Completely unaffordable to do a masters

[sergeantmajor]

DS wants to become an economist. It seems he would need a masters (which he'd love to do) to pursue this line of work. He is in his final year of his Economics BSc, doing very well. I just can't believe that tuition fees alone are c.£25k for one year, while the government loan is c.£11k. He seems to be priced out before he's even begun.

There don't appear to be any scholarships for a masters in this subject. We saw one job ad that mentioned sponsoring their trainees for a masters which would be a dream come true, but only one.

He has some savings from bar work but this doesn't come close to enough. Our own income has taken a massive hit this year, so we can't close the gap.

Is there something that I'm missing???

Why must there be a funding system for the no.1 uni in the UK? Top education comes at a price, usually reserved for those who have parents to pay or save for a while beforehand.
The viable finding options come in the form of nearly all other UK universities or finding a training contract. A master's isn't even necessary to be an economist.

Reading this thread and wondering how people become PhD professors in Britain. How do they afford the fees!

Where I am from graduate students research and act as teaching assistants. They are basically slaves, but they don’t pay fees…they get a stipend!

There are plenty of stipend PhDs in STEM. But there are also plenty of applicants.

That’s good to hear @WeAreAllDead. I’m still left feeling concerned that only rich kids who can afford vanity Masters Degrees will become professors in humanities. It’s not really the broad perspective we would hope for….

One of the reasons for the high cost of an MSc in Economics is the development and expansion of the MRes (MPhil) + PhD courses in Economics.

The most academic students, such as those aspiring to become academics, can be directed to the MRes/PhD route for which there is more funding, albeit this funding is very competitive. If they decide to leave after two years, they still leave with a Masters.

This leaves the MSc Economics as increasingly moving into the same kind of professional territory as many MBAs. Something people do as an investment in their careers that they anticipate will bring them high financial returns. They are willing to pay a lot for it because they anticipate that having an MSc in Economics from a top university on their CV will more than pay for itself in the longer term. This is, of course, not the case for everyone and various institutional scholarships do exist to help to ensure that it doesn't become regarded just as a vanity or bought degree.

@Stockpot The fees for MAs in humanities subjects are usually much lower and the costs can be covered by the postgraduate loan. For PhDs competitve funding is available from the likes of AHRC and universities offer scholarships some of which are the kind of teaching-in-return-for-funding set ups you describe but others are just straight funding with no requirements. I don't know how it is in the Humanities, but in Economics, someone hoping to become an academic at a good university would really be expected to have won competitive funding for their PhD, not to have paid for it themselves.

There’s a big difference in the salary expectations of economists doing masters at Oxford and LSE. They are investing in future very high salaries. Those without the money up front, DC have to get a job first. Which the gifted will be able to do. Then they work their way up. Which they can do.

Phphion, the five year PhD model seems to follow that of the US.

The problem is that unless you are that undergraduate who walks away with all the prizes at a top University, getting the PhD funding is seriously competitive and very difficult. In practice you probably need to have be on track to earn a distinction from a well regarded Masters course. This was coupled with the advice DS was given which was to look to do at least some of his post graduate study in the US. (This may be advice specific to the LSE where almost all his peers did head to the US and where a significant proportion of academic staff had spent time in the US.)

Effectively DS took two Masters. The seriously expensive one at the LSE (where he was the only one British student out of 39, with many of the rest using the Masters programme as the stepping stone for US applications. Essentially adding an internationally recognised and technically rigorous Masters to their US liberal arts or their European/Latin American/RG British/etc degrees as a platform for the PhD applications) and then the two year taught Masters that he took as part of his six year US PhD funding, and where he arrived with technical skills that were as strong as anyone's. Thinking about it though, my strong guess is that LSE helped some of DS' peers get through this particular funding pinch point. (This though was the LSE EME Masters which is the more quantitative and research orientated of the two Masters they offer. The main Economics Masters is a very large, though intense, course and will include a lot of people aiming for the City.)

Again it is back to OP. Why does her son want to take a Masters.

The other reason to want to look at one of the top courses is to land a quant job in the City. Some of the hedge funds and consultancies focus recruitment on what they consider as top Universities (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick). Salaries are high, and funding the Masters essentially an investment decision.

Working, then returning for a Masters, is a a very feasible option. In economics it is seen as a positive advantage to have broader experience. For example the Government Economics Service used to recruit UGs then often fund Masters degrees for the most promising.

Tizer, it is not all about salary, even though the fixed MN assumption is that all our DC want to do is earn pots of money. It is perfectly possible to study economics because you are fascinated with the subject. And indeed those who are studying economics because they love the subject often do better. Forging an academic career is not easy. As well as a six year PhD DS is likely to have to spend a couple of post doc years applying for jobs, essentially world wide including places like Gulf campus' of US Universities. And then keep moving and building his research profile until he is established.

One of his peers landed an Easter internship with Goldman Sachs, but turned down the "golden ticket" of a summer internship with them to opt for the PhD/academic/research route. Studying money perhaps causes you to consider how you, personally, value money over other opportunities.

What a snotty post @Needmoresleep .

Of course study for study’s sake can be a very good thing.

But whinging that no one will find you for it is bratty.

The problem is that unless you are that undergraduate who walks away with all the prizes at a top University, getting the PhD funding is seriously competitive and very difficult.

I’m pretty relaxed about this being the case. There are way more PhD students than there are academic jobs available as it is, so it makes sense to whittle down the field before students end up in a trajectory which (in many cases) will narrow their employment opportunities and postpone their being able to earn a reasonable salary for several years. Only around 10% of PhD students secure a permanent academic job.

Violettaa. That is a tad unfair. You clearly have not read as many MN economic threads as I have, where the emphasis is strongly on law and banking careers, as if studying a subject for its own sake, and particularly economics, is not an option. Tizer is our resident banking expert, so her advice is often focussed on where the best paying jobs are.

We do not know why OP's DC wants to take a Masters.

GCAcademic, you are right. The problem then is that everything counts. You probably need to go for the best UG and Masters courses you can get into, and work as hard as you can (which precludes having a part time job to fund it) in order to get onto the most prestigious PhD programme you can. And then work hard, network well and keep applying for jobs. The funding pinch point at Masters level is a problem.

When you say 10% of PhD students do you mean economics or generally. Economics has the big advantage that there is a lot of scope are plenty of good fall back jobs in the public and private sectors for those who fail to land a tenured research orientated academic job.

When you say 10% of PhD students do you mean economics or generally

10% generally. In some fields it is rather less.

OP the cost of the Oxford MPhil is certainly eye watering. The course fee quoted on the website is £22,100 for 2023-24 but the course lasts for two academic years and the lower estimate for living costs (which you have to certify that you can meet) is £15,490 for a year. I have to say that the experience of those DC of mine who were/ are graduates in Oxford is that even the lower estimate is massively generous (while the upper estimate is simply mad, for a normal graduate). But you do have to confirm that you can meet the cost of the fees plus lower estimate.

That said, you don't need to confirm funding until well after an offer is made and this allows time to see if any scholarship will come through. So your DS could apply, that will mean he automatically gets put in for consideration for most of the Oxford scholarships, and see how things shape up. The funding page is useful for additional funding opportunities.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/fees-and-funding

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/mphil-economics

He may well be at Oxford already and may well have seen these pages but the links are for anyone interested. One of mine got full funding from the ESRC (www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/) and she definitely hadn't won all the prizes at undergrad and another has full funding for his DPhil from an external body, and actually no prizes were given for his year group at all (because of Covid I think).

Good luck to your DS. He might as well put in an application if he's dead set on the MPhil at Oxford - but he mustn't miss the January deadline or he won't be considered for funding.

My understanding, as Goodbyestranger suggests, is that Oxford is richer than LSE and more likely to offer funding at Masters/MPhil level.

DS ended up picking LSE because though the fees were higher it was only a year and he could live at home. And at the time Oxford were quite odd about recruitment. A paper application, a written offer and then a questionnaire asking why DS had not accepted. I understand that they have started to follow the US example and try a bit harder to sell themselves to students who they consider good enough to make offers to.

My ‘wins all the prizes’ comment was more about accessing PhD programmes in the US, which flows from the advice DS received that experience outside the UK was important. It is possible with just an undergraduate degree, but you need to be really exceptional. DS knows couple who did, one a generation ago, one more recently, but both were very unusual.

GCAcademic, economics is odd in that most Universities have large economics departments and there is demand for those who can, say, teach first year econometrics. Or who want, say, to teach on MBA programmes. There is also good, and often high paying, demand for econ PhDs in both the public and private sectors. So a PhD is probably worthwhile. However competition for academic jobs which allow time for research is fierce.

Actually I'm not quite sure why you think Oxford's standard approach for graduate recruitment is odd NeedMoreSleep. I assume you mean no interview? And no 'sell'. Cambridge was the same with DS3: application for the MPhil in, offer made (and accepted, so no questionnaire). Durham on the other hand did send a couple of my DC a questionnaire when they didn't accept their undergrad offers. I'm not sure not doing a hard sell is necessary for Oxford. DS4 was interviewed - twice I think - but that was for a science DPhil. I took no interview ahead of offer for the Masters' to mean that Oxford and Cambridge feel they don't have enough resources to interview, or that interviewing wouldn't affect the quality of the intake sufficiently to justify it. None of mine felt put out in the least - one less thing to do.

It is a contrast to the US which tend to have recruitment days for potential graduate students. It is a huge investment, so I thought it was odd that little effort was made to explain what, say Oxford offered over other comparable departments. Given the cost it was almost inevitable that DS opted for the known over the unknown.

Presumably demand is such that Oxford don't need to. Still they are asking people to effectively lay out close to £70,000 and devote two years of their life. Which in my book warrants at least a tour and a Q&A session.

I think you're right that Oxford doesn't need to woo. Perhaps the less well off have to secure funding by definition so it's not 'their' investment, and the others are so rich that the investment doesn't touch the sides. I'm sure that no prospective graduate student wanting to come in and see the department ahead of accepting an offer would be turned away, and no doubt someone would offer to talk to them. I personally find the idea of being wooed a bit over the top (even though I lived in California for two years, so I'm quite used to more demonstrative American ways). Oxford also tends to dish out graduate offers in tranches and then there's the funding decisions to wait for, also staggered, so I think a set day for wooing could be problematic.

You probably need to go for the best UG and Masters courses you can get into, and work as hard as you can (which precludes having a part time job to fund it)

DD2 switched from a solid mid-rank university to a top one for her Masters (the STEM equivalent of an Oxford or LSE) and found it was exponentially harder work. She really wanted to get a distinction (a Masters First in effect), and did, but it meant not doing any paid work as evenings and weekends were for further study, wider reading and attending lectures from the likes of Anthony Fauci and Sir Chris Whitty.

She found it fascinating and now wants to do a PhD, but there's no disguising the commitment levels required. It was also a full 12 months, not 9 or 10 like an undergraduate course commonly is.

@thing47
it did it cost £25,000? If someone expects to earn £1/4 million fairly quickly that’s a very different position from lecturing/researching. Economics people can earn highly and I do accept not all want to or that they have parents who cough up the money when it’s £25,000 plus. MRes, lecturing and PhD taking years is fairly standard. A friends DS has done this. PhD in Econometrics is finished next year. 10 years of study but not high earnings as he didn’t want to work too hard for years on end!

The STEM equivalent of Oxford is Oxford.

I'd suggest Imperial is far better in quite a few subjects than Oxford or Cambridge.

Oxford is 4th on 2022 QS ranking, Imperial is 7th. These kinds of tables are all flawed but there no more reliable metrics to suggest Imperial is discernibly better for a specific student for a specific program than Oxford.

There's are some subjects in the QS subject ranking where Imp outrank Oxbridge 🤷‍♀️ Not that it matters for the thread!

as he didn’t want to work too hard for years on end!

I don’t think anyone has been suggesting that a Masters or PhD is less work. The first Masters DS did at LSE was brutal in terms of workload. His PhD is probably not much easier, not least because academia though less well paid, is probably as competitive as banking. The point is that this is what he wants to do. Some people value their worth by whether they earn £1/4 mill pa, an awful lot of other people don’t and see success as doing something they enjoy whilst earning enough to live frugally but comfortably.

As someone who has always worked in the public sector I don’t support this assumption that bankers necessarily work harder or that the correlation between effort and pay is that strong.

Imperial comes sixth worldwide in the 2023 QS tables. Given the very different culture and the very wide range of STEM degrees offered, to suggest that a specific student is automatically better off at Oxford would seem a stretch.