paying for grad school (was Re: Getting a graduate degree)

[Jonathan Hutchins]

----- Original Message -----
From: "J. Eric Gilliland" <patzeric at yahoo.com>

> > Hm, someone once told me that if you have to pay to go to
> > grad school, you probably shouldn't be going.

> I certainly don't think this is true.  When did this person
> tell you this?  Perhaps this was true years ago, when
> federal pell grants ...

I don't think they were referring to grants or scholarships, but referring
to employers paying for your advanced schooling.  Something like a
university grooming you for a faculty research position or an employer
investing in it's intellectual capital, mostly the latter.  Most studies
have found that you really don't gain enough earning power to offset the
cost in time, tuition, and expenses.  Part of the comparison would be the
difference in earning power of two years of experience vs. two years of
schooling.

I remember a study that showed that within two years your major didn't
matter to your income.  They compared salaries of people with Liberal Arts
degrees against people with technical specialties and found that the
salaries evened out pretty quickly.  They did not look at the degree of
difficulty involved in getting the job in the first place, which is where I
think you find the difference.  The individual who can sell himself as a
techie with a Liberal Arts degree is probably ahead of the game to begin
with.