Why NOT go to Graduate School?

Note from the Editor: This is the second part in a series about Grad School. Read the first part “Why go to Graduate School” here. You should probably read the first article before this one.

For any real decision with consequences, there are pros and cons. The might be obvious but if there were only advantages or only disadvantages related to a choice, there isn’t much of a choice after all. In those circumstances, the path is clear and you wouldn’t be reading an article about it.

However, on the decision of going to graduate school or not, there is indeed both pros and cons.

In my previous article, I listed and described a number of reasons why everyone should seriously consider graduate school. In this article, I’ll share some ideas on why one might want to forgo graduate school entirely.

But full disclosure, I went to graduate school. At the same time, I’m familiar with the cognitive bias called Choice-Selection Bias, which is that someone is likely to rationalize their decision of the past by remembering or accentuating the positive attributes of that decision, choice, or selection and forgetting the negatives. Thus, I’m likely somewhat biased and blind to a few of the downsides of graduate school. As you consider graduate school, talk to someone who did NOT go to graduate school, and find out what they think. But, just remember, they suffer from the same Choice-Selection Bias too!

In the meantime, here are my thoughts on why one should seriously consider NOT going to graduate school:

Loss of time and money An obvious downside is that it takes time to obtain an advanced degree. A masters degree usually takes around two years and a doctoral degree can take around four or five years (or even longer). That is a lot of years of sacrificed earnings especially if someone has many years before retirement and could capitalize on the time value of money and compounding interest. Why? Because any income invested early is a lot more 40 years down the road. Time is money and giving up time is giving up a partial return on investments (at least in the future). On top of the lost time, the salary of a graduate student is almost always lower than a job they could obtain during that same time frame. Thus, a graduate student can be hit doubly hard in the two negative directions. Moreover, it can sometimes take many years to recoup that loss. Some simple math will explain better: Let’s say you could start a job at $60,000 a year after your bachelor’s degree. Instead, you go to graduate school for a master’s degree and make $25,000 as a graduate researcher during those two years. In total, you gave up $70,000 of earnings during those two years (yes, before tax…). Now let’s say that with an advanced degree you can obtain employment of $70,000 per year after your masters. This means it will take 7 more years to break even ($60K x 9 years = $540K versus $25K x 2 years + $70K x 7 years = $540K). Some people look at those 7 years and decide they can do better inside a company progressing faster and getting ahead financially by starting work sooner. However, this is just one numeric example. You should know that the loss of time or money can be worse (but also better) based on the particular industry, the length of the advanced degree, and the annual salary difference expected. For example, I know some students who doubled their salary after a master’s degree. But I also know some students who saw no increase compared to a BS salary. (Admittedly, it was their choice to take a lower-paying position.)

Delaying your Career Start Date This is related to the previous reason but it deserves its own description. We all hear about the college drop-out who made billions after starting a company. We also DON’T hear about the college drop-outs who DON’T make billions. They’re not in the news and so we never gather data about the other side of the spectrum. (This is another example of a cognitive bias, but I digress). What’s important to recognize is that starting earlier in a career increases the chance of learning something earlier and putting that to use sooner to be more successful sooner. So, a drop-out who starts three companies before you or I graduate with our BS has, at minimum, acquired some experience and lessons perhaps resulting in a successful fourth company. While they may be experiencing their first year of profit we might still be working at that entry-level position. Comparing careers can be a dangerous pastime but it’s important to recognize the differences. I share this because the same arguments work when contrasting a BS and an MS (or a PhD). Those 2 or 4 years can make a difference. Someone who doesn’t go to graduate school will probably still learn. Universities don’t have a monopoly on learning. It’s just that the learning is different inside and outside a campus setting. In fact, knowledge and content delivery from online, free, or affordable options outside of university campuses has become exceptional for some topics. Still, sometimes the learning inside a campus opens up different (albeit delayed) doors for one to walk through. But at the same time, some of the potential doors will close while pursuing an advanced degree. Delaying a start date for a career delays the lessons and experience one would obtain otherwise. There are indeed jobs where experience helps you along more quickly than theoretical knowledge. The experience will undoubtedly come, even if delayed by a few years, but that delayed acquisition can sometimes set one back in some domains. Credentials are clearly valued in our world but some professions value credentials or experience that are not directly tied to an advanced degree.

More School Let’s admit it. School is tough. If it wasn’t tough for you, you should seriously ask yourself if you tried hard enough or got your money’s worth. Maybe you chose easy classes. Maybe your school was subpar. But for many people I talk to, they struggled, at least a little bit, and grew personally and mentally from the experience. Graduate school is indeed more school. I thought it was hard too. If you absolutely hate (or hated) your undergraduate experience, it’s a good idea to seriously ask yourself why you are considering more. Of course, my graduate school experience was way better (see the first article) but there is still homework, labs, assignments, tests, exams, writing, research, theses, and dissertations. If more years of any of that makes you nauseous, maybe graduate school is not for you. When undergraduate students tell me they just need a break from school, I find myself agreeing with them. Graduate school is not for everyone. Nor should it be. We all know people who shine in different environments than a school. They are just as intelligent and just as capable (or more) but they chose to apply their talents in environments that didn’t require an advanced degree at a school. 

You don’t know what you want to research A potential reason to not go to graduate school is that you still don’t know what you want to research. Although graduate school can provide you more time to explore and consider different directions, the research can become even more specific and detailed in a research lab. If you end up joining a graduate program and your topic is determined before you arrive (which happens often) you can be disappointed if it doesn’t turn out to be what you wanted. Some undergraduate students I talk to who still don’t know what they want to do with their lives, choose to go to grad school for more time to discover what they want to do. That strategy might be okay, but they might end up doing research in an area that they later find out they don’t enjoy at all. This is beneficial because now they can live life knowing that they never want to do X, but they might have despised or wasted the time it took to figure that out. Sampling different areas before graduate school can help in this respect, but it still doesn’t guarantee you’ll know what topic you want to spend two or more years of your life diving into deeper than anyone else. If you aren’t sure, then at a minimum ask yourself if right now is the right time. I have seen students come back to graduate school after working for a year or two, and confidently know what topic they want to research precisely. Others return with a sharp focus on the area, and sometimes even on the specific topic (or subtopic). Had they started graduate school without that focus their experience probably would have been miserable. The counter-argument is that one can fall in love with whatever one is doing with the right attitude, people, and environment. Therefore, not knowing exactly what to study shouldn’t be the biggest roadblock to graduate school but it is a sign that one should ask themselves additional probing questions about their future.

You know what you want to do and it doesn’t require graduate school  There is a number of us who know what we want to do and it doesn’t require an advanced degree. They are probably not reading this article, at least at this point, but if you are one of those, then just forget about graduate school. It’s not for everyone. It takes time, money, effort, and might derail you from your dream (but it might also enable your dream). I know people who obtained an advanced degree because it was an expectation of others and now they’re not as happy in the current field. They’re competent and successful but they should have considered a different path or at least a different graduate program. There are entire books dedicated to telling people to live their dream and now there are entire books about how that was a terrible idea as researchers explore failed parenting styles, entitlement culture, and other cause-effect relationships. Regardless, I find myself supporting individuals to pursue their dreams as long as those dreams are challenging, such there is a real chance of failure or struggle, and the process contributes to the long-term happiness of self and others. So, there are many things that don’t require attending graduate school and I can get behind those. But there are also many that do. Don’t discount graduate school as an enabler for life and dream fulfillment, but also don’t view graduate school as a panacea for life and dream fulfillment.