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???

TizerorFizz, which US universities are you talking about.

My understanding is that stand-alone economics Masters don’t really exist in the US. Instead you have six year PhD programmes, where the first couple of years are effects taught Masters.

The general rule then is that you only take a PhD is someone is willing to fund you. In return the University expects the PhD student to put in a certain number of hours as @ teaching assistant or research assistant.

In terms of working first, my understanding is that economics departments welcome broader experience. So taking time out to work is often seen as a positive.

I agree actually. The better Universities get the better jobs, and masters are so expensive there in a way that degrees are not. There should be some way that people can access them, without huge amounts of money. There are some funding routes for PhDs, however even then they like those who have done a masters or who have been to the universities, so again those are also quite hard to get funding for but at least they do get a stipend.

@Needmoresleep Youre more knowledgeable than I am, but my BIL has an MSc. Econ. from an American university so they do exist! I did a quick Google and they’re available at sone well-known institutions. Perhaps they’re more popular with students who don’t want to go into academia or research?

@Cameleongirl
Its never the case that Masters in economics are all for academics. Very many people will
do them for other career purposes. Like MLaw at Cambridge. It’s seen as valuable for career enhancement.

There is, work. I don’t know anyone who’s completed a masters who didn’t work throughout it (and before it, to save). I had no other option (worked throughout undergraduate medicine also). It’s what you do if you don’t have wealthy parents.

Cameleongirl, One of DS friends did one at Columbia so they do exist, but are apparently rarer. You also get a Masters if you complete the first two years of the six year PhD programme. Plenty drop out at this point as there are lots of career opportunities for those who have an economics up to Masters level. I don't think the University he is at offers a standalone Masters. What they do seem to do is offer some of the Masters courses to UG economics majors, which would allow someone to graduate with the technical skills that some employers are looking for and which in the UK, might normally be accessed at Masters level.

(I am at the limit of my secondhand knowledge - Happy to have one of the academics on this thread correct me.)

MBAs are very common in the US. But again they usually prefer some work experience.

DS' experience was that he effectively needed a Masters in UK (one of the expensive ones!) in order to a be credible applicant for a funded PhD programme. He then repeated much of the content of his one years Masters in the UK, but, as it was two years, got to take a broader curriculum. There were several Americans on his LSE Masters course similarly using the course as a platform for US PhD applications or to access more quantitative economist jobs.

I don't get Tizer's point. Economics seems to be a bit of an exception, though perhaps some STEM subjects are similar. A lot of economic research takes place outside academia, in banks, consultancies, think tanks and the public sector. So a good choice of career after your Masters, some very well paid, which is why Universities are able to charge such high fees.

So back to OP. There is high demand for these courses, because they help access high paying careers. But this is then a problem for those who want to use the Masters degree to enter an academic career. It might be fine to borrow the money, if you can, in anticipation for high earnings as soon as you start work, but not if you expect to be living on a PhD stipend for the next six years.

Sorry if mentioned before but Bank of England has a grad scheme that might be worth him looking at. I think you have to be quite careful with masters degrees. Some are absolutely necessary. Many are not.

I did look at a few CVs of people at Lexecon (competition law/anti-trust economists I have worked with a few times) the other day when looking at this thread. They seem to have a few people with UK first degree in economics and then MA from the US.

There is, work. I don’t know anyone who’s completed a masters who didn’t work throughout it

As stated up thread, DD2 had to stop her part-time work during her Masters as she realised about 2-3 weeks into it that she needed to spend all her spare time studying. She was lucky in that she could live at home and travel as regularly as necessary to university (it was lab-based). Most of her course mates, many of whom were already qualified doctors, had to do the same. The intensity of the course was such that part-time work during it was nigh-on impossible.

We're not wealthy, she funded her Masters via a second loan from Student Finance.

LSE's fees seem to be based on what they think they can get ... how can one masters be £16k and another £32k in the same department!

I'm guessing they aren't bothered about home students as there's plenty of gullible overseas students to pay the inflated fees.

Typical red brick universities all teach economics and masters are circa £12k with part time available

Sorry for the delay in replying. Thank you to all for the helpful answers.

To set the record straight, I wasn't "wailing about unfairness". The financial bar is so high that I want to discover if there is funding that I simply don't know about (e.g. how law firms cover the cost of training). We are not waiting for a silver platter. DS has worked and saved for years.

Why does DS want to do a Masters? A few reasons. He is passionate about the subject. Many of the economist grad jobs that he would love say "Masters preferred". His UG degree has been greatly compromised by Covid - he had hoped to have interaction within his department but this is only starting to happen in his 3rd year, so he feels he's missed out on the academic experience. He's in a top uni with a first in years 1 & 2, so he is a suitable candidate.

None of these reasons in themselves mean that he has to do a Masters. But the truth is that money is the only thing stopping him. No violins needed, we're just exploring an area that is unfamiliar to us and grateful for others' knowledge.

Thanks @illiterato I hadn't spotted the Bank of England scheme, looks good.
Thanks @Xenia - Lexecon is one of the entry level jobs that recruits Masters holders only.

Friend’s nephew is doing an apprenticeship with the Bank of England and really enjoying it (tried uni and found it wasn’t for him).

@sergeantmajor
He can take out a loan like everyone else does. Few pay up front. Poor people would never do a masters if they had to find all the money first. He can surely find something suitable.

This @TizerorFizz . As mentioned literally just a few posts earlier DD took out a second student loan through Student Finance, it was an easy process.

DS is in a field where a Masters is a basic requirement (and a PhD preferred) – from talking to her fellow students I think getting a loan is standard practice.

Isn't the point that the amount that can be borrowed falls well short of the cost of the Masters?

thing47 did your DD's second student loan fund the fees and all living costs? (I note that she could live at home, so very fortunate in that regard and at the same time very different from many applicants for Masters where living away is essential and ramps up the cost).

get a job on the side

This.

Most masters students on my course (law at a red brick) had a part time job as well.

We had 6 hours teaching each week for 25 weeks of the year. Working 1-2 days a week would not be an issue to still getting a good/top mark.

Working 1-2 days a week would not be an issue to still getting a good/top mark

What income would you estimate was possible for 1-2 days a week?

The OP's DS can get an SFE loan that would cover the course fees for a Masters in Economics at nearly every university except for Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick. He would still need to fund his living expenses.

If he wants to do a Masters because he like Economics and is looking at graduate jobs that say "Masters prefered" and he will have a first degree from a "top uni" then he will probably be just as well doing a Masters at, e.g., Bristol.

The people doing the mega expensive Masters are largely not his competition and the people who are his competition will mostly be priced out of the mega expensive Masters just as he is.

This is of course supposing he can fund his living expenses somehow, whether by working, getting a scholarship, living at home and the Bank of Mum and Dad.

It depends what you include in 'cost' – it covers the cost of the course, or did in DD's case which was 11K even though her university is rated second in the UK for her subject (behind only Oxford).

Yes she lived at home and travelled to uni, just over an hour's travel time and quite expensive, but meant she didn't need to pay for accommodation. She funded the travel and costs of socialising herself from holiday work.

She didn't have the time to work during term, as she did around 50 hours a week of study (but she really wanted, and got, a First). I guess she could have taken it a bit more easy if she hadn't been so determined to do that.

If she'd had to pay for accommodation, part of that would have been covered by saving on travel, the rest she would have needed to find through other sources (more holiday work, a loan either commercial or from us). I can't believe this is particularly unusual, but maybe I'm wrong?

At £12 per hour I'd make that around £10k per year.
That's assuming a retail job or bar work. Plus you could do more in holidays.

Ok well back of a fag packet, but taking a relatively low cost Masters at Oxford, the nine month MSt in History, one gets this warning flagged up at the head of the page: We understand that funding is a huge issue for most applicants, but there is a finite amount of funding available through the university and colleges. Funding is very competitive and only a small proportion of offers will be funded (approximately 20% of students from the 2021 intake received university/college funding). You are therefore strongly encouraged to search for external sources of funding

The course fees for the nine month full time course are £13,550, living costs are an absolute minimum of £11,610 and the maximum one can borrow from SFE is £11,836. That is a shortfall of £13,324.

I think the issue may be that on MN so many posters are so well off they don't see the issue for those without several thousand to spare for their DC to do a Masters. And I suspect that it is exactly those same people who come out with the stuff and nonsense line of get a job/ get a loan. The level of loan available is the problem. The numbers don't work for a lot of people and so there actually is a real issue of access. Also, £12 an hour is not realistic for hospitality/ library type work. People here are making it sound a lot easier than it is for students without a parent who can simply stump up. Tutoring is notoriously unreliable as an income stream. There's no easy answer other than having a family who can sub the required shortfall.

In England the Masters loan is less than £12k. That would just about cover fees for most Masters degrees.

If I was doing a taught Masters that allowed me to do a couple of days work every week I’d be seriously wondering the point of doing that degree. My STEM Masters was full time lectures / labs and 9 to 5 every day, plus all the other work needing to be done over evenings and weekends.

Someone mentioned law above. You don't need a masters. In fact if you do a masters with your law conversion or LPC/SQE courses that probably means you do not have a law firm funding you and do not have parents rich enough to pay for the course and insetad you do the course plus LLM add on purely to get the SAFE funding. (Some law firms also have their future trainees do the extra bit that gets you the masters too). These law post grad professional qualifications masters are not the same as an academic law masters and then PhD you might want to if you want to be a lecturer in law at university