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Everyone knows that you’ve got to spend money to make money, right? This week, The New York Sun reported that the costs of attending Columbia University and NYU (including housing) have crested $50,000 a year. For a two-year master’s program, you (or your parents) are looking at cutting a check for 100,000 clams, more than twice what you might expect to spend on a comparable program here in Austin.
Though the touchy-feely benefits from a well-rounded liberal arts education are often touted, the decision to pursue a graduate degree is frequently about more earthly matters: cash money. If the decision to attend one graduate school over another can be considered an investment in your own future cash-raking potential, you ought to be asking exactly what the big difference in tuitions between private and public universities is buying you.
Grad schools publish average alumni salaries after graduation, but that won’t tell you what sort of money those alums were getting before grad school. A successful doctor who goes back to school for a master’s in public health will surely make stacks afterward, but how much of that did the degree add?
Sure, 90 percent of those business school grads might get great jobs straight away, but how many of them had worked for several years already? Data on alumni can be misleading, and you should ask specific questions about the kinds of jobs people with resumes like your own are getting.
Another way to determine a brand name’s value to you is to consider the difference in price in terms of what you could have bought instead. Even if you think $50K a year is fair for school, ask yourself what other cool things you might do if you spent half that dough on a public school and got to spend or save the rest.
A big difference in grad school, as your professors will be glad to tell you, is that the real action is outside the classroom. Making connections through internships, volunteering and clubs are where the real career gains come in and though that diploma is crucial, the day after graduation, it’s you and the folks you’ve met that will find you a job, not the piece of paper.
Investing in your own education is a great idea and some form of graduate school is quickly becoming a necessity across the board. However, anyone considering spending a Mercedes on a master’s ought to carefully consider what that extra investment will pay and whether the brand name merits the price tag.
If you’ve got questions about paying for school or just paying for beer, write us at moneymattersut@gmail.com and we’ll have you in a bathtub of Moët in no time.
