flyers29

Understood, but the supposed pedigree is as much about networking as it is about learning environment. I'd say you'll gain a heck of a lot more just in your first few months in the military than you will in two years of grad school. In a field like this it's more about developing research/analysis skills (with a little bit of rote learning thrown in)...and honestly it hasn't been my experience that you'll benefit vastly by going to one school over the other. This is just my opinion though, I'm aiming more to give some perspective than claim I'm 100% right.

Well I'm almost certain you'll get into Korbel (though I think you'd have to commute to CU-Boulder for ROTC) and you have a good shot at the others as well. Secondly, are there any cheaper programs you can go to? You already have a job lined up upon completion of ROTC, why bother with the high tuition when it's not going to matter down the road? (p.s. I graduated from Korbel and am only speaking from experience, I'm not trying to be a smart-ass)

I imagine equating the old scores with the new ones would be pretty simple--just use percentiles.

With a master's you will come in as a GS9, step 1. Depending on the promotion potential of a position (This can be seen on the specific vacancy announcements you apply for), you will generally go to a GS-11, step 1 after a year and a GS-12, step 1 a year after that. Some positions will even allow going up to a GS-13, step 1 after another year (so after 3 years of service total). If you look at the pay scale you'll notice that you can only go up to GS-15 (and then there is the Senior Executive Service, but that's something else altogether), so you're probably going to plateau at a GS-12 or 13 for awhile (you can of course move up after a year of service at the next lower grade technically, but in reality you're going to have to bide your time at 12 or 13 since people with more years of experience at that grade will be competing for higher positions, also). It is then when the other steps come into play--if you're not going to go up a grade, you go up another step every year or two. The important thing here is the actual GS grade, as that's tied to your position and is based on the kind of responsibility your job entails. Now I'm only speaking to someone with no job experience before their master's...if you came in with a few years of job experience you might be able to come in at a higher step to match what your prior salary was. Hope this isn't too confusing, if you want to invest some time into how this all works you might want to check out federalsoup.com.

Short answer, no. And I'd give that answer for most people regardless of career goals.

I'm a Korbel grad, and narius pretty much nailed it.

Sorry to sound blunt, but I find taking out 100k+ for just a master's to be a bit untenable.

Well I think your relatives do make some sense with regard to academia--that's one of the seemingly endless debates as far as "how much does school affect placement" (both sides have strengths to their arguments). But outside academia, it's not quite as cutthroat. Sure, if you go to the website of a place like Brookings you'll see that they employ a lot of Ivy League PhDs. But in my experience I've seen that people pretty much come from all tiers of universities. Some universities have top-notch programs in certain areas even if they're seen as average on the whole. All I'm saying is that there are a heck of a lot of people who do moving and shaking who aren't employed by a "household name" think tank or company, and many of them come from less prestigious universities.

Why is that?

Eh, the two ways to really break into the State Dept (becoming a foreign service officer or the PMF program for civil service positions) are based more on how you do on their exams than the specifics of your resume. On the whole though, I think there are pros and cons to both. An IR degree will make you more versatile, but there are probably a lot more people with IR degrees than those who can speak a critical language fluently, so you'd be set apart from the pack by going the language route. On the other hand, there's always the great debate about just how "fluent" one is without spending a couple of years living in that country, so might depend on the scope of your language skills as well. Ultimately, I wouldn't say one is absolutely necessary over the other. Have you looked into area studies programs that require a combination of both?

I'd say Korbel is the better bet in your situation. One point from what you said though about the quarter system: make sure you understand DU's weird way of doing tuition. It's essentially a disadvantage NOT to have a full courseload (12-18 hours) in any given quarter.

Korbel probably has the better program in terms of course selection, but there are more opportunities to intern while you're in school (I don't just mean going for the summer, I mean part-time during the semester...the more opportunities the better!). I'd say the costs will roughly be the same, as Korbel's high tuition will be offset by DC's high cost of living. Guess it just depends what your likes/dislikes are, good luck!

Take the money.

Well, I think you first need to decide whether you want to do the Ph.D or just the MPP. If you do the latter, I'd say keep your costs down and do Maryland.

Just to clarify, it's 10% of your monthly salary, so if you're taking home $6666/month then your monthly payment would be $667/ month. Not a huge improvement, but just wanted to make that one point.

Would've helped if the interest rate was reduced. IBR is only delaying the inevitable, and smaller monthly payments only mean you will end up paying more in the long run. Hope the public service 10-year incentive is still there down the road.

Well, hindsight is 20/20 I guess...but yes, I think I would've gone to the cheaper program. Of course, where you go is situation-dependent: my focus was security studies and I'm looking for work with the federal government (finished last week with no jobs lined up as of yet), which in my opinion is kind of blind to the "name brand" thing. Of course, if my focus was more in international economics, which has a strong private sector component, then I probably wouldn't care about the debt as much. So I'm not outright discouraging paying more for a top program, I'm just advising people to put it in the context of what it will personally cost them, how long it will take to pay the debt back, and how much it will benefit their individual goals.

Some good points made thus far. Certainly, it's not necessarily something you should be freaked out about. However, you also need to plan for the worst case...you can't take on a lot of debt by banking on debt reduction programs that agencies offer or the current policy that will cancel your loans after 10 years of public service. You never know if the government will be in the position to offer those incentives down the road. I'm coming out of grad school with $60k of debt, and I'm sure as heck not going to be able to pay that off in 10 years on a government salary (as I would have to average something like $750/month on debt repayment over the next 10 years). I know there are extended plans etc, but I can't help but feel somewhat like an idiot at the prospect of taking over 10 years to pay off the value of having a MASTER'S from a "good name" when I could've done it at my state-school alma mater for 1/3-1/4 the overall price. I'm not at all bitter or anything, I'm just saying you really need to look at if the extra money for the name is really necessary.

Actually the FCIP programs are better than you think. With most of them you'll come in as a GS-9, get promoted to a GS-11 after one year, and then they usually will convert you to permanent career status a year after that (possibly with promotion to GS-12). So it's very much a "real job." I'd also look into the PMF program as well as similar programs that individual agencies might have. The only downside to FCIP is that its all about timing..an agency may not be recruiting through FCIP when you're coming up on graduation. The GAO actually puts out a list of when their various announcements will be open ahead of time though, so that might be a start.

What is it you're planning to do after graduation? Just asking as I'm finding that school reputation doesn't matter so much in government work. I'm not familiar with Syracuse's security offerings, but Denver has a great program for someone doing Middle East/security. I'm very much an advocate of taking all the money you can, though, so Syracuse should be very much a consideration if there isn't a huge gap between the two programs.

It's certainly the route many people go. Just be mindful that the government hiring process has been really backward (in my opinion) in some respects. Most government jobs are posted on USAJOBS, and each announcement usually involves answering these long, super-specific questionnaires known as KSAs. While having a master's would technically qualify you for a position, many positions would de facto require experience in that position in order to get a good score on the questionnaire (as a computer system generates a score based on your answers to the multiple-choice questions as well as how many "keywords" it finds in the answers that require a written response). And it's backwards in the sense that skills that are applicable to a given position aren't picked up by the questionnaire if they aren't asked by it, so you have to have the specific experience it's asking for. Fortunately, they're doing away with the KSA system next month so your resume might actually matter more now. I'm not at all trying to be negative or say that you won't get picked up for anything--just be prepared for an arduous process that involves a lot of waiting.

Just out of curiosity: how does the British model account for not giving as much breadth of knowledge via coursework? Obviously British academics seem to know their stuff despite the difference in approaches. I'm not saying that the 2-2 1/2 years of coursework that American PhD students is all "necessary" to being successful, but the British model of taking literally a couple of classes before diving into thesis writing doesn't seem like much, either.

I'm not sure any master's is worth 100k of debt.

If tuition is a concern then I think Korbel should be off your radar as well.

Take the money at Korbel, no doubt. Just remember, your degree only helps you get your first job...