Should You Consider a Pre-doc?

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While pre-doctoral programs are not optimal choices for everyone, they do benefit a significant number of aspiring doctoral students and we believe they are far too often overlooked. We thought we would use this blog post to share our insights into some of the potential benefits of pre-doctoral programs.

Pre-docs are paid positions at universities that work directly with faculty on research projects for a period of one to two years. Accordingly, the two biggest benefits of a pre-doc program are often the ability to clarify their specific research field and evaluate whether a Ph.D. is the ultimately the right path to pursue.

Pre-docs also gain research experience and have opportunities to impress faculty that can write helpful letters of reference for their future Ph.D. applications. The pre-docs we have worked with also report an increased confidence in faculty interactions from their acquired knowledge of the brainstorming, research, and publication processes.

Once again, just because pre-docs benefit some prospective Ph.D. applicants doesn’t mean it is best suited for your particular profile. So, as always, we are happy to have a complimentary phone call to help you determine if a pre-doc is the right choice for you.

Grand Canyon University Fined $37.7 Million

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Grand Canyon University was fined $37.7 million by the US Education Department. We want to state upfront that the school is vehemently defending itself from what it has termed “lies and deceptive statements.” In a five-page press release, the university stated, “Grand Canyon University categorically denies every accusation in the Department of Education’s statement and will take all measures necessary to defend itself from these false accusations.”

While we consider Grand Canyon University to be a for-profit university, it is considered to be a nonprofit by its accreditor as well as the IRS. In fact, Grand Canyon sued the US Education Department after the school’s request to be classified as a nonprofit was rejected. (The Trump Administration rejected the request because it believed the school was still too close to its previous parent company. The Biden Administration has not shown any signs of changing this position.)

According to the Education Department, Grand Canyon University lied to over 7,500 students about the cost of its doctoral programs and omitted the costs of “continuation courses” that are often required to finish dissertation requirements. Richard Cordray, the chief operating officer for Federal Student Aid, which is part of the Education Department explained, “GCU’s lies harmed students, broke their trust and led to unexpectedly high levels of student debt. Today, we are holding GCU accountable for its actions, protecting students and taxpayers, and upholding the integrity of the federal student aid programs.”

The Education Department has been getting tougher on for-profit schools. In fact, this is the largest fine of its kind ever issued by the department. New regulation has been passed to punish schools with high loan default rates. Thus we are not surprised that the fine was accompanied by some stipulations such as the school must report the average cost paid by doctoral students if it discloses the cost of its doctoral programs. Additionally, Grand Canyon University must notify its doctoral students on how they can file a complaint about these pricing allegations with the US Education Department.

Ph.D.s should connect with others outside their departments

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Inside Higher Ed has a nice editorial on the importance of Ph.D.s connecting with others outside their departments. We unequivocally support all of their arguments and believe the editorial is well worth the read for any Ph.D. or prospective Ph.D. candidate. Furthermore, we believe the need to connect with others outside one’s domain is good advice for all individuals at all points in their lives.

Majority of Americans Now Have Favorable Views of Online Education

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A new poll by NewsAmerica finds the majority of Americans now believe online education is the same or even better than in-person education. Varying Degrees 2022: New America’s Sixth Annual Survey on Higher Educati­­on interviewed over 1,500 Americans and found 76% of those surveyed believe post-high school education offers a good return on investment. This statistic has held steady since the survey started five years ago.

What changed — and changed quite drastically — was the favorable view toward online education. While ‘only’ 8% of Americans believe online education is better than in-person education (up from 3% last year), 17% of current students believe the quality of online instruction is better than in-person instruction. Additionally, a stunning 47% think the quality of online instruction is just as good as in-person instruction.

This is big news. The late Harvard professor Clayton Christensen predicted back in 2011 that about half of all colleges would fail by 2026. While the timing appears too ambitious, it could very well come to fruition within our lifetimes.

We believe the pandemic has accelerated the online education ‘disruption.’ Furthermore, we believe that the change in the attitude of current students is crucial to driving online education as these students will eventually replace the older survey respondents and as the quality of online educational programs continues to improve. Hopefully, the online education revolution drives down the cost of education while concurrently making it more accessible to more citizens and increasing the perceived quality over the traditional in-person education model.

Graduates of Elite Masters Programs can Have ROI Concerns

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a great article about the risks of blindly pursuing any random master’s program at a prestigious university. Even at the top schools (the article linked above singles out Columbia University), some programs are going to have better ROIs than others. While Columbia medical school graduates and Columbia law school graduates fare very well when it comes to paying back their loans, the same can not be said for the film program graduates.

The WSJ article states the median debt for film program graduates is $181,000 yet about half of the graduates are earning less than $30,000 per year. The insightful article goes on to explain there is no limit on how much grad students can borrow in federal loans and how the schools receive the tuition upfront and therefore face no consequences if and when graduates struggle to repay their loans. While the short WSJ article focused more on Columbia’s film program, the same can be said for many other programs as well. If you are looking at a program where graduates don’t have high salaries, be very careful about how much you are willing to borrow!

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