Is NYU Master's Economics programme effective?

[jje]

 

Review of New York University (NYU) Masters in Economics

 

1. This is a poorly ranked university brand that has risen very quickly in the past years (circa #100 to #50) due to excellently executed strategy.

 

2. The undergraduate population is wealthy, middle- and lower-third intelligence and limited extra-curricular interests. 

 

3. The library is poorly stocked, overcrowded and noisy - students go there to chat.

 

4. NYU is extremely expensive - $45,000 per year for a Masters programme may look on a par to LSE and Duke, but it is twice Oxford, twice Cambridge and three times the other East Coast programmes such as Rutgers, CUNY - but you are in New York. They have zero financial aid for Masters and no scholarships in Economics. 

 

5. However aggregate expense at NYU includes cost outside of tuition. Food on campus is unhealthy and a very expensive $15 for a meal; room rent is exorbitant at $2000/mo for shared bedroom (elsewhere locally $1300-1500 is common for your own room a few streets away). NYU makes no attempt to hide that it is overcharging for the privilege of a New York student campus. 

 

6. NYU employs some of the most prestigious names across all disciplines - you will likely have seminars or lectures with them and have read their commentary in the newspaper. They are not all good lecturers, invariably their quirks lend themselves to prefer research above interaction with the student population, unless you are exceptionally bright.

 

7. NYU has executed well a very clever strategy - pay up for big name Professors who win Nobel, Abel and Fields medal prizes. Pay up for good graduate (PhD and Post-doc) researchers. Pay up for anything to get citation and research rankings high. 

 

8. The cost of the strategy is: expensive financial burden for Bachelor and Masters students. Limited quality of social and sporting life in the university. Resultantly no social feel or community.  The undergrads that are attracted to this are pretentious and wealthy, or lonesome.

 

9. Employment prospects are low. NYU is not an Ivy League, and not a top 25 overall school. Even if one department is strong, as this is, the university name is absent from recruitment lists for top banking and consultancy jobs. If students get those roles it is through excellent personal connections: your blanket job applications to Goldman Sachs, Citadel, McKinsey, Societe Generale front office will not pass the first sift.

 

10. Wholly recommend leveraging NYU’s strategy if you are a stipend receiving PhD or a junior Professor in central New York - perfect! Otherwise the cost/benefit ratio is very, very poor and the future payoff unjustifiable. Worth it? If you want to work in PWC then sign on.