The Masters Trap

[sanantone]

Well...this is way beyond off-topic at this point. Besides, I just did a double-take after watching someone who seemingly implied that another person was making illogical arguments due to brain damage claim that the person with brain damage was attacking them when they pretty clearly didn't do anything of the sort. Short of directly addressing this absurdity, I'm going to not-so-smoothly segue back to the original topic after this not-so-subtle statement.

What? Where? No one said anything of the sort.

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I have no sympathy. Just knowing the demographics of these types of schools, most of these students are not from vulnerable populations. They're applying to PhD programs at Ivy Plus schools; these schools didn't go out and find them. I'm sure they are aware of funded PhD programs, and they probably applied to a funded program at University of Chicago.

It might be different in the internet age, but I went to a prestigious undergrad school and had no idea that you could get a full ride on a Masters or PhD. I thought you had to pay tuition just like an undergrad. Which is why, even though my advisor strongly encouraged me to go to grad school, I didn't even apply. I knew I couldn't afford to pay two to six more years of tuition and I had nobody who would pay for it other than me. Looking back, I realize all these advisors assumed that I knew that the kinds of programs they were recommending me to look into would have been paid. But I didn't come from a family where people got Masters and PhDs, so I had no idea. In my case, going to a hoity-toity school could have afforded me a lot of opportunities. The problem was that the faculty there assumed that I knew what all those opportunities were, and therefore I missed out on a lot of them.

So I can see why some undergrads would pay for masters, because they just don't know. Although now with information being so much more accessible, I would hope it's less of a problem than it was 30 years ago.

I'm about 10 to 15 years older than those students, and I had access to the Internet in the 2000s. No one in my family had a degree at that time, and I grew up dirt poor. I had no mentors for guidance, so I started doing my own research after being falling for a for-profit school as a teenager. By the time I finished a bachelor's degree, I knew better, so it's hard to have sympathy for college-educated, middle class and upper-middle class students who can't google in the 2010s and 2020s. When you attend Ivy Plus schools and other traditional universities on campus, you are privy to be in an environment where you learn about there being graduate assistants and doctoral teaching and research assistants.

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When ShotoJuku steps in   you know for sure that things have gone too far 

I'm sure he responded to the use of the report button.

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towers.

Sigh. This is not your average master's student at University of Chicago. This is a commonly seen student at non-traditional schools, though. 

This explains the Appeal to Emotion and Ad Hominem fallacies and personal attacks. These are tactics people use when they can't make a logical, factual argument. 

https://web.archive.org/web/201410180148...otion.html

Sigh all you want. I said nothing about any particular school. I did provide a factual argument. You just don't like the argument because it doesn't fit into your narrative. Like i said you better hope you're never hit with a curveball.

I've been hit by curveballs.  You know what would NOT have helped at that point in time - going deeply into debt.  That would have made things WORSE for me, not better.  If my kid is hit by a curveball, you know what I'm NOT going to tell them to do? To go deeply into debt hoping that it will someday pan out.  You know what advice I do NOT give to anyone struggling? To go deeply into debt.

There's a reason for that.  Going into debt NOW in the HOPES that it will pan out someday is not a good plan.  What if it doesn't pan out? If you have to quit school before you finish and can't get a job in your field?  If the job prospects don't improve after you get a degree (or another degree, or a higher degree)?

What if it does pan out? You're still left with a huge debt that will influence your life for many years to come.  You're stuck with jobs that you HAVE to take, because they're the only ones that allow you to pay off your debt - even if you hate your job, or your boss, or whatever.

I just don't see how any of that debt helps. And you're not going to convince me otherwise by telling me sob stories of people who had something happen and they just HAD to go deeply into debt because of it.  The country is FILLED with people who are deeply in student loan debt, and the vast majority are NOT people who had something terrible happen to them, they just chose things without counting the true cost and without understanding what a crushing amount of debt they're getting into.  For every one person who is in the situation you describe, there are probably 100 who just made a bad choice.

I have some sympathy for some individuals, but really, at what point are people to be held accountable for their lives and choices?

I agree as a formerly economically disadvantaged student who borrowed additional student loan money in my late teens and early 20s to help with emergency expenses. So, I have to laugh when someone hopes that I get hit with curveballs because I've been hit with plenty of curveballs, which is how I know what to avoid. When my younger sister went to college, I told her to limit debt as much as possible because it will only prolong financial hardships. However, we're not talking about economically disadvantaged students and single mothers. We're talking about the demographic who attends schools like University of Chicago because they want to get into a prestigious PhD program.