The Disappearing American Grad Student
The monetary value proposition of grad school simply isn&#x27;t very good if you&#x27;re a US citizen. There is non-monetary value (like advancing human knowledge) that makes grad school worth it for some, but the pay is low.<p>Imagine you just graduated from a quality undergrad with high grades and strong recommendations from your professors. Maybe you had an internship or two or spent a summer doing research. Maybe you even have authorship on a published paper as an undergrad. You could be a very strong grad school candidate. Or you could just get a corporate job right out of undergrad.<p>Lets look at the options.<p>Option 1: You go to grad school and spend ~6 years working extremely long hours at nearly minimum wage with no benefits.<p>Option 2: You start at ~100K USD&#x2F;year with benefits working for Big Tech&#x2F;Finance&#x2F;Big Oil&#x2F;Pharma&#x2F;Defense&#x2F;etc. In those ~6 years you likely work fewer hours than a grad student. You have the free time to meet someone and the income to start a family.<p>Most people will chose Option 2. The two main types of people who chose Option 1 are those who are passionate about learning and advancing human knowledge and those who want a career where a PhD is required.<p>If instead you&#x27;re a citizen of &quot;India, China, Korea, Turkey and other foreign countries&quot; (quoted from the article) then the calculus is completely different. Not only do you get to advance human knowledge, but you get to live and work (as a TA or RA) in the US for ~6 years. After graduation you have a good chance of landing a well paying job for a US-based firm or becoming a professor or research scientist.