1/3 making a mistake when entering grad school?

[Loric]

So I was looking over the data for completion rates for masters degrees. Within the "optimal" timeframe, only 41% of students have graduated with the degree they were seeking. That optimal timeframe is the 2 years of the avg program. At 4 years out - double the time - it looks a little better at 66% completion, but that still leaves 1/3 of applicants/accepted students as having shelled out a serious amount of time, money, stress, etc.. for what turned out to be a fruitless pursuit.

 

For the record, this data refers to STEM program masters students.. apparently MBA's have a nicer 86% completion rate at 4 years.

 

I suppose the question is, are 1/3 of the student body just making a mistake by entering grad school at all?

 

I've posed the "Why not just get a job?" question before on these forums.. with unenthusiastic results... but the study found:

 

The factor most likely to lead to the inability of a student to earn a master’s degree was interference from employment, cited by 40 percent of respondents. When asked about their future plans, 62 percent of students who had stopped out or dropped out of their programs said they intended to continue working in their current jobs.

 

Just something I've been mulling over lately and thought was worth discussing.

[St Andrews Lynx]

 

The factor most likely to lead to the inability of a student to earn a master’s degree was interference from employment, cited by 40 percent of respondents. When asked about their future plans, 62 percent of students who had stopped out or dropped out of their programs said they intended to continue working in their current jobs.

Is this data for both full and part-time Masters courses? They way this is written it sounds like most of the MS students who drop out are part-timers (perhaps being sponsored by their employer) holding down a job at the same time. 

 

In that case I don't think it is necessarily a costly mistake for those people to drop out of their MS programs...

[Eatin' Biscuits]

What's your source? It's somewhat hard to discuss without knowing what data you're looking at. Do you have stats for non-STEM & MBA fields?

 

I'm sure a lot of people are making a mistake by going to grad school.. even those who finish. But I would also say that failing to finish doesn't mean that it was a mistake to try.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Eatin' Biscuits

[Loric]

Is this data for both full and part-time Masters courses? They way this is written it sounds like most of the MS students who drop out are part-timers (perhaps being sponsored by their employer) holding down a job at the same time. 

 

In that case I don't think it is necessarily a costly mistake for those people to drop out of their MS programs...

 

Study covers both full and part time. Though it notes that in the feedback part, that asks completed students their ideas, that cited "factors for completion" were 92% "determination/motivation" and then 82% "family non-financial support" and 82% "pursuing graduate study fulltime." 

 

And it's the Masters Completion and Attrition study from the Counsel of Graduate Schools. 

[biotechie]

This wouldn't surprise me for my field as a lot of students in bio-related fields try out a MS if they don't get into med school or if they don't know what to do next (The "Do I want to do research or not, question"). Many also try to do it through their employers. It is very difficult to do graduate studies in this field with outside employment as many terminal non-thesis programs still require laboratory work, and funded thesis-based MS programs like I was in are rare, so many are required to try and balance work and school + lab. Sometimes they get into med school and drop (which makes me angry) or they find that a graduate degree in molecular biology isn't for them (understandable).

 

A lot of us also want to do things that are more associated with having a PhD, for example running our own lab, research projects, and having our own graduate students. I think the graduation rate for students in PhD programs (who had previous research experience and an idea of what they're getting into) is higher, but this also probably varies widely by program within the STEM fields.

Edited January 2, 2014 by biotechie

[Loric]

It's actually lower - 10 year completion rates for PhD is 58% for men, 55% for women. In life sciences it's a little better at 64% and 56, but abysmal at 47% and 52% in the humanities. Overall, international students sit at 67% compared to 54% domestic.

[biotechie]

It's actually lower - 10 year completion rates for PhD is 58% for men, 55% for women. In life sciences it's a little better at 64% and 56, but abysmal at 47% and 52% in the humanities. Overall, international students sit at 67% compared to 54% domestic.

 

Weird. That was something I looked into when I was applying. All of the programs I applied to had a higher than 70% completion rate... my program has an 85% completion rate, meaning at most, one person may drop from my class. I must have just picked schools where the students actually finish.

Is there any way you can link us to the report? I travelled all day, today, and apparently it has affected my Google skills.

[St Andrews Lynx]

"Completion rates" might be a misleading term. I believe that some schools omit the students who left with an MS from their "PhD completion rate". That means the school can conceal the number of students who entered the PhD program but who changed their minds/dropped out/were made to leave, etc. with the obligatory MS.

[Queen of Kale]

These numbers sound about right for the science phd programs I applied to.  My current program graduates about 60% with a phd and many of the rest leave with a masters.  Of the people I know about leaving they've all had pretty impressive job offers - offers they couldn't refuse.

[TakeruK]

50% sounds right for the "completion rate", which to me, is defined as someone who leaves with a PhD in the field they started graduate work in, especially in STEM. In Canada, the 2-year thesis+research based MSc and the 3-4 year PhD are independent program (meaning even if you stay at the same school and with the same supervisor, you have to go through the entire application process again, including LORs from your current supervisor to your new supervisor (which is the same person); also you need a MSc to apply to a PhD program). A MSc degree is a very useful and employable degree in Canada so many students decide that this is enough training for them to go do the job they want (teach at community college, work as staff scientist or lab manager, work as the science consultant for a museum/planetarium, work in industry, etc.)  The people that go and finish up the PhD are the ones that intend to remain in academia, and not everyone will decide to do so. Both programs are always fully funded in STEM, so a MSc is often considered a good, low-risk way to see if you are really interested in research for the rest of your career!

 

In the US, there are very few terminal funded MS programs in STEM, so leaving with a MS is almost always considered a "consolation prize" for not being able to get to a PhD. I also think the requirements for non-terminal MS in the US are much lower--it took me 2 years of classes plus full time research, a thesis and a defense to get my Canadian MSc but to get my US MS I will just have needed to complete all my classes (just did!) and fill out a piece of paper and voila! So, I think a MS in the US is worth less and more students feel the need to push through to get the PhD, or voluntarily leave for other interests.

 

So, I would not be surprised to see "completion rates" be lower in Canada, even lower than 50% while they might be slightly higher in the US, maybe 50-60%, because the MS isn't as helpful.

 

In my undergrad program, from observing the number of astronomy grad students coming in and graduating each year (there's not that many, and we attended their defenses), I think about 50% of MSc graduates indeed remain to pursue a PhD at the same school. At my MSc program, out of the 5 of us that came in, only 1 person is now remaining there for their PhD (so officially, the completion rate is 20%), but 2 of us are pursuing PhD's elsewhere (so technically, the "academia retention rate" is 60%). During my time in that program, I witnessed about 30% of all people enrolled in a MSc program graduate and remain in the same program for a PhD. The majority of the graduates decide to pursue other employment with their MSc outside of academia and some of the graduates do PhDs elsewhere. A small fraction of people do not finish MSc programs at all.

 

In the US, when I visited programs, one statistic that every department wants to boast about is their "completion rate" or "retention rate" or whatever word they want to call it. However, this percentage is almost always the number of people who pass the quals and are not asked to leave the program. Every school will boast rates above 90% and many of them say 95% or higher. But they do not include people who decide to leave the PhD program, nor do they include people who are forced to "voluntarily quit" due to crappy conditions (e.g. supervisor assigns them crappy projects that do not work out, supervisor not doing their job and no one catches it until too late, supervisor loses funding and can no longer support students but no one else is able to take them, supervisor moves and student decides to not continue etc.). Finally, perhaps most importantly, this rate rarely includes the students who fail the quals the first time and chooses not to make the second attempt. Or, the student feels pressured to "choose" to not make the second attempt because of extreme lack of support from advisors/faculty, which sends a clear message to the student! 

So, for prospective students, always be wary of the school's boasted completion rate and other stats (such as which % of graduates end up in certain types of jobs). Ideally, you would want to see these numbers relative to the total number of students that enter the program in the first place!

[Eigen]

Here's the CGS completion study for doctoral programs: http://www.cgsnet.org/phd-completion-project

 

It's an interesting read, and if I recall they split out those that dropped out, left with a non-doctoral degree, are still in school, etc. 

 

A completion rate about 50% for a PhD is what I'd expect most places. My school's higher, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. 

 

Most of the attrition in a PhD (not a MS) comes from people who leave ABD, at least in the sciences. They're doing fine, they've done the coursework and exams and passed, but for some reason (life changes, get a job offer, etc) decide to leave before finishing a dissertation. 

[TakeruK]

Here's the CGS completion study for doctoral programs: http://www.cgsnet.org/phd-completion-project

 

It's an interesting read, and if I recall they split out those that dropped out, left with a non-doctoral degree, are still in school, etc. 

 

A completion rate about 50% for a PhD is what I'd expect most places. My school's higher, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. 

 

Most of the attrition in a PhD (not a MS) comes from people who leave ABD, at least in the sciences. They're doing fine, they've done the coursework and exams and passed, but for some reason (life changes, get a job offer, etc) decide to leave before finishing a dissertation. 

 

I'd be interested in reading these studies but they are only available to members of the CGS. I don't even know if this is something individual students have or if it is meant for the school's graduate councils.

 

I agree that I'm not certain that a 100% completion rate is what schools should aim for. I think it's certainly true that schools should not accept more incoming students than they intend to graduate--i.e. there should not be processes that "weed out" students partway through a PhD program and schools should only accept students if they have the resources to support all of the matriculating students to completion. So I think it's fair for schools to have a quals exam or similar process near the beginning that evaluates candidates and ensures that they are skilled enough to finish a PhD in a reasonable time. But, it would not be fair to only let the top X% of the incoming students continue on, because of limited lab space or whatever. 

 

I am not certain that schools should aim for or be rewarded for high completion rates because this would give incentive for schools to keep students in their programs and consider students who don't finish a "failure" (even more so than they might currently). I think the goal of the PhD program is to produce a researcher who will have employable skills, so if a ABD student already has enough skills to gain employment elsewhere, then I would still consider that a "success". Alternatively, if schools feel pressured to keep all their students, even the ones that would not normally pass quals, then students who may not succeed even with a PhD are forced to waste an extra 3-4 years of their life in a PhD program where they may be better off somewhere else. 

 

I don't know what the optimal completion rate would be though. 50% seems to be the current equilibrium value but that doesn't mean that we should necessarily keep it this way. It would be interesting to see the CGS reports, especially what they recommend for increasing this rate. 

[Loric]

I just find it fascinating that people are so "hardcore" emotional and involve themselves so deeply in something they have a roughly 50/50 shot of not finishing.

 

Think of all the people who post as if getting into a graduate program is "the most vital" step in their lives. Half those people are either making a mistake, or the school made a mistake in choosing them.

 

I certainly think they should modify the admissions processes to cultivate completion. Survey those who complete and use those as the "standard" for admission. Also survey those who don't complete.. and use that profile as a "red flag" when doing admissions.

 

I'm assuming there's norms in background, experience, gpa, etc.. between the two groups. You'd have to actually study it to know for sure. I have this suspicion that a lot of the higher-end of the GPA/scores people are the ones more likely to drop out.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Loric

[TakeruK]

I just find it fascinating that people are so "hardcore" emotional and involve themselves so deeply in something they have a roughly 50/50 shot of not finishing.

 

Think of all the people who post as if getting into a graduate program is "the most vital" step in their lives. Half those people are either making a mistake, or the school made a mistake in choosing them.

 

I am not quite sure who you are referring to. But I do agree that getting into grad school is hardly the most vital step. If you get in, then it's what you do as a grad student that will be the most important for whatever your next step is. If you don't get into grad school, or not into the program you want, then some people feel very lost because all their plans might have only involved grad school. But that doesn't mean these applicants are bad/useless people and won't contribute to society, obviously! Grad school is just one thing you can do with your life, it's not any better or worse than many other things you can do.

 

But I don't agree that "half the people are making a mistake" or "the school made a mistake". As I said above, you can still benefit from grad school even if you don't complete. Also, it's not a mistake if you only find out that you don't want to be in academia after a few years in grad school and decide to leave with a Masters. The MS can still be useful, but more importantly, you know what you don't want and you won't wonder what could have been etc. It's far better for a student to realise that they want something else and leave the PhD program than to stick though it just to get a piece of paper. 

 

I certainly think they should modify the admissions processes to cultivate completion. Survey those who complete and use those as the "standard" for admission. Also survey those who don't complete.. and use that profile as a "red flag" when doing admissions.

 

I'm assuming there's norms in background, experience, gpa, etc.. between the two groups. You'd have to actually study it to know for sure. I have this suspicion that a lot of the higher-end of the GPA/scores people are the ones more likely to drop out.

I agree that admissions criteria should be "will this person finish?" because it is a lost investment if a student flunks out. But that's much easier said than done. And I also think that the goal of Graduate Programs should not be solely to churn out future professors. The goal of a graduate program should be to develop the skills and experience necessary for the graduate to succeed as an independent worker in their field, whether it's in academia or industry or whatever. Whether or not the student actually finishes the PhD when they achieve their goal is not too important. 

 

As for the last part, if we have unlimited data, we can probably get a pretty reliable model of whether or not an applicant will finish, based on all of the variables you describe. But there are so many parameters and variables (both from the applicant and from the external factors such as the University's culture, what the city is like) and also things that I think schools should not be allowed to ask (e.g. plans on starting a family, or illnesses). I actually don't think there is enough people in many fields, definitely not my own, to generate enough data to make a reliable model. 

 

Instead, I think what most schools do is pretty good. It is basically a two or three step process. Admission is the first checkpoint and here, the goal is determine whether or not the applicant can make it to the next checkpoint, because that's easier to do than to see if they can make it all the way to end right away. The second checkpoint is usually the quals exam, which is usually heavy on coursework so admissions is very heavy on background preparation and whether or not the applicant can succeed in learning the foundations of their graduate field. In programs with a candidacy exam, the quals exam may be mostly to evaluate whether or not the student has successfully developed the fundamental skills and is ready for further graduate work leading to the PhD while the candidacy exam may be something to determine whether or not the candidate has a viable study plan and enough background on their particular topic to actually finish on time. 

 

Ideally, schools should admit people who they think would pass the quals exam as well as be able to finish. But since passing quals is a pre-requisite to finishing, it is easier to first eliminate applicants who might not pass quals. So I think this is why many programs have academic cutoffs for GPA, GREs etc. At the same time, in many places, these cutoffs are not absolute, in that someone who is below the cutoffs may still be admitted for other reasons, including the reason that they think the person might be able to pass quals and finish the program with good research. 

 

This last part is purely my opinion and I don't even know if I can fully back it up. But I really think funded Masters programs would be a good idea in the US, the same way they work in Canada and other countries (i.e. the Masters is the first two years of a PhD). Perhaps it's just me thinking "I like the way I am used to" but perhaps not. After all, I think the difference between someone trained with a BS and a PhD is huge and there are many jobs that could use someone that is in-between. This would help the problem of having "too many PhDs and not enough jobs that actually require PhDs" and allow people who want just a Masters to contribute to the workforce much sooner, instead of spending another 3-4 years in a PhD program where they might not even get training they will later use.

[Eigen]

See, the thing is people see 50% and think an individual has that chance to finish or not finish. 

 

But in my experience, people who are not finishing are people who are choosing other avenues, not those who are unable to finish. 6-10 years is a long time to have a chance in life conditions (parents die, kids, parents become ill, you become ill, etc) or decide that you've found something you're passionate about doing that doesn't require a doctorate. 

 

Most of the issues I see that cause people to choose to leave aren't something that could have been seen from the start, or where even there from the start. They're things that have developed or changed over the course of the degree. 

 

This is different from those who don't pass exams, who leave due to coursework difficulties, etc- but I think those are the minority. 

 

I think one thing that can be done to help lower attrition rates to some degree is better preparation of undergraduates for what a graduate degree really entails. We still get people in our program who are going to graduate school because they liked school- not because they want a graduate degree, or know what they want to do with one. I think one troubling statistic is that the median age of graduate students continues to drop, when it would probably be better if it rose a bit. Some fields place a lot of emphasis on more mature, experience students, and I think those students are much less likely to leave due to attrition than straight out of undergrad students, for the same reason that a being married makes someone more likely to finish a degree- it's someone with a more defined support structure that's likely in a bit more stable life situation, and less likely to just leave when things get difficult. 

 

As to the CGS reports- I know we've passed copies of them around here before, I think this was discussed in 2012 when they came out, with links to the PDFs of the report. When I have time to spare, I'll try to dig them up. 

 

You could also ask an administrator at your school to get you copies. 

[Loric]

Its funny, i mentioned elsewhere that the other student in my emphasis/program my first time in grad school was married and it annoyed me to no end. It was because his wife made his life easier but my professors expected the same things from me. I'd definitely say not having someone else to cook, clean, run errands etc was a big challenge and a contributing reason to my withdrawl. Of course thats because my profs had unreasonable expectations for time commitment.

[TakeruK]

Its funny, i mentioned elsewhere that the other student in my emphasis/program my first time in grad school was married and it annoyed me to no end. It was because his wife made his life easier but my professors expected the same things from me. I'd definitely say not having someone else to cook, clean, run errands etc was a big challenge and a contributing reason to my withdrawl. Of course thats because my profs had unreasonable expectations for time commitment.

 

Like I am going to write in the other thread, it's a "give and take". Being married doesn't magically grant you all these advantages and solve all of your problems, there are pros and cons. I am definitely happier with marriage but I can see why some people might not be. 

[Eigen]

Haha, I wish being married granted those advantages. It does mean you split the work with someone else, but I think the idea of a stay-at-home academic spouse is long gone. 

 

My wife and I are both in PhD programs- the support is fantastic, but we both have to do equal (or greater) amounts of the housework depending on who's got deadlines coming up. 

[Pol]

I don't think it is a fair assessment to label non-completion as a "mistake".

Edited January 4, 2014 by Pol

[Loric]

I don't think it is a fair assessment to label non-completion as a "mistake".

 

For how much it costs in resources, money, and time - how is it not? Especially considering for every admit there is a denial.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Loric

[Seeking]

Here we need to differentiate between various categories of students who don't finish Graduate School.

 

Some drop out because they didn't meet the evaluation standards - and their initially being intensely willing to get admission into a Grad Program has nothing to do with their under-performance. They were intensely desirous of this degree, but they didn't foresee that they would not be meeting the expectations of the Grad School.

 

Some lose funding for reasons other than grades and are forced to drop out. Again, they didn't see that this would happen.

 

Illness is another reason for not completing.

 

Some leave because their Adviser leaves and they don't want to work with another Adviser. They too didn't foresee that this would happen.

 

There is a % of students who get a job half way through Grad School and since at the end of Grad School they had intended to get a job anyway, they decide to leave.

 

The last category is of candidates who couldn't have got this job offer without their Grad School credits. Even 1-3 semester's Grad School credits make them attractive in the job market, which wouldn't have been possible without these Grad School credits. So, they are not failures. Rather, they are successes. And, their intense involvement with Grad School is justified because it made them do well in whatever semesters they completed and eventually they got a job because of it.

 

So, first, this data should include information about why these students didn't complete and where they went after leaving.

 

Second, they are not making a mistake by getting into Grad School. People change their way of thinking throughout life, they change their ambitions and their goals in life. At no point can we say how we will think a few months or a year after today. And no one can foresee a circumstance that will arise in future.  

[Eigen]

For how much it costs in resources, money, and time - how is it not? Especially considering for every admit there is a denial.

 

This is very situationally dependent. For instance, a PhD student in STEM fields is likely starting from a BS, and will end up with an MS no matter what- so they gain something in terms of degree. 

 

Additionally, in STEM you should not be going where you are not fully funded. And while you'll make less from stipend than you would in, say, industry, it's not exactly pennies.

 

As for the time- if you learned something about yourself and your field, gained new skills, and enjoyed the time... It doesn't sound like a mistake to me. 

 

So we need to maybe split off discussions by field here, as I'd say the majority of people who don't finish in a STEM field probably didn't make a mistake in terms of time, money and resources.

[DerpTastic]

I'd be curious as to what the comparison between students who drop out of a undergraduate degree versus a graduate degree in the STEM fields. You could say the same thing, why are these people starting something that isn't guaranteed? Why are they getting invested into something that might not happen? And to be honest, this would be a better question. Most STEM graduate degrees are funded. There aren't many undergraduate degrees that are completely "funded" (I guess this can be considered finan. aid or scholarships). Starting and dropping in a PhD program doesn't really set you back money wise. You shouldn't be in debt from it, although you could have made more money somewhere else. Starting and dropping in an undergraduate degree in general does set you back.

 

Perhaps you will be in that 33% who don't make it, but you're generally funded with a stipend. Most would say it's worth it to give it your all if you need that MS or PhD for your dream job.

[Loric]

Money doesnt just come out of nowhere though. If someone who has a 1 in 3 chance of dropping out is funded, that money is not given to someone else. It's a lot of wasted funding.

[DerpTastic]

Money doesnt just come out of nowhere though. If someone who has a 1 in 3 chance of dropping out is funded, that money is not given to someone else. It's a lot of wasted funding.

 

It is wasted money, but I was more addressing the question of why people go for it if they might drop out. No one thinks, "I bet I'm that 1 in 3 that will drop out". 

 

It is true that the money and position could have gone to someone else, and it's quite sad that someone who may have gotten through was denied. However, you never know if that other person would have made it through anyway. The school is (for the most part) picking the people they believe are the best applicants. When they're looking at the top applicants, a lot of them are very close.