will certainly give my own children the same advice.
Love this topic! Last year during the pandemic my younger sister “got into” DU for a Master’s in Elementary Education. She was elated, thinking the program was elite. I had some experience working with the DU Morgridge College of Education through an education nonprofit and found any faculty I had interacted with to be ridiculously out of touch with the realities on the ground in education. I begged my sister not to take on $50K in debt for a year-long program from a College of Education that ranked 113th (Boise State University and LCSC rank significantly higher for about half the cost). Also, she did the program during the pandemic year, which meant she was unable to set foot in a classroom and did student teaching via Zoom — hardly a real practicum, but DU had no qualms charging full tuition for the experience. I recruited my brother to help talk her out of it, too. He got his MA paid for through an assistantship working for a football team. I got my MA through Teach for America. We assured her had we not had full scholarships we just wouldn’t have gotten the degrees because they often aren’t worth the money.
She ignored us, unfortunately, went through with it (her best friend told me she just needed that paper to feel better). She also hated the program and has decided not to become a teacher. She just got a job working for an education software company making less than the amount of her student loan debt. Starting salaries for teachers in Denver Public Schools are so low I am incredulous the DU degree is attractive to anyone anyway. What a scam!
"Found any faculty I had interacted with to be ridiculously out of touch with the realities on the ground in education" ... I had this exact problem in my undergrad journalism program. I didn't actually gain most of the skills I needed until I was actually on the job. I've long joked that the first two years of employment was my master's degree, except that I earned the equivalent of what I would have paid for an actual degree.
I'm a librarian. I got my library degree in 1987 from a state university after spending a year at a prestigious private university working towards a MA in history. That prestigious private university was charging about 3K per class in 1984/1985. Why was I surprised - my "little ivy" undergrad university increased total fees from $6500 to $14000 in the four years I was there (1980-1984).
My profession is mostly white, middle-aged, and female (although the majority of "important" positions in the field are still held by men). I have had many conversations with folks about diversifying the field, and I always return to money. Why would anyone get into debt upwards of 75 - 100K to work in a field where the median salary in a major metropolitan area is about 50K? And if you want to be an academic librarian, you are pressured to obtain a second masters degree to be a "subject specialist," which is a joke.
Until recently, you could obtain a BA in librarianship. But those degrees are not certified by the American Library Association, which means you can't get a job with just a BA. But a person can learn everything they need to learn to start out in the field with just a BA - so why do we continue to burden people with the expense of one or two graduate degrees when the necessary skill set can be obtained with just a BA?
Hmmmm....
I wish I remembered the details better, but when I was applying to grad school, one of my undergrad advisers warned me away from even applying to a specific PhD program because, IIRC, it funneled people into an expensive masters program and created a "snake pit" environment by pitting people against each other for funding post-masters. It may even have been Columbia. And that was the 1990s. I know things have gotten so much worse.
Well, I know this was the rep of Columbia's vaunted art history department in the 1990s when I was applying to grad school.
I had an undergrad professor refer to the IFA-NYU program as a “viper pit.”
Hi I’m a MAPSS graduate so this was hard to read. I actually went to an Ivy for my undergraduate, but decided to switch into the social sciences for grad school and was mystified when I didn’t get into PhD programs for two years straight. In hindsight, I just didn’t know what I was doing and had 0 mentorship. This is one of the risks with going to a prestigious undergraduate program. My professors didn’t really have time for me. And I was afraid to ask for help. Having been accustomed to always being The Best Student, I was vulnerable to the siren song of the MAPSS program, which told me “we are the best anthropology department in the world and you will be lucky to work with us. Our graduates get into all the best PhD programs.”
I did make lovely friends there. I did get into a Phd program after that and am now a professor. But it was one of the worst mental health times in my life. My program advisor “preceptor” (an advanced student in the PhD program) was a monster. It essentially cost me my marriage too.
And the extra kicker- I still have only paid those student loans down to $65k. I’ve given up hope of paying them off, even as I save for my own kids’ college.
My dad has a PhD. I’m neither first gen in college nor did I go to a less prestigious school for my BA. But I was vulnerable nonetheless.