Many junior, seniors in college and even young professionals out the wrestle with the decision of whether or not they should go to grad school. It is a tough decision; it’s a huge financial investment and time commitment. The reward of a better paying j
ob and career advancement sounds promising but there is no real guarantee of success. How should you decide whether or not to go?
Firstly, try to decide what you really want to do with your life. Graduate school is too large of an investment to later decide that being a lawyer isn’t necessarily for you. I think some of us out there use graduate school as a cop out. We graduate from college without having a clear plan for our lives, and so we delay our impending decision of what to do with our lives until later. Take a year off if you’re not sure what your passions and dreams are. Go travel, volunteer or even work. Just get a job out here in the real world, you’ll learn a lot about yourself and what you’re looking for, and have some money saved up to use if you in fact go to grad school.
Once you decide what you want to do, figure out if a graduate school degree is necessary, helpful or even a smart decision. Some careers out there absolutely require a degree; you’re not going to be a doctor or a lawyer in this country without one. Other careers, especially ones in the sciences or -ologies don’t require an advanced degree but you’ll be hard pressed getting a job without one. Finally, there are those careers in which grad school isn’t necessary or even arguably helpful. The MBA, (Masters of Business Administration) in my opinion (no hate mail please) is very hit or miss. You don’t need one to be successful. Look into your career choice to help decide whether or not a graduate degree makes sense.
The next step will be to determine the financial costs and benefits. Say you’re going to drop $30k each year for the next 4 years. Firstly, ouch! Secondly, how long will it take you to earn it back? By getting the degree, how much more will you be earning? If it’ll take you 20-30 years to pay it back, I’d think long and hard to make sure this is really what I want to do before committing.
In the end, if grad school is the right option for you, then make it happen. The end will justify the means. If you decide that grad school is not the right decision or that it isn’t the best decision right now, then I think that holding off is the right decision. Life is short. Determine what you want to do, make a plan to accomplish it, and don’t look back.
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Yes, another degree just to get a degree is difficult to justify. I even think you need to think long and hard about what you want to do out of high school and if college is right for you. Tens of thousands of dollars in debt could make you a slave for a good portion of your life. If the degree did not get you anything, was the investment worth it. Rather than as IF it WAS worth it, as yourself BEFORE if it WILL be worth it. Of course, nothing is guaranteed but a plan of action will increase the odds!
I’d also like to add, that for some graduate degrees WHERE you go to school is extremely important. For instance, as an MBA student, with a few exceptions, you need to either go to at least a top 20 preferably top 10 or 5 FULL TIME Business School or don’t get the degree at all. Going into 100k debt for an MBA from Chicago Booth or Harvard Business School is a good financial decision, borrowing 50K to get an MBA from my undergrad alma mater the University of Georgia is a poor decision. Reason being blue chip employers that recruit for roles that A) pay extremely well and B) serve as gateways to lucrative careers only recruit at top schools and if you’re not coming from one of these programs, you will not have access to on campus recruiting which means the odds are overwhelmingly against you obtaining one of these jobs. In addition, your classmates coming from a top program will also be in great roles which means later in your careers your network will be able to help one another, since as a group you will be in positions of power. Students from lower ranked or part time programs will not have that advantage and the contrast is quite stark. I can’t confirm through first hand experience, but I’ve also heard this is even more pronounced for law school where even the hardest working student at a tier 3 law school is most likely sentenced to a fate of trying to service six figures of debt on a 50k income, many times in a field nowhere remotely close to being a lawyer. The best advice I heard was to think of Graduate school and your first jobs as train stations, their ability to get you where you want to go are of vital importance.
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