5 year combined undergrad/grad programs followed by PhD?

juillet
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 01:18:57 +0000

So I don’t see any reason why doing a BA/MA 5-year combined program would be a bad idea or change your PhD program plans. By spending the extra year - your earnings may be higher BUT more importantly, as you seem to sense, you will be eligible for a whole range of jobs that you wouldn’t have been with just your BA. There are many jobs in government that require a master’s.

I honestly can’t think of any benefit to just doing the BA and going straight to a PhD program over earning the BA+master’s, other than saving the money on that one year of school. And you’re right in that you’ll make back the opportunity cost + the cost of the extra year in 5-7 years, depending on how much you pay for the last year out of pocket and how much extra money you make with your master’s than you would’ve made with the BA (which you can never know for sure, but you can guess - I would imagine that with your bachelor’s and no experience you couldn’t expect to make much more than $40,000).

Personally, I think these are great programs and I say go for it. By junior year (usually when you have to apply for these things) I was already reasonably sure what I wanted to do, or at least knew what master’s degree(s) would get me where I wanted to go. I think that’s true of a lot of undergrads, so I think these programs are a great way to save $$$ on an extra year of a master’s,