# Should I go to grad school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 6, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491 "2014-04-06T18:15:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/101 "2014-04-11T12:11:10Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > This is probably the best out there, written in ordinary English :[Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy](http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf/). (Free: PDF.) It was written by a guy named Warren Mosler, who is not an academic. (He made a ton of money on Wall Street, and now does whatever the fuck he wants.) My impression is he gets way less respect than he deserves, because he’s not credentialed. FWIW. [Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy](http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf). Fixed link. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/102 "2014-04-11T14:00:38Z")
Didn’t read intervening posts, but I did some research on this recently. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it was something like: A high school graduate makes 50% more than a high school dropout, 17k vs 25k. A person with an AA degree makes about 2k more per year than a high school graduate. 27k. Most shocking: a college dropout makes as much as a college graduate with a a BA. Both of them make about 50% more than a HS graduate. 35k. So, what happens from BA to MA? An additional 25% or so in earning power. 45k. When I went to grad school in 2000, the difference was about 2X, 30k vs 60k. In the past ten years. the number has dropped rapidly…for MA’s. Now, it’s 30k vs 40k. Imho, if you want to make money, aim for something like stockbroker or MBA. Don’t bother with this “chase happiness” crap. Anybody who tells you money can’t buy happiness never had enough money. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/103 "2014-04-11T14:06:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Most shocking: a college dropout makes as much as a college graduate with a a BA. Both of them make about 50% more than a HS graduate. 35k. [You might want to check the math in your research](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/104 "2014-04-11T14:13:48Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > [You might want to check the math in your research](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm). I’m pretty sure about my numbers, according to this chart, a BA makes 57k a year and an MA makes 70k, which are very wrong. I might have been mistaken about the college dropout though, i knew it was close to either BA or AA. The numbers I gathered were from the US census. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/105 "2014-04-11T15:09:23Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I’m pretty sure about my numbers, according to this chart, a BA makes 57k a year and an MA makes 70k, which are very wrong. > > I might have been mistaken about the college dropout though, i knew it was close to either BA or AA. > > The numbers I gathered were from the US census. Those are median earnings for people 25 and older employed full-time, not entry level salaries for recent grads (look, putting data into context with math!), and the chart doesn’t distinguish between BA/BS or MA/MS. Those numbers seem pretty reasonable to me. Either way, you should probably go ahead and read the rest of the thread. The OP already has a professional degree, and earning potential isn’t one of his reasons for considering grad school. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/106 "2014-04-11T15:11:49Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I might have been mistaken about the college dropout though, i knew it was close to either BA or AA. The college dropout numbers _are_ close to those for an AA: it’s a difference of $50 per week. That’s not really surprising, though; a college dropout is likely to have about the same number of credit hours as an AA recipient, on the average. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/107 "2014-04-11T17:01:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Remove the trailing “/” in the link to get it to work - I edited the one below to do so. I’m not an economist, and I only looked at the list, but none of strikes me as that controversial in non-wacko economic circles. Krugman has said much the same things in his column. Is this kind of good sense controversial today? I’m disappointed. Sorry about the bad link. My bad. Thank you for fixing it. Krugman’s written a couple of articles about MMT, mostly or entirely critical. MMT is to the _left_ of Krugman, politically. I’ve never come up with an elevator pitch for what MMT _is_, exactly. (It’s something I need to work on.) Basically, and I’m simplifying here, they regard taxes as a way to control or prevent inflation (to give fiat money value); not an actual or necessary mechanism for funding government spending. They consider deficits a normal and necessary phenomenon, in the ordinary course of things, and advocate higher deficits in times of high unemployment and low inflation (like what we have now). They don’t think that government debt is something that has to be “paid back”. They regard it as the net financial savings of the private sector; rather than as a problem that has to be solved. Some of their policy recommendations include a “job guarantee”, meaning that the Federal government would guarantee a job to anyone who wanted one at a low, but livable wage. Alternatively, the government could simply send a check to everyone, every month, until joblessness disappeared and inflation climbed to whatever level people decided was untenable. MMT regards money and debt as inseparable. To put it differently, money is created by debt. At any given time, therefore, there can can only be as much money as there is debt. Or to out it differently, there can only be _less_ money than debt, because of interest. FWIW, I’ve had many long-winded debates with Hellestal, whom I take to be a mainstream economics professor, and he’s had many harsh words for me, or at least my take on MMT. (Not that I mind, I’ve learned more talking to him than any other single source.) I do think its fair to consider MMT “controversial”. Here’s a [link](http://www.slideshare.net/UmkcEconomists/umkc-in-playboy-seriously/) that gives a sense of MMT’s standing in the academic world. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/108 "2014-04-11T18:25:05Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology which is part of the SUNY (State University of New York) system which has core standards that all SUNY schools must meet. My point was, if they even teach math at a fashion school, wouldn’t it be relatively standard to teach at least **some** \*\*\*\* math in college? > > I think FIT did push math courses a little bit more than most though solely because of the assumption that fashion students are not good at subjects like that. This is based on things professors said, etc. > > Interesting that your undergrad didn’t have any required courses. The also didn’t have grades. It was awesome there. > [@](#): > > Anyway, my whole point about math, is math seems pretty central to economics. When I took economics in college (I had to take macro and micro economics) I’m pretty sure there was a math pre-req which had to be taken first, although I don’t recall which course it was. Well, there’s math and then there’s math. As I mentioned, I like probability and statistics, which are both useful and interesting in their own right. Then take something like quadratic equations. I learned how to do them in HS. Then I learned them again to take the GRE. But right now I couldn’t tell you the first thing about them, other than they involve parentheses. What’s the point of learning something intrinsically boring and useless, which you immediately forget once the test is over? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/109 "2014-04-11T19:10:26Z")
> [@Enginerd](#): > > The math is neither useless nor pointless - it’s a tool used to formulate a model. Sometimes a mathematical model is the right tool for what you’re doing, and understanding the math helps you know when that’s the case. Often it’s the wrong tool, and understanding the math helps you know when _that’s_ the case. Either way, the math itself is fundamental to understanding the capabilities and limitations of the model. > > If you want to argue that widely accepted ideas or models are wrong, it’s going to be really important (if you want to be taken seriously) for you to thoroughly understand those ideas. Even if they’re based on math. I’m not sure what you mean. Take a simple idea: that all money is predicated on debt. That means at any given time, there must be a at least as much debt as there is money. Mathematically, that would be D (for debt) \> M (for money). So there’s math in there. I’m not opposed to math in principle. I’m just opposed to math for the purpose of dick-waving, or to make a subject seem harder (and therefore more prestigious) than it really is. I would also argue that if your basic principles are wrong, it doesn’t matter how much math you do: your outcomes are still going to be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/110 "2014-04-11T19:12:47Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > Yes, that is correct. I also had to take two statistics courses, business math and I am a scatter brain and don’t remember the exact name of the course but we did things like calculate interest, model population growth, etc. The professor was a male model on the side which was an added bonus. > > I’m not surprised that there’s no math in law school. Did the OP state was his undergrad degree is in? > > I wish I could have taken Physics for Poets, **even sven**. Sociology. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/111 "2014-04-11T20:21:18Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > What’s the point of learning something intrinsically boring and useless, which you immediately forget once the test is over? I had an undergrad ask me essentially the same question about how proteins are put together the other day. She had learned it last term, memorized it for the test, and then forgotten it. Well, in this term, we were discussing something that required the “useless” knowledge she’d forgotten. At least in biology, all of high school and pretty much all of the undergrad coursework is about learning the language. You can’t even start discussing the interesting stuff in biology until you have the vocabulary and understand a large number of basic processes. No one who has not yet completed ALL of that work is qualified to judge which nuggets are “useful” and which are “useless”. In math, I have no doubt, the same is truer by a factor of about forty million. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/112 "2014-04-12T00:30:30Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > That’s an excellent idea. Here is what I consider to be an effective method to do so, if you are interested: find the students you are interested in (presumably Galbraith’s students) and find papers they have written (Galbraith’s group appears to have several that are accessible on the internet). Your google-fu must be much better than mine. You found a list of Galbraith’s students online? Could you share, please? > [@](#): > > Read them enough times that you think you understand them and have some questions for the author. If you can’t understand them, well, that’s a question too. This has the dual purpose of also making you aware of exactly what kind of work his grad students do and whether you might be interested in doing that kind of thing. > > Then email one of the grad students whose paper you’ve read. (The email is usually given on the paper.) Say that you’re a prospective nontraditional grad student, have read _Paper X_, think it’s a fascinating paper, and have some questions about it and the graduate program in general. Ask if you can meet with him to talk about these things in his office or over a cup of coffee (your treat, of course). (Not to leave out women, but I can tell you as a previous female grad student that you, as a man in your 40’s, are more likely to have luck with this if you ask a male grad student.) If that student does not reply in a couple of days, try again with another one, but I would be shocked if you had to try more than two. (Grad students, you see, love two things: a) the idea that someone has ACTUALLY READ THEIR WORK, and b) free food/drink.) Sounds like an excellent idea! > [@](#): > > That’s what I wanted to know (and for my part I apologize if I was a little snippy about it). If you’re okay with having to do math then that’s great. I had thought that you were dead set against it, and was having a hard time reconciling that with wanting to go to econ grad school. (For the record, I still think that it would not be a good fit for you, but whatever, I’m just a random person on a message board. And public policy is sounding like it could be fun for you, actually.) Not a good fit, why? LBJ specifically, or grad school? > [@](#): > > I’m glad you like probability and statistics, as (especially in public policy) these are the parts of math you are most likely to be using. As for your last sentence… well, let me just quote for truth what Enginerd said about math: My attitude toward math may be poisoned by my experience at HS. Anyway, I read a long thread about whether 0.999999… Was actually 1, that was interesting. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/113 "2014-04-12T01:55:48Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > I had an undergrad ask me essentially the same question about how proteins are put together the other day. She had learned it last term, memorized it for the test, and then forgotten it. Well, in this term, we were discussing something that required the “useless” knowledge she’d forgotten. > > At least in biology, all of high school and pretty much all of the undergrad coursework is about learning the language. You can’t even start discussing the interesting stuff in biology until you have the vocabulary and understand a large number of basic processes. No one who has not yet completed ALL of that work is qualified to judge which nuggets are “useful” and which are “useless”. > > In math, I have no doubt, the same is truer by a factor of about forty million. Vocabulary I’m good at. Anyway, I didn’t mean to make the thread a discussion of the merits of mathematics. I know it’s extremely useful in fields like astrophysics, engineering, and rocket science. I’m just skeptical of the trend to toward econometric modeling. Maybe somebody developed an econometric model that predicted the Great Recession. If he did, I’d be curious to know it. In real science, they develop a hypothesis, test it, and see if it works. In economics, like other social sciences, you can’t do that, because you can’t put people in test tubes. Of course, you could develop a theory that made predictions, and then wait and see if it was accurate. Economists have failed dismally at that. Which indicates, to me at least, that there’s something wrong with their theory, their approach, or both. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/114 "2014-04-12T07:34:50Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Vocabulary I’m good at. Anyway, I didn’t mean to make the thread a discussion of the merits of mathematics. I know it’s extremely useful in fields like astrophysics, engineering, and rocket science. I’m just skeptical of the trend to toward econometric modeling. Maybe somebody developed an econometric model that predicted the Great Recession. If he did, I’d be curious to know it. > > In real science, they develop a hypothesis, test it, and see if it works. In economics, like other social sciences, you can’t do that, because you can’t put people in test tubes. > > Of course, you could develop a theory that made predictions, and then wait and see if it was accurate. Economists have failed dismally at that. Which indicates, to me at least, that there’s something wrong with their theory, their approach, or both. Once you’ve proven that you can do the math, you might get into a specialty where you don’t have to do the math. Perhaps your perspective comes from the fact that LSATs have nothing to do with the law in particular. In any case, your links implied to me that those working in the are you want to work do use math. How can you state that Social Security is not a fraud unless you understand the demographics and assumptions on economic growth which the models used to predict the health of the system are based on? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/115 "2014-04-12T08:13:44Z")
Get your degree in Computer Science (assuming Computer is Science). Then, after you have made your millions, assuming you’re any good, it will be “economical” for you to get a degree in “heterodox economics”. Little\_Pig (BS - Economics, 30 years in the computer industry). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/116 "2014-04-12T08:17:29Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > In economics, like other social sciences, you can’t do that, because you can’t put people in test tubes. Sure you can. I got three right here in my garage. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/117 "2014-04-12T10:01:40Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > I’m sort of an introverted, intellectual type. Success in my field - financial success - depends a lot on marketing, advertising, and salesmanship. (Something they definitely don’t tell you in law school.) And some would say, just outright lying. These are things I’m not good at. And part of why I think what I’m doing is probably not a good fit for me. And why I’m looking to make a change. I hate to break it to you, but do you know what success in selling books requires? ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/118 "2014-04-12T10:50:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I mean really. The OP is asking whether he should go to some second rate PhD program to study some sort of non-traditional fridge branch of econ so he can not be a professor and write some sort of pop-guidebook on the subject? Honestly this sounds like a colossal waste of time and money with little return on investment. Glad to know I’m not the only one who had the same initial reaction. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/119 "2014-04-12T17:30:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Once you’ve proven that you can do the math, you might get into a specialty where you don’t have to do the math. Perhaps your perspective comes from the fact that LSATs have nothing to do with the law in particular. > In any case, your links implied to me that those working in the are you want to work do use math. How can you state that Social Security is not a fraud unless you understand the demographics and assumptions on economic growth which the models used to predict the health of the system are based on? I’m starting to feel like I shouldn’t have brought up math at all. 🙂 I’m not Barbie: I _can_ do math; it’s just that my experience with math has been mostly bad, I don’t like pointless rote memorization; my perspective (and, I believe, the perspective of heterodox economics generally) is that much of the math done in mainstream economics is - how shall I say it - not helpful, and done for alternative motives (“dick waving”, if you will). I do like statistics and probability. Statistics are inherently useful when you’re looking at populations, and they often lead to surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive findings. Much of the same is true of probability. I used to play _a lot_ of poker (and not badly, if I can get away with a little bragging about myself). Probability is absolutely essential for that. Anyway, and take this as bragging if you want, I scored a 69 on the GRE in math; meaning I did better than 69% of post-college students specifically looking at going to grad school. I understand that’s not a score that gets you into top mainstream economics departments. But considering I literally have not touched a math textbook in (what’s 43-16… j/k… I’ve got a calculator, somewhere…) a lot of years, that not that bad. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491/120 "2014-04-12T17:41:22Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > Get your degree in Computer Science (assuming Computer is Science). Then, after you have made your millions, assuming you’re any good, it will be “economical” for you to get a degree in “heterodox economics”. > > Little\_Pig (BS - Economics, 30 years in the computer industry). I’m not very good computers. Which is unfortunate, since I have a _great_ idea for a website. Know anybody who’d want to 50/50 with me? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-go-to-grad-school/685491.md?page=7)