How old is "too old" to go to grad school?

[garbon]

I'm a salesperson now?

Everybody sells.

[CountDeMoney]

"Anger over the annihilation of one's means of support" = "teenage angst."

When you cast your situation on everyone & everything; pulling out the canard non-stop? Sure.

You both can go fuck yourselves. 

[dps]

And while we could certainly artificially limit the supply of degrees in areas of study where there is an oversupply, I don't see how we could avoid shortages in some areas without forcing people to enter fields of study against their will.

We constrain people's "will" all the time.  It's called society.  If we didn't constrain people's will, there would be even less need for law school.

To the extent a private market for "full" majors may develop, I would suggest simply that it get by without government support.  There is absolutely no reason, especially for a conservative like yourself, to support government subsidization of people's choices, good and bad alike.

I can see that one now:  "I'm sorry, Hunter, but while your grades and LSAT score are plenty good enough to get into law school, but there's an oversupply of lawyers, so we aren't admitting anyone this year.  However, there is a severe shortage of Catholic priests, so we're going to send you to a seminary.  Oh, you don't want to be a priest?  And you're not Catholic?  Too bad.  If you won't go along willingly, there are a couple of muscular, well-armed gentlemen waiting outside the door to escort you to your assigned seminary school.  We'll let them know that they need to stop off to have you converted first."

...I think this is not an accurate reflection of what I would consider an ideal educational system.

While the part about forcing you to become a Catholic priest was obviously hyperbole, exactly how do you propose that the government avoid shortages of degree holders in some fields (which, by the way, I'm somewhat sceptical that the government--or anyone--can foresee with much precision 4 years or so ahead of time, but let's ignore that part of the problem for now and assume that they can)?

[Ideologue]

I have no interest in avoiding shortages, only surfeits; except in some kind of fantasy scenario where a command economy already exists--wage caps for doctors, for example--the market will happily solve any shortages.  The challenge there is a DoE responding to market demand.  No one suggests that their response will always be perfect (and they may occasionally swing the other way and produce an accidental surplus).  However, attempting to control the outputs of government investment inputs seems--almost trivially--superior to the status quo of not caring what happens to the output.

[LaCroix]

There are some schools with LSAT medians in the 140s (I think there are some schools where the highest-scoring matriculant didn't even reach 150).  You've never taken the LSAT, but a sub-150 score is, with only slight hyperbole, synonymous with "mentally retarded."  In all seriousness, it indicates extremely poor reading comprehension and a lack of serious reasoning skills.

phew! thank god i got a 150

[Eddie Teach]

Looks like you're not getting into Yale. 

LSAT Score Percentiles For the Top 15 Schools:

Yale:
25th percentile of accepted students: 170
75th percentile of accepted students: 177
Harvard:
25th percentile: 171
75th percentile: 176
Stanford:
25th percentile: 167
75th percentile: 172
Columbia:
25th percentile: 170
75th percentile: 175
New York University:
25th percentile: 170
75th percentile: 174
UC Berkeley:
25th percentile: 164
75th percentile: 169
University of Chicago:
25th percentile: 169
75th percentile: 173
University of Pennsylvania:
25th percentile: 166
75th percentile: 171
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor:
25th percentile: 167
75th percentile: 170
Duke University:
25th percentile: 166
75th percentile: 170
Northwestern University:
25th percentile: 166
75th percentile: 171
University of Virginia:
25th percentile: 165
75th percentile: 171
Cornell:
25th percentile: 166
75th percentile: 170
Georgetown:
25th percentile: 168
75th percentile: 172
UCLA:
25th percentile: 164
75th percentile: 169

[Ideologue]

There are some schools with LSAT medians in the 140s (I think there are some schools where the highest-scoring matriculant didn't even reach 150).  You've never taken the LSAT, but a sub-150 score is, with only slight hyperbole, synonymous with "mentally retarded."  In all seriousness, it indicates extremely poor reading comprehension and a lack of serious reasoning skills.

phew! thank god i got a 150

What was your undergrad GPA?  A 7.0?

[LaCroix]

What was your undergrad GPA?  A 7.0?

enough to place me in the best law school of all north dakota!

[Ideologue]

I somehow feel like you didn't prep or you came in hungover or something.

[LaCroix]

i did a little prep - some practice tests. but i usually get average standardized test results. thankfully, grades matter more once you actually get into school 

[MadImmortalMan]

Just out of curiosity? How much debt will be incurred from the schooling and how long will it take you to pay it off at your present age?

Dunno. It's theoretical.

With an Assistantship, it would be minimal debt incurred. Without, most advanced degrees are in the $45k+ range. At that range, about 10 years to pay it off, assuming immediate employment at $80-100k/year.

With this info, I'd say go part-time as long as you have the money to pay cash for tuition. Once you run out and require a loan to continue, stop and save up some more before continuing.

Remember, that loan represents a negative income once you're free. Don't take it. Plus, as part-time you can work too.

[Ideologue]

i did a little prep - some practice tests. but i usually get average standardized test results. thankfully, grades matter more once you actually get into school 

That's absolutely true, and I don't think the LSAT measures all the skills that law school demands.  But depending on the environment you entered LS in, with practice and a retake, you could've negotiated tens of thousands off your tuition or gotten into a better school (or a combination of A and B).

[Capetan Mihali]

If I'd gotten one more question right, I would have had a 175 instead of a 173.

[Iormlund]

Dude you cannot get a job pushing paper without a University Degree.

Again maybe things are different. But in both of those cases what matters is vocational qualifications and employers hire lots of people from school to do those qualifications. They also hire lots from universities obviously but that path's there. In the case of accountancy a lot of the hires are from not necessarily related disciplines.

In order to become a Professional Engineer in the United States one needs a degree from an ABET accredited university.  There are companies that will hire engineers without an engineering degree, but that's unusual (and in my experience becoming more rare.)

Each individual field of engineering is an academic discipline with a large body of research.  Undergraduate engineering education teaches the basics of that discipline rather than the day to day job of an engineer.  For this reason an engineering degree isn't vocational qualification, but a university degree.

This is also the case here.

I've been working as an engineer for many years, but having no degree I can't put my signature to any project. Not that I care, since in my field that doesn't really matter.

Also the only reason why I was able to work without a degree was that I was personally recommended by my professors. Someone who takes the vocational route can find employment in the industry, and if he's good enough he'll make as much if not more - but I can't see him easily jumping into an engineer's position. Certainly not legally. It's too different a role, much more abstract.

[merithyn]

Just out of curiosity? How much debt will be incurred from the schooling and how long will it take you to pay it off at your present age?

Dunno. It's theoretical.

With an Assistantship, it would be minimal debt incurred. Without, most advanced degrees are in the $45k+ range. At that range, about 10 years to pay it off, assuming immediate employment at $80-100k/year.

With this info, I'd say go part-time as long as you have the money to pay cash for tuition. Once you run out and require a loan to continue, stop and save up some more before continuing.

Remember, that loan represents a negative income once you're free. Don't take it. Plus, as part-time you can work too.

That works so long as you can find a program that will allow you to go part-time, and so long as you can finish the degree in the allotted time frame. (Most degrees must be completed within a certain time frame.)

But again, is it worth the cost in cash at 50, when you only have 10-15 more years of work ahead of you? Especially if it takes you 4-5 years to complete it?