Is Grad School Worth It? (Episode 23)

So you’ve finally got you’re undergraduate degree! You’ve taken off the pull-ups because Mommy WOW, you’re a big kid now! But wait, there’s the possibility of going further. Pushing your degree to the next level. Maybe even taking it TERMINAL (or the highest degree based on the latin terminus which means “the end”)!

But is that necessary? Today, let’s dive into some of the reasons you should and should NOT attend graduate school. 

WORKSHEET: Future Vision

#GraduateStudies #MyGodLookAtTheSizeOfThatDebt

Sources:

https://www.arrt.org/pages/earn-arrt-credentials/credential-options/registered-radiologist-assistant

https://www.gradschoolcenter.com/grad-schools-best-corporate-partnerships/

https://freopp.org/whitepapers/is-grad-school-worth-it-a-comprehensive-return-on-investment-analysis/

https://www.wisebread.com/stay-in-school-until-the-job-market-improves

https://fortune.com/2025/12/16/job-market-so-bad-people-age-40-going-back-to-school/

https://www.fit.edu/levelup/

https://grantivia.com/grants-for-graduate-school

Transcript

0:10

Hello and welcome to the Thinking Ahead podcast. My name is Rinaldo Stephens and I'm your host on this journey to find out more and discover the truth about careers, college and finance. As the graduation songs echo in the hallways and rearview mirrors of life, many students, young and old and parents have already made the decision of what they're going to do for the summer. Playing parks, water parks, barbecues, road trips. I always think of the Tiny Toon adventures, how I spent my summer vacation as the ultimate description of what summer vacation is supposed to feel like. Going further, most of you have already planned what you're going to do in the fall. And some of you have already envisioned your life for the next few years. And some of you are thinking about the end of college timeline. Now I don't think the TVA from Loki is watching, but if they were, they would probably be seeing a few future branches of college students. The first few main splits would be job search related, like local job versus a far job, but one of those branches would probably be graduate school, which is the main topic of today's episode. The main question that you should ask yourself when thinking about your end of college timeline is, is grad school worth it? No, no, that is the answer I would be giving the simple majority of people that are thinking about graduate school. But of course, I need to go into more details. So let's learn about and dispel some myths on why you should go to grad school. First, what is graduate school or grad school? Well, simply put, it's where you study to earn your graduate degree or higher post-secondary education degree. And I like Coursera's definition, which reads as follows. A graduate degree is an academic program that you can pursue after getting your bachelor's degree. A graduate degree, which includes master's degrees, professional degrees, and doctorate degrees, allows you to further specialize in the area of interest or choose a course that directly relates to the profession you want to enter. Well said, Coursera. That definition does bring up the topic of the different degrees, because most people think, "Oh, going for your master's are going for your doctorates," but let's go into a little bit more detail. If you're attending undergraduate college or about two, then you should be familiar with the different degrees, bachelor's of arts, our fine arts, bachelor's of science, and the rare bachelor's of business administration. Going up the ladder, we have the master's degrees, which usually comes from an extra one or two years of study within a university program. You have the master's of science, or the C&CA Magistar, if you're lucky enough to go to MIT, a master's of arts, and the ever-advertise master of business administration, or MBA. There is also a master of architecture degree offered by different universities, but since that one doesn't have as broad of a standard as in a broad governing body that determines what it includes, you don't hear about that one as much. And of course, you have the PhD, which roughly translates to "doctor of philosophy." As far as terminal degrees, though, this is probably the most well-known. By the way, terminal degree just comes from the Latin word "terminus," meaning "final" are the end. The more you know, "bing." And finally, we have professional degrees, which are also terminal degrees, which vary in scope and lettering, depending on what your specialty is. It's a wide array of alphabet soup that includes MD, Doctor of Medicine, DDS, Doctor of Dental Sciences, and a bunch of other doctorate degrees that, to the benefit of your patients, help ensure that you know what you're doing before you get out in the real world, and, you know, wall-washed something up. Shout out to Detroiters. With all these degrees and all these opportunities, you might be thinking, "All of those degrees sound like they make me a lot more money than a bachelor's. Sign me up!" Hold up, Buttercup. While the prospect of "mow money" is nice, remember that it comes with "mow problems," and that you have to spend "mow money" to get that degree. So "mow money," "mow problems," that was so cheesy. Let's look at some myths that would actually create more problems for going to graduate school. Myth #1 - I should go to grad school because I might as well stack all my student debt at one time. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop it. Stop it. Put it down. No. If you're already in debt from school, please take a break. Get some real world experience, and most importantly, either pay off your debts or start paying off your debts. If you have an unsubsidized loan, that interest is going to stack. Not to mention graduate school is pricier than undergrad, usually, meaning bigger loans and higher pressure to find that perfect job. And when I say perfect job, I mean, the job that will pay you as soon as possible so you can start paying off your loan so you don't get blacklisted and not able to do anything with your credit. Myth number two, the job market is so bad so I should stay in school until it gets better. To quote Lex Luthor from Superman Returns 2006, wrong. The job market is always fluctuating. Going to graduate school without a clear goal doesn't necessarily make your prospects better, especially if you don't know where you want to end up. The only thing that guarantees after the two or three years that you'll be doing it is that you'll owe at least $20,000 more in debt, especially if you didn't have the money saved up. This is almost as bad as saying, I'll take out a personal loan so I can continue working less. On top of this, according to the foundation for research on equal opportunity or free up, I just like their initials, they say that the median's master degree has a net return on investment or ROI of $83,000. So that means unless you're spending much less than that, you're not getting as much financial benefit from it. And even more sounding is some master's degrees, again, are worth over a million dollars. So they get a good return on investment, but 40% of master's degrees have no financial value at all. Again, according to free up, 40% of master's degrees have no net financial value at all. They may give you more knowledge, but not automatically guarantee a raise or a better job. And for the record, most of those are the MBA degrees. Myth three, getting a master's increases my job prospects. Well, this is only true in the case where the job requires a master's degree. And truthfully, outside of teaching at a university or college or being part of a research team, most positions don't. Asterisk. There are exceptions such as states where you need a master's degree to teach primary and secondary school like in New York, but if that's where you're headed, you should have a clear goal in mind and have already considered grad school. On top of this, let's throw in the classic and actually totally very true stories that are here because it's based in reality of the trope that nobody will hire you without experience. Your prospects with a graduate degree only increase immediately if a you're going to be working within a university and you are more on the goal of teaching and education management within the department that you're learning or within the field of what your degree is or B, you've already been working for a company that has the position that requires the graduate degree and it would be more of a promotion than a new higher situation. B is kind of the ideal situation for a lot of people because again, unless you're trying to stay within universities and be all about education, you're going to be looking at a private or a public company. If you don't have any work experience, I would recommend taking time to get work experience with your undergraduate degree before applying to grad school. This experience will not only look good on all of your applications, school, job, etc., it will actively show you what kind of work and work environments that you can thrive in. Self-knowledge is crucial when determining higher level degrees. If you spend seven to nine years in the wrong school or in the wrong program, only to work in the job that you can't stand, well, that is a waste of time and money. As stated earlier, 40% of graduate degrees have no return on investment, meaning there are financially worth the same as a bachelor's. Regarding job prospects, I'll end with this quote from wisebred.com on graduate degrees. It worked great in the days when being a student merely meant that you were broke. Now being a student means you're going into debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a year. Keep that in mind. If number four are batteries in number four, really, is I claim to sort of want to keep attending school because I like the environment so much. First of all, thank you for your stut and direct honesty. Second, don't be a loser. To quote one of my favorite authors and creator, a CD baby, Derek Severes, "If you're thinking about doing something, it should be a heck yes or a no. If you don't really want to do it at the time, just commit to not doing it." Your professors and your wallet will be happy if you didn't waste their time, so this piece of advice I think applies especially to grad school. Don't become a Van Wilder and leach off of your parents footing the bill for seven years. And if you don't know Van Wilder, that is a movie featuring a younger Ryan Raimelt. And it's pretty good, I like it, entertaining. Now that we've settled, the myths are the bad reasons to go to graduate school. Here are some real reasons for you to go to graduate school. Real reason number one. You want to become a doctor, lawyer, or college professor. First, if not all of these professions require a terminal degree, again the final degree, in the United States, and while life experience is important, the letters after your name are going to open up a lot of doors in your favor for these positions. And in some cases, they're only available if you have letters after your name. As for the medical industry, it's important to remember that not everybody working in the hospital has a master's or doctorate's degree. The phypodimist didn't spend 11 years in school to draw your blood. It depends on what you want to do. And with medical jobs, you might be doing some of the work while going to school. For example, if you like medical technology, maybe you start off as an imaging assistant, which only requires a high school diploma. But maybe you want to do more, so then you get an associate's degree and the certification to become a registered technologist. That's the person who operates the X-ray machine. And make sure they also make sure you don't accidentally get superpowers from the radiation dosage. So, you know, pretty good job. Then if you want better pay or more responsibility, are you just want to learn more? You can go for your master's and become a registered radiologist assistant. And then from there, if you decide that you want to go deeper and get more responsibility, you become a full MD in the field of radiology. Thy point is this. You can get started on a path, but make sure you're really into it before you dedicate yourself to 8 to 15 years of school. Because you might change in that 8 to 15 years and it's important to pay attention to how you feel and what you like to do before saying, "I'm going to do this for the next 10 years." Also, side note about being a doctor's and other degrees. If you're looking to go abroad, I would check the work and academic requirements of the job fields you're interested in. It might actually be easier to get a master's somewhere else and get into the job field in another country. Real reason number 2. The graduate program has a link to a company you really want to work or intern for. As much as I hate the idea of working for free, sometimes that's the best way to get your foot in the door. The bright side of getting an internship through your school is that you actually get class credit while working for free, and sometimes you even get paid. The important thing to check on ahead of time is if you actually get more benefits from doing it through the school or if you get the same experience and company trust by working for them without being tied to the graduate program. Why pay for credits when you can get paid for work? Time better, though, are graduate programs tied directly to a company. For example, Florida Tech's level-up program, which allows Northrop grewment employees to earn their master's degrees in various fields that are handpicked by the staff of Northrop. Now, the Florida Institute of Technology is a private school, but surprisingly affordable, and if you have a job at Northrop, you can probably afford the extra $1,300 per semester. Technology, not your thing? Don't worry. There are many companies that go through guild education to line up their employees with the opportunity to go for a master's or even second bachelor's degree for discounted tuition or possibly even free. Florida's participating in this program include Disney with their Aspire program, PNC, PepsiCo, Hilton, Lanar, and quite a few other Fortune 500 companies. Again, the idea when you're looking at these companies is to first get a job with them and then get them to pay for your graduate school. The reason they do this is that keeping a great employee, when that's always trying to do more and better themselves, is cheaper than getting a new good quote unquote employee. So be great in what you do and set your goals and look ahead. Or maybe even think ahead, see what I did there. All reason number three, I've recently discovered an expansion to my field or a new theory in my field and I want to study further and I think I can get a grant for it. That's a long reason, but this is what graduate school was made for. If you have a beautiful mind or feel that you are the reincarnation of Tesla or you just have a curiosity that pushes you to lose time in the lab and if you enjoy reading books on your topic and researching it in your free time and it's almost all you think about, then maybe it's time to continue it. Naturally, you probably don't have Dr. Evil's layer or even Duffin Schmerz's level of mad scientist lab at your house, but it's a great way to study what you're interested in when you're involved in the graduate program. And again, in this case, even though it's rare for most people, it is a perfect way to test, expand and prove your ideas and feces. According to grandtv.com, there are teaching assistantships, again, where you're teaching undergrad students and then researching in different times. Research assistantships where your main job is to help the lead researcher, fellowships and scholarships, all that while highly competitive can pay for your entire graduate schooling. It's very important to get great and outstanding referrals when applying to these scholarships because the research world gets really small, really quick, making competition for the research money and publications very cutthroat. I've even heard from my graduate student friends that there are sometimes a type of grad school ebbspionage where they try to steal each other's research for the credit and the funds. That's pretty harsh. But like I said, this one is pretty rare, like authentic gold-plated Pikachu rare. But if that's you and you have the electricity to push yourself all the way, you go on you with your shock attack, you gold-laden Pikachu you. There is some good news. Actually, it's all good news, just, you know, have to have the right perspective. The good news is that graduate school will always be waiting for you even if you don't have the funds right now. You can always join the workforce, save some money and then go back to school after you have the work experience, clarity and a better vision. And of course, some money saved them. This does require you to think ahead, more than most of your peers, but even if you just have a plan in place, it guarantees that you'll get more satisfaction out of your life. So if you wanted to become a doctor of comic historyology, made that one up, you can do that, just plan for it. But of course, as the old saying goes, man plans, God laughs, which leads us to our next chapter in life. Some action steps before I close out this episode. Think about where you want your life to be in the five months, two years, five years and ten years. Take at least 30 minutes to do this and write this down. You can even use a little quadrant paper that I have included in the downloads. I also want you to, if you are considering grad school, are considering a master's degree or a doctorate or a other professional degree, I want you to consider the cost. And when I'm talking about costs, I'm not just talking about money, I'm talking about the time cost, the debt cost and opportunity cost because saying yes to one thing can mean saying no to several other things. And of course, be sure to subscribe to the podcast or like so you can catch the next episode. And feel free to reach out to me, either through the messaging tool on my website, thinking aheadpodcast.com, or you can even send me an email info at thinkingaheadpodcast.com. And you can put in the header what you're interested to are interested to hear about. I am open to suggestions and questions and seeing what you want to hear about and what you'd like me to research and discover, or even if you just have questions about my experience. So until next time, set your goals, do the daily work, and of course, keep thinking ahead.