Career Management - Is Graduate Education Worth It (Part 1)?

At some point in your career management strategy, you will be asking yourself whether you should earn a graduate degree.  In the US, the cost of undergraduate and graduate education has been ballooning, creating an enormous student debt burden for current students and graduates.  Of course, the higher the level of debt, the higher the salary needed to meet one's financial obligations, and the narrower the range of career options that are financially rewarding and aim at getting business done better.

Given student debt and the fleeting job security, is graduate education a valuable career management and career advancement strategy?  Or is the graduate education offered by some a money pit?  Would it better to pursue a degree on campus or online?  What types of graduate degrees should you consider?  As in many discussions related to career management and life in general, the answer is: it depends on your career and life goals.  In this new series we will discuss different types of graduate degrees and how the current economy might be changing the value of these graduate degrees.

In this first part, let's review the recent data on two degrees that have long been believed to lead to job security - The law and medical graduate degrees.  Career management for JDs and MDs seems straight forward: Complete a rigorous coursework and fulfill a number of requirements to gain and maintain permission to practice their respective professions.  Importantly, both can lose  their right to practice these professions if found guilty of malpractice or ethical breaches.  Traditionally, these degrees paid dividends.  According to research conducted by Liz Pulliam Weston in 2007, the averages lifetime earning for professional lawyers was about $748,865 while the average lifetime earnings for practicing MDs is $977,601, both well beyond the average $100,000 student loan debt incurred by law and med students.

However, this seemingly rosy financial future drawn from the past does not guarantee happiness at work, or even finding work upon graduation in the current economy.  For instance, as reported by Nathan Koppel for the Wall Street Journal on May 5, 2010,  the legal job market has imploded in 2009-2010, leaving many JD graduates scrambling to find their first post-law school job while their debt payments are starting to kick in.  The current economy will require a number of these new graduates to design new career management strategies to pursue their interest in legal research while meeting their financial obligations.  In medicine, a report published in 2006 in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that over 10% of doctors in internal medicine intended to leave the profession.  This data was interpreted as being partly due to work condition factors, including scheduling, increase in administrative duties and liability issues.   In addition, a March 2010 report by the Association of American Medical Colleges indicated that medical students are moving away from internal medicine because 'students have too much debt to enter a profession that does not realistically compensate physicians'.  Of course, the long term ramifications of these degree costs over lifetime earnings remain to be determined, but for now the traditional view that a JD or an MD degree lead to job security does not seem to hold a lot of water in the current economy.

Another important point is also that JDs and MDs that achieve high income level are likely to be working in positions that will lead them to get business done as usual.  JDs and MDs that are working to get business done better might not achieve the highest compensation levels.  For instance, according to PayScale.com, JDs that serve as Public Defenders earn between $42,326 - $70,918 annually.  Many MDs reduce their practice to volunteer at free clinics or to serve abroad for Doctors Without Frontiers, which leads to lost income.

From this quick review, one important career management strategy is emerging: No matter what profession you are pursuing, the graduate degree in itself is not going to make your career or life easier.  You will really need to decide whether you would enjoy doing what the degree will prepare you to do day in and day out.  The true value of graduate education is to give you access to career opportunities that maximize the time you spend doing what you like to do.  Compensation is part of the equation of course, but as Einstein brilliantly put it 'Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.'

In future posts, I will focus on the career management value of other graduate degrees, including PhDs, MBAs, and MAs.  What is your opinion on the value of graduate education?  Any insights on the value difference between graduate education in the US versus other countries?  As always, I look forward to reading your comments and questions!

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