costs and benefits - The Gradschoolmatch Blog

Financial support for graduate students

Not too long ago I was quoted in a US News article on financial aid for graduate students. What I basically tried to explain to their education reporter, Farren Powell,

costs and benefits

Congress plans to raise taxes on graduate students

There are basically two kinds of graduate students. One type pays tuition. The second is someone for whom tuition is waived, in full or part. The new tax law proposed by congressional Republicans plans to raise taxes on graduate students. Both types of graduate

Analysis

Making the Most of Your Graduate School Journey: How to Choose The Right Program After You've Been Accepted

No one wants to make the wrong choice, right? Maybe not, but most people *don’tknow when they’re making the wrong choice.* Many grad school applicants don’t take this decision seriously enough, or realize how much will be affected by choosing the

Analysis

Research spending by universities is picking up the slack...for now

Most graduate schools are places where a lot of research happens, and with it research spending. It’s pretty interesting to poke around in the HERD data from time to time to take the temperature of the overall ecosystem. HERD is the National Science

costs and benefits

Getting a PhD is still a good idea, despite what you have heard

For those considering joining the ranks of people who hold research doctorates there are two recent, and fundamentally negative, articles you should read. One focuses on the low probabilities of landing a job as a professor once you have your PhD. The second article

costs and benefits

Clinton's Free College Tuition Proposal Would Cost $65 Billion

US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has just proposed a free college tuition plan. Numbers on the cost of the proposal have not come with the announcement. But they are easy to estimate. I’ve run a quick calculation and find her plan would cost

costs and benefits

Recessions Drive Rising Tuition and Privatization of Public Universities

[![effect of recession on net tuition](https://res.cloudinary.com/gsmv3/image/upload/v1527623858/effect-of-recession-on-net-tuition_srxmzv.png)](https://res.cloudinary.com/gsmv3/image/upload/v1527623858/effect-of-recession-on-net-tuition_srxmzv.png)from State Higher Education Executive Officers Association SHEF FY2015 ReportThe university system in the US [struggles]

costs and benefits

An Economic Analysis of Student Loans

Here’s a well thought out piece on student loan policy by Susan Dynarski at Brookings. Bottom line: If we want to increase college-going by lowering its price, evidence shows that grants and lower tuition are the right policy tools. [v] Cutting interest rates

Analysis

Top Places to Attend Graduate School Sorted by Congressional Districts

Several factors are weighed into deciding where to attend graduate school. The two biggest are academic specialty and place. With an election on the horizon I thought it would be interesting to come up with the top places to attend graduate school as indexed

Analysis

The Privatization of Public Universities

Maureen Downey, a reporter and editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution with expertise in education policy, was kind enough to invite me to write an opinion piece for her blog. You can read it here. In essence, the argument is that as states fund

costs and benefits

Choosing a Graduate Program After Multiple Offers

With March upon us graduate program admissions committees have made their decisions and have sent out their first waves of acceptance letters. If you’ve been accepted by a program, congratulations! Chances are you have more than 1 offer. Now it’s your turn

costs and benefits

Has Winter Arrived for Rising College Tuition Rates?

I read in the morning newspaper that the University System of Georgia is freezing college tuition rates to current levels at its public universities statewide for the 2016-2017 academic year. The legislative session is not over, but it looks to be a done deal.

costs and benefits

Income and Employment After Graduate School

I just ran across yet another blog post on the internets wrongly decrying graduate school as a poor value proposition. I won’t link to it because it is mostly an uninformed polemic. Since one of the other things I do is teach statistics,

Analysis

Hey, Non-Profit Graduate School Enrollment is Declining Too

I’ve been munging around a bit with graduate school enrollment and award data for US universities to get a sense of the overall trends and, at least in my

Biomedical Science

The MD-PhD Degree is a Million Dollar Award

I’m still obsessing a bit over the cost of graduate education. Not the tuition price charged to students that most everybody else is obsessing over, but rather the cost to the university of producing a graduate with an advanced degree. My general hypothesis

costs and benefits

The Causes Underlying the Student Loan Default Crisis

[![from Figure 14, Looney and Yannelis, BPEA Conference draft, 2015](https://res.cloudinary.com/gsmv3/image/upload/v1527624075/student_loan_indebtedness_inflow_outflow_jk6gp2.png)](https://res.cloudinary.com/gsmv3/image/upload/v1527624075/student_loan_indebtedness_inflow_outflow_jk6gp2.png)from Figure 14, Looney

costs and benefits

Time to talk education and research spending now that college football is back

https://plot.ly/~medtjm/252/ncaa-d1-public-universities-research-athletic-spending/ With September, students arrive back on campus, including the college football players. The college football season generates so much interest this time of year it is easy to think of universities as little more than sports factories. Every

academic fields

Should I Go To Law School?

Thinking about attending law school? Law school application and enrollment rates have been dropping for several years. A growing conventional wisdom has been that a law degree doesn’t have the value proposition it once had, and that times are tough particularly for new

benefits

Mizzou Graduate Students Rise To Protest Lack of Institutional Support

You may not have read about the graduate student unrest that erupted at Mizzou recently. But you should be aware that it could have occurred on the campus of virtually any other research university in the country. It started when an unidentified someone in

costs and benefits

Are Research Groups Run Like Factories?

Here’s an interesting commentary about the steady evolution of university research groups into larger team-like structures and how this impacts scientific career paths. This is good reading for anybody considering a research degree and career. We especially like the brief shout out in

costs and benefits

Universities Spend $80,000 to Produce One Graduate Degree

https://plot.ly/~tj.murphy/36/a-universitys-cost-of-producing-one-graduate-degree/ The cost of a university education is always a big topic. Most of the discussion focuses upon the cost to students. To look at the other side of the coin, I thought it might be interesting to

costs and benefits

You Will Probably Earn More with a Graduate Degree

When taking Economics 101 you might be lucky to have a professor who, on the first day of the semester, forces you to think about the economic value of a college degree. The professor will point to your friends who chose not to attend

costs and benefits

Where Knowledge is Produced

[![Cities where research PhD's were awarded in 2013](https://res.cloudinary.com/gsmv3/image/upload/v1527624335/US-Knowledge-Production_dxykdc.png)](https://res.cloudinary.com/gsmv3/image/upload/v1527624335/US-Knowledge-Production_dxykdc.png "Research PhD Awards in US Cities")Cities where research PhD’s were awarded in

costs and benefits

Bill Targets Wasteful Spending On For-Profit Universities

In Senate hearings, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) argued that congress is failing to provide needed oversight for $32 billion in taxpayer money “squandered” by companies that run for-profit universities. “So, student comes in, gets a maximum Pell grant, gets a Stafford Loan. The school

costs and benefits

Graduate School: Education, Not Job Training

We’re noticing a significant uptick lately of rendering of the garb over the diminishing value of a graduate education. The negative view, beginning here, pivots largely around the argument that grad school has become something of a career dead-end, with some fields (eg,

Subscribe to The Gradschoolmatch Blog