The Disappearing American Grad Student
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Imagine you just graduated from a quality undergrad with high grades and strong recommendations from your professors. Maybe you had an internship or two or spent a summer doing research. Maybe you even have authorship on a published paper as an undergrad. You could be a very strong grad school candidate. Or you could just get a corporate job right out of undergrad.
Lets look at the options.
Option 1: You go to grad school and spend ~6 years working extremely long hours at nearly minimum wage with no benefits.
Option 2: You start at ~100K USD/year with benefits working for Big Tech/Finance/Big Oil/Pharma/Defense/etc. In those ~6 years you likely work fewer hours than a grad student. You have the free time to meet someone and the income to start a family.
Most people will chose Option 2. The two main types of people who chose Option 1 are those who are passionate about learning and advancing human knowledge and those who want a career where a PhD is required.
If instead you're a citizen of "India, China, Korea, Turkey and other foreign countries" (quoted from the article) then the calculus is completely different. Not only do you get to advance human knowledge, but you get to live and work (as a TA or RA) in the US for ~6 years. After graduation you have a good chance of landing a well paying job for a US-based firm or becoming a professor or research scientist.
I managed to get my MS in CS back in the early 90s in one calendar year. I had full support via a fellowship since I was one of the top students, so I did not have to be an RA or TA, and could take additional classes. I finished all but my MS Thesis requirement in 2 semesters and owed nothing thanks to the fellowship. I then decided I was leaving with an MS, and paid for my MS Thesis credits over the summer.
This cost me only a year, and it happened immediately after undergrad when I was really good at studying anyhow. I am far enough into my career to realize that it strengthened my resume early on, and I think it has really helped my long-term career earnings.
The funny thing is that I didn't intend to be so mercenary. My original intent was to get my requirements out the way early to leave more time for research the second year. I realized part-way through the year that I was not as enamored with the topic that I wanted to study as I thought I was, and I hadn't hit it off with the only logical choice for an advisor in that topic, so I wanted to get out something totally different.
I had a similar path, RIT has (or had) a dual degree program for Computer Science that only added a year to the regular undergrad program. Rather than take free electives, you swapped in the additional master's course you needed and all your undergrad classes became master's level courses (i.e. more work). I was suffering from depression at the time, so it took me a year to do my master's project (it's on Github, and it's not hard to find me there).
I thought about going back for my PhD, but then realized the cost wasn't worth it.
> The funny thing is that I didn't intend to be so mercenary.
I was and still am. I got my degree from the perspective it would help me get more money. I strongly believe the only thing my job is for is money.
I actually didn't know there really was a PhD program in Computer Science. I just found this page with a link to list of dissertation defenses[1] that I have never seen before; historically, I've always thought it was a big joke because of this page with the overview[2] link that just recurses on itself and just displays a different image... (go ahead, don't you want to read the overview? Just click again...)
TIL that RIT has actually given out a few PhDs in Computer Science! [3] Of course I feel like I earned a PhD by spending seven years there just to get my bachelor's degree.
[1]: https://www.cs.rit.edu/phd-computing-and-information-science...
[2]: https://www.rit.edu/gccis/computingsecurity/academics/phd/ov...
[3]: https://www.cs.rit.edu/recent-phd-dissertations-advised-cs-f...
The third option of a MS to simplify a mid career pivot point is also worth considering. Really, picking something you want to stick with for the next ~45 years at 20 is risky.
"Student freeloads with this weird trick. Grad schools hate him!"
Unfortunately that strategy is only valid in the US, where higher education is inexplicably, absurdly and unjustifiably expensive. In countries where higher education is affordable, it still makes absolutely no sense to look at a PhD as anything other than a pastime that makes sense only as a personal pursuit.
Why would you want to be curious and enthusiastic about your industry job if your real interest was research? This whole thread seems to be discussing a Generic Excellent Student who's simply choosing between academia and industry based purely on remuneration, and who possesses the marvelous ability to direct their passions straight towards money by sheer force of will.
Well, of course that person is going to go to industry, but there are many people whose actual interests will point them preferentially towards one or the other. I went to school with a guy (call him P) who was talented and could have taken some research experience at any time, but he just plain wanted to be an entrepreneur.
You go to grad school and spend ~6 years working extremely long hours at nearly minimum wage with no benefits. You then spend 2-3 years on a postdoc still with relatively low compensation. There still are far too few academic positions available. You now either become an adjunct (and get caught in that vicious cycle) or you do another postdoc. Repeat ad nauseum (or until you give up and move to industry anyway)
I think most people don't.
I went for my MS and had a wonderful experience. Would do it again in a heartbeat. There are many positives about grad school if you enjoy learning and research.
There is definitely an opportunity cost and it is not surprising there are so few US citizens in grad school -- at least in technical fields. I hear it's a different story in the humanities.
I was under the impression that "those two main types of people" are the only ones who're really supposed to go into PhD programs in the first place, so shouldn't we be talking about the incentives important to them? Not to say money isn't important, but to say that from their point of view, Big Tech/Finance/Oil/Pharma/Defense may simply be a slog.
There are also plenty of people who graduate with strong grades from a good undergrad and some nice experience and... simply don't get offered six-figure salaries right out of school. All my first job-offers were right around $80k/year.
It is hardly surprising few people take that option when instead they could be living comfortably (even 80K/year is well above median US income) at a job they're not passionate about.
But we're talking about a "disappearing" American grad-student. What has actually changed about lucrative professions being more lucrative than a grad-student stipend?
This whole thread comes across as people just wanting to brag that they went into industry rather than think about the question.
I was interested in continuing further in academia. Publish or perish, combined with the devaluation of negative results in publication, was a deterrent but workable. The thing that killed all interest in academia for me was the revelations of Stefan Grimm. Measuring the value of research in dollar bills? I mean you can give practically countless examples of how absurd this is. The square root of negative numbers? What sort of nonsense is this? We need to be studying real, important science - like how to make a better horse saddle or boat sail.
Part-time Masters degrees are more common (and what I did myself), but come with similar trade-offs and usually need to be paid for by yourself or by your employer. And as you're not committing to being a part of a professor's research group for the next 5+ years, it's harder to find a good match for an advisor and a good thesis.
Co-terminal degrees (B.S. + M.S. all at once, with an extra year after undergrad to do your thesis) mitigate this, but you're going to be out of pocket for that extra year of tuition on top of the bachelor's.
If you plan or want to have a family, not so much. Doubly so if you're a woman -- pregnancy risks start ramping past the early-mid 30s.
I did my Master's part-time while working and it was brutal to work full-time then head to class for 3+ hours several times a week, or have to make special arrangements so I could leave work early to make a specific class. I also remember desperately preparing for a defense scheduled days before the birth of my second child (I finished up 2 days before he was born!).
I found that FT grad students and some profs treat you poorly because you're "a PT industry" student, and your co-workers, boss, etc. treat you like you're taking a continuing ed course from the learning annex. It's the worst of both worlds.
After 4 years, with on-campus housing the first year, the Berkeley student owes about $72,000 while the Indian student owes $1,200.
As far as the income differences between the countries, the average Indian saves 31.4% [1] of an average $6,490/yr which means $2,037. While in the US it's 5.7% [2] of $58,030 which means $3,307.
So stated another way, the Indian education costs 0yr/7mon of average savings while the US one costs 21yr/9mon. By the time the American child has their bachelors, the American parents are already broke while the Indian parent's savings reserves haven't been depleted - a 2 year graduate program is something they still have the cash for.
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-savings-rate-in-In...
[2] https://www.fool.com/saving/2016/10/03/heres-the-average-ame...
I grew up in an above middle class Indian household with an income of about $10,000 a year. My parents lived very frugally (I lived in possibly the highest Indian COL area) and my parents started saving early. Over about 25 years, my parents have managed to save about $80k, which they are fully using to fund my Masters.
Funding your child's masters is a huge risk to an Indian parent. The deal is that I fund my brother's masters and take care of my parents after their retirement. Should I bail after my Masters, that would leave my whole family in financial ruin. At the same time, the blind trust between family is one thing that I think helps Indians manage debt better than Americans where family members usually manage finances independently. (for better or for worse) Now most Indians aren't above middle class or frugal/economically aware to start saving at the rate my parents did. Loans at 10-15% interest rate are very common.
If you look at the odds in this sense, it is absolutely vital that an Indian gets a job in the US after graduation. The person might not settle there, but they would usually work there for at least 5 years to pay off their debts or responsibilities. I am fortunate enough to be in a well ranked university with generally decent career prospects at the end of my Masters (sadly no funding). But, if Trump were to change immigration and h1B policies the ones at less prestigious places would possibly have their lives overturned. If such a change does happen, I hope it does not retroactively affect those already in the US and rather is applied to those who will be coming. (so students can avoid US as an expensive destination for higher studies, all together)
Equally, I punt money into my kids' pensions, but at that distance it is a huge punt economically! I mean, some politician somewhere could do something stupid and destroy their value before my kids get to cash in in 50 years' time, just imagine! B^>
Since governments spend in the now, maybe it's rational for parents to also.
It's nice when people have it together but you'll go crazy if you try to "add it up".
I hope I'm lucky and consistently organised enough that my children feel entitled to believe that their success was planned for them. Working on it. They'll probably hate me for it and have some point of view where it is "stifling". Still cool, get it.
At the end of it, being an adult looks a lot like working for everyone else all of the time and it sucks.
It is what is is though and it's worse to be useless. At least that's how I get through the week.
I'm also unsure about the comparison between averages (500 billion impoverished + 500 billion wealthy makes for an uninformative average), or savings rate. If US families save less (for cultural reasons or they don't need to), it's not relevant. Or it might be late.
Since making 10 times more than someone doesn't get you very far if you live in a place that's 20 times more expensive, savings rate was used as a rough proxy for "how much can an average person set aside for this considering all other factors".
You could certainly factor in GINI coefficients and quintile distributions for a more accurate analysis, but I don't think it will change the fundamental nature of the results:
The capital a parent earmarks for their child's college education takes more time to accumulate and is more quickly exhausted in the United States than in many other countries. This means that the United States parents may be less able to afford a secondary program for their child in the United States than their counterparts abroad who didn't have to bare the same initial cost burdens.
I don't think rankings are as important to even individuals as access to employment opportunities. The cost of college education has to be weighed against the return on investment. If for example, the H1B restrictions are tightened to the extent that foreign students aren't able to find job opportunities, then the ranking of the university would be irrelevant in absence of decent return on investment.
I believe the same holds true for the native students seeking graduate education. If the cost of education is too high, be it monetary cost or opportunity cost, the people will not seek it.
What do you mean by that?
The words "who may or may not directly help the nation's economy" makes me think they mean this: IITs are considered the top institutions in India. I have heard that the people who come out of these IITs don't really help India. Most of them end up working in developed countries and contribute to those economies. Nothing much for India. So, it doesn't make sense to spend money on them. If I have to choose between funding for one IIT or 5-10 low grade engineering colleges, I would choose the latter because in some way, it is still benefiting India. IITs, I don't know.
Just my thoughts based on those quoted words.
Granted, that's still a lot of people in absolute terms.
In 2016,the average Chinese GDP per capita is 8,123.18 US dollars, it is almost as much as Russia ($8,748.18) or Mexico ($8.201.31). This really surprised me.
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/china-is-still-really-poor/
In 2010, only 11.2 percent (almost 150 million people) lived on less than $1.90 a day. Not shown above is that 27.2 percent (almost 360 million people) lived on less than $3.10 a day.
So that's what, a bigger population than the US who live on less than $1k a year?
As sibling comment mentions, the deal is that when parents turn old, kids are expected to take care of them.
Or do these universities go bankrupt without such high student fees??
Finally, the stats mentioned are merely fractions, not overall numbers. What could merely be happening is the growth is coming from international students, not that less Americans are headed to grad school.
But if you have data, I'd love to see it.
It just gives you an additional chance. 250k apply for a total of 85k h1-b visas. Of which 20k is for masters/PHD. Probably 100k grads are languishing in the US withought getting an h1b and that number continues to increase every year.
So if the 80k oh the 100k who don’t get it in masters quota, they just are same as the rest of the 150k interns of getting picked in a lottery
Grad students from foreign countries are not crippled with debt. They get affordable educations and can afford to be in school longer in America. Comparable American students have been consumed by debt and must get real jobs to pay it off.
If undergrads were paying $7K / year for those degrees instead of $50k, things would be very different.
Second, universities who are rich from plundering their undergrads by way of massive administrative overhead resulting in skyrocketing loans...grad students are a source of labor for the schools at low cost.
By importing foreign students who are desperate and cheap, these universities are able to continue adding administrative bloat while exploiting foreign workers for the research tasks they once gave to their American contemporaries.
You want American grad students? Reform the loan situation, stop allowing universities to have their cake and eat it too. If they charge astronomical fees, they shouldn’t get to outsource that work to foreign students and then whine about not having more Americans.
In the late 80s, my Mum did a PHD in the US and we lived there for 5 years. Many of her friends were foreign grad students. Others, Texan academics.
Migration via academia has always been a good option. There are special visas. Sometimes financial support. A foreign students application form. More importantly, there’s a structured and welcoming subculture you join by default. You will have a place in university society.
I’m reminded of a provocative (to me) Tyler Cowen bit about formal dress and class mobility. When culture (corporate culture in that case) is formalised, it is easier for outsider to adopt and participate in. You can buy a good suit. You can’t easily adopt ways of speaking, casual fashion, and such. They’re too subtle for outsiders. Cultural signals are still important, but the subtle ones are more exclusive because they are subtle.
Anyway, something similar is probably happening here. Academia is formal. It’s meritocracy is formalised. You can talk funny and think funny, but you’re still a PHD candidate, professor or whatnot. You can access that “social capital” to put it in annoying modern terms.
Like tyoma suggests in this thread, natives have more options to choose from.
There are other reasons, of course. I suspect this is one of the top ones.
Grad school in US, thus is made for foreign students to get their foot on this country. It has a few attractions: It is short. Cost less than Bachelor Degree. It offers a chance to get familiar with the culture . Count as advanced degree so bigger chance to land a H1-B visa under condition you have a job offer. And most importantly, American Universities know this. They specifically design the programs to target foreigners, and made a shit load of money out of it.
I can't imagine how a class for PhD students works - everyone has such focused research topics that how can you find something relevant to teach to more than one person at a time?
When I did my PhD on optimising dynamic programming languages I would guess there were maybe ten other students in the entire world doing something vaguely similar at the same time. How do you do a class for that in one institution?
For political science in at least one program it was 30-36 credit hours for a master's degree. PhD was the same thing with an additional 18+ elective hours and another 30+ combined class/dissertation hours, and then the actual dissertation. Classes with few exceptions consisted of "workshops" and "seminars" over various topics (terrorism, multinational corporations, etc), which almost all involved weekly topical readings (5-7 journal articles and book selections) and weekly/frequent writings on those readings with a substantial paper for the final, sometimes with a midterm. Independent hours were also common with 1 on 1 work with one of the professors over a chosen paper topic.
As I said, discussion in class was expected, so you couldn't really wing it, and you had to be prepared or it would be obvious in front of your professor an another 5-20 students. I'm guessing this format is semi-common in the humanities/social sciences, it was for a linguistics program I looked into. Tons of reading and writing with the intent of guiding your towards a weird unexplored niche.
The students I've met found few classes related to their research. So they signed up for whatever sounded good.
Also I agree with the points many others have made, debt is a major factor. I got a undergrad stem degree at a UC and only went back to great school after working for three years and paying that debt off.
Plus: I'm enjoying the research.
Negative: I'm the oldest student and halving my salary for several years is not a great experience!
For some of us, the major value proposition of a MS degree in US is not its teaching, but the gateway to US employment market. Those luckily born in the US doesn’t need to spend time and money on such privileges.
It makes much more sense to study almost for free in India/China/Finland/etc. and then do a GRE and apply to grad school in the US. PhD students don't need to pay tuition and even get a monthly stipend. Also many MS students get some sort of scholarship (but not all).
https://utexas.app.box.com/v/2016report
There are two parts in your point. One, the exam. SAT/high school grade is basically a joke for India/China students, which can send a town of 2400 kids. Spending one or two years preparing and you can pass whatever exam set, SAT or ACT or anything. Two, the tuition fee. You clearly underestimate the financial ability of wealthy Asian families, and I had talked to people who pay the entire tuition fee (200k+) for kids to study in four years. Of course not everyone can pay that, but schools also offer partial scholarship (and thus it's quite common for students to come with 50 or 75 percent scholarship).
a) their international intake was capped
b) they were forced to offer more livable stipends
c) the odds to get tenure track increased?
Grad school is a pretty bad deal for US citizens, and so much of that is the highly pyramidal structure of over hiring cheap grad students as below market labor for a shrinking pool of tenured professors.
I find this particularly surprising given that their status is essentially that of indentured servants; their advisors can deport them at any time with only 14 days of notice. This one-way power dynamic can produce cruel, callous treatment and merciless working hours, both of which I've observed first-hand. And yet, these same professors will turn around and collaborate politely and respectfully with American students (assuming that they will take on American students in their labs; many will not!).
It's really very depressing.
The NYT is trying to vaguely suggest that Americans are being crowded out by foreigners and that Americans can't get advanced degrees because foreigners take all the spots.
But it could be BOTH true that foreigners make up the majority and that Americans do get many more advanced degrees than in the past -- because university education has expanded greatly in the last few decades.
For sake of example: Suppose in 1950, there was 100,000 advanced degrees awarded in the US per year and they were all Americans. Suppose today that there are 1,000,000 advanced degrees of which 45% are Americans (and 55% foreigners). In my contrived example, it's still true that foreigners make up the majority, but the number of Americans getting advanced degrees has jumped from 100,000 to 450,000.
I don't know if I'm right about this, but just saying that the NYT hasn't proved their point.
No, the article never suggests this, that sounds like your own bias.
First you set up a strawman---and then you don't even bother knocking it down! You don't need to make up numbers "for sake of example." All this is information is available, just Google it.
Finally, it is not "the NYT" making an argument. The author is Nick Wingfield, it says so right there on top.
Where it matters, you see a more normal/typical level of diversity.
For most things tech, it’s meaningless. I literally give it zero weight for hiring unless the candidate had a non-qualifying bachelors degree, needed a couple of years of experience, or they went to a foreign school for undergrad and a US grad school (less paperwork).
Instead, OMSCS actually has a far, far higher proportion of American students than GATech's on-campus MSCS program...
Conversely American grad school attendees are mostly career switchers who already have an established life in a place that's probably not Atlanta.
Best of luck and power through the last 1/3 of the semester + finals!
Edit: FYI for those curious the OMSCS degree will cost most students $8,110 (10 classes * $811 semester).[1]
[1] https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/cost-payment-sched... $510 tuition + $301 (fees) = $811 semester
Yes, I am doing OMSCS while working. However, my current employer doesn't have tuition reimbursement. Though if you employer does cover tuition (like a previous employer of mine) you could absolutely get it for no cost to the student.
Also yes you are correct in many are pursuing the degree while employed. Usually taking 1 class per semester.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15610675
Thanks.
1) experience. most of the international students mentioned in the article from India, China, Turkey, Korea want to have that experience of going to a school in a different country, meeting students from around the globe, listen to lectures and work with people from different background and skills, I think this is something you would certainly lack if you choose to go to grad school in the same geography you got your undergraduate education. Think about this for an American student, who is not so motivated to go to grad school because environment wise it is not going to be a whole lot different than the professors you had for your undergrad class. I'm curious to see numbers for American undergrads who have gone to Europe or Japan to get their graduate degrees for the experience, this might actually be skewed because half the students here in America gets that experience through study abroad programs.
2) cost. the article says there is a very small number of undergraduate internationals compared to graduate student population, it comes down to cost. if you were coming from India, China or the other foreign countries mentioned in the article money wise it would be very expensive for you to pay for 4 years of undergraduate degree compared to 2 years of masters, PhD can be an outlier here, but it has its own benefits. so if you can get an undergraduate degree without causing a dent in your bank account and if you are almost certain that you will eventually go get a masters degree in another country, budget wise that's the most smart thing to do. by the time you are done with your undergrad you'd have a good school experience to go to another country, blend in, and go through school. The reason I mentioned about PhD being an outlier is, with a doctoral degree you might end up being a professor or a research scientist, but when it comes to a masters vs bachelors, chances are, for most of them, you both will likely end up in a similar job at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others. so why pay twice to get there. not to forget, you might end up with some sort of funding while doing a graduate degree compared to undergraduate.
Plus, if schools want more Americans in graduate STEM programs, couldn't they just use affirmative action to tilt the demographics in the direction they want?
> A computer science class at N.Y.U.’s Tandon School of Engineering, where some 80 percent of graduate students are from other countries.
I simply couldn't for the life of me comprehend why majority of US undergrads are OK taking on such a huge amount liability and jeopardizing their future prospect? It perhaps could be because "Everyone is doing it" or because "There are no other avenues.." I believe the system is setup in such a way that it's unavoidable and unfair to the students in the name of getting an "education".
Here is a different path/perspective.
I came to the US from one of the poor south Asian countries at 18 to do my undergrad despite my parents telling me to go for my graduate school in the early 2000s. For grad school you don't pay tuition and you are paid for your expenses too working on a research or as a TA. I said to myself, US is the land of opportunity, possibilities are limitless, go early and figure out the specifics later. I was very young so yeah "let's do it" attitude prevailed. My parents were not wealthy either but they had assets enough to cough up tuition fees. I intentionally selected a small public university in the middle of nowhere that offered partial scholarship (more on this later). My tuition fees per year was 9k after scholarship if I remember correctly.
After I landed, I registered for 15- 18 credits per semester and also took a job part time and that was enough to cover my living expenses and then some. I believe poverty or coming from a background of family without a lot of means or a support system to fallback on is a great motivating factor to not accumulate any debt. I had to hustle pretty much throughout my undergrad years, if I wasn't in a class, I'd be in the library doing assignment and if I wasn't in the library I'd be at my job. I wasn't at a frat house partying or playing sports or joining meetup groups or doing the normal things any regular undergrad students would do. I consider myself an average student too, nothing close to the best and the brightest but managed to maintain a 3.7 GPA and graduated with a Computer Science degree.
In my last semester, I did two internships (Summer/Fall) in small companies because when I went to couple of job fairs just to check it out, I noticed that companies really wanted to see some hands on experience. I couldn't believe they would pay for internship too and better than my part time job. I worked out a deal with my professor to allow me to work in my final semester at a local company which counted towards a seminar credit too.
When I graduated, I had 0 debt, three job offers from mid size companies starting at 50k - 65K in a mid size market (not Silicon Valley). My colleges at work include Ivy League graduates along with those from top private/public colleges that cost 30k - 80k per year in tuition and they were all in student debt. So in hindsight, I think I made a good choice going to a middle of a nowhere school. It really made no different in getting a Job or acquiring skills. Sure I didn't have a brand recognition but I could hold my own during the the interviews to get offers.
Once again, I'm not the smartest guy but I had strong determination not ask my parents for money on take on loans. Whatever, they offered me initially for tuition, I paid back after I started working full time and then some. Someone pointed out about culture in Asian family where parents do anything they can to invest in their Child's education and that's because it's what they believe is a way to a better life.
After being in the industry for couple of years, I wanted to increase my depth/breadth of knowledge in my field so I found a Masters program that I could pursue part time (nights/weekend). I got my new employer to pony up half of the tuition (I tried for full tuition reimbursemnt) as well which I required to accept their job offer. Total cost was $20k tuition for 3 years at a so called "top 20 nationally ranked engineering school." I could care less about the ranking...
By 27 I had both undergrad/masters and 5+ years of experience in the industry. Once again I had no debt.
I believe the system is setup in a such a way that it's so easy to take on a huge loans for the majority of population without fully understanding the implications for the future. I mean kids are 18. It feels as if it's almost similar to using one credit card to pay for the minimum payment of another credit card.
Also cost of education keep on going higher and higher. I think anytime government gets involved the price balloons astronomically. Take a look here https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/price-changes-in-consumer... #1 is college tuition followed by Medicare and child care.
I think 20 years from now, it really wouldn't matter which school you go to as the market is going to put higher emphasis on, what you have done or can do (skill wise) as opposed to which school you go to. Until then us US tax payers are going to foot the bill for all these student loans that are eventually going to blow up like the housing bubble.
So I leave you with some food thought, if a kid from a very poor country can come to the US with little to no means but dedicated enough not take any loans to pursue higher education and pursue the American dream, I think it should be far more easier to native US born students.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21716630-not-goo...
https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouraging-indi...