The Wall Street Journal’s education section recently published an article entitled “For Newly Minted M.B.A.s, a Smaller Paycheck Awaits”, about the job market for M.B.A. While the M.B.A remains an extremely popular option for graduate study (the number of degrees awarded grew by 74% from 2000-2001 to 2010-2011), the financial benefits once associated with it are not what they once were. According to the article, “recruiters’ expected median salary for newly hired M.B.A.s was essentially flat between 2008 and 2011, not adjusting for inflation, according to a survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council.”

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “Yes, but this is the GRE blog, not the b-school blog – why the heck do I care??” Well, you should take note for two reasons:

1) Many of you probably are taking the GRE to go to business school, since 69% of M.B.A. programs now accept a GRE score in lieu of a GMAT score.

2) Whatever type of graduate program you’re applying to, don’t necessarily assume that it will double your paycheck the day you graduate. That may not even be a concern for you – after all, there are a number of reasons to get a master’s or PhD that have absolutely nothing to do with salary. But do the research on the average salary that your desired degree confers, and on any debt that you’ll accumulate to attain it, so that you have a realistic idea of what your financial situation will be when you graduate.

There are a number of resources that you can visit to learn more about what you can expect from a given graduate degree: Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce recently published a study on average salaries and unemployment rates by different bachelor’s and master’s degrees (don’t let my words of warning above scare you away from reading it – the data shows that the vast majority of master’s programs do result in a nice pay raise!), and you can start researching financial aid at Kaplan’s Grad School Financial Aid Hub. Happy hunting, and use the comments to let us know if you’d like any additional resources!

Here’s a Quantitative Comparison question for you – which Quantity is greater?

Quantity A) Debt for all Post-secondary students

or

Quantity B) Debt for the entirety of all American consumers

The answer is: Quantity A) Debt for all Post-secondary students.

Astounding though it might seem, according to FinAid.org and FastWeb.com, the latest figures show that student debt weighs in at $850 billion and was expected to surpass $1 trillion by the end of 2011. The Federal Reserve reports that consumers currently owe $828 billion in credit card debt.

How is this possible?  Well, as our President explained in a speech in Denver back in October, “Over the past three decades, the cost  of college has nearly tripled, and that is forcing you, forcing students, to take out more loans and rack up more debt.”  Obama offered up those words as he was introducing his new “Pay as You Earn” plan. This plan is aimed at decreasing the burden of student debt on students who struggle to meet the obligations of repaying their federal college loans.  According to a White House press release, the plan proposes to cut students some slack by capping their required monthly payment at 10 percent of the borrower’s discretionary income while also taking family size into account.  Given the current high unemployment rates, many students could benefit from the program.

The plan would also allow borrowers to transfer all Federal Family Education Loans (the private loans taken before July 1st, 2010) into the current Direct Loan plan, thus giving borrowers just one payment per month and reducing their interest rate by half of one percent.

Almost all current grad school students and most undergraduate students took out student loans under the old, bank-involved system and, as such, would be advised to transfer their old loans to the new Direct Loan plan if and when the program passes legislation.

Politicians are split on whether or not the Obama plan would help the overall economy. I suspect that many students would appreciate the relief they’d feel with fewer concerns about debt while they focus on their education. As someone who may be grappling with both undergraduate and potential graduate school debt, what are your thoughts on this topic?

If you are interested in learning more about financing your graduate school education, please visit visit our YouTube channel and our Grad School Financial Aid Hub.

Guest Post by Danny Byrne

How many scholarships are really out there for your graduate study, and how do you go about finding one?

Switch on the television, open a newspaper, click on a news website during the last two years, and you’ll be certain to have heard about one thing above all others: money. During years of continuous economic growth, we all took it for granted – big business would keep churning out profits, bankers would keep raking in bonuses, the steady supply of graduate jobs would continue.

Even if we didn’t have a penny to our name personally, the state of the economy as a whole was something soon-to-be graduates in many countries could largely afford to ignore. Then suddenly the house of cards fell. What started with the two dreaded words – ‘credit’ and ‘crunch’ – was gradually whittled down to just one: ‘recession’.

Since then, a whole new set of financial terms has entered our everyday vocabulary: hedge fund’, ‘quantitative easing’, ‘liquidity’, ‘negative equity’, ‘capital ratio’, ‘government bail-out’, ‘double-dip recession’, ‘toxic debts’. You probably know someone who has been made redundant – maybe you have been yourself.

Amidst this prevailing atmosphere of economic angst, is there really any chance that somebody will have the spare cash lying around to pay for your graduate education?

Let’s be honest – for most people, finding a scholarship to fund your Masters or PhD isn’t going to be plain sailing. If it was, everyone would have one. As it is, OECD statistics from 2006 show that in the US over 70% of international Masters students were funded by personal finance, while institutional financial awards accounted for less than 20% of all fees paid by international students. Scholars are, by definition, the exception rather than the norm.

But then again it isn’t impossible either. The common perception among students is that following the recession it will be far harder to get hold of scholarships now than it has been in the past – and at graduate level at least, the fear is, if not completely groundless, at least exaggerated.

In a new book published this year called, The Great Brain Race, US journalist Ben Wildavsky outlines how huge a priority it is for governments around the world to ensure a nation’s universities are able to compete for the best international talent.

One way governments and universities ensure they continue to do this is to offer incentives in the form of funding and scholarships. Money may be tight, but those in power recognize that attracting the best international students is integral to their growth, and are willing to invest money now to ensure they continue to excel in the future.

Individual institutions are also more willing than you might think to ensure they keep attracting the best and brightest students from around the world. Take the 2010 QS Top Grad School scholarship fund as an example. As part of this year’s QS Top Grad School Tour, universities are offering over US$450,000 worth of scholarships to attendees of tour events, an exponential growth on the US$58,000 on offer in 2009.

That said, competition for scholarships is fierce and for most students standing out from the crowd may take a little creativity. If you are willing to show a bit of perseverance and adaptability, and look beyond the most obvious avenues to see what alternative sources of funding could be out there, you will improve your chances considerably.

Scholarships in the US and Canada

US universities continue to dominate the top end of the QS World University Rankings™, and a major source of this strength is their unparalleled funding resources. Harvard University alone has a reported annual endowment of around US$37 billion – a sum greater than the GDP of over 100 countries. This compares with an annual government spending budget of around £7.3 billion for all of the universities in the UK combined.

Particularly for PhD applicants, at top US universities a full-fee remission, along with a living grant, is often available to students accepted onto doctoral programs. This may also include your Masters degree, but usually only as part of a sequential course leading on to a PhD. The huge number of top-class institutions spread across the country also means there are many options, and many different universities that will have strong departments and extensive resources in a given area of study.

The natural flipside of this, however, is stiff competition for places. For example, if you were to apply for the fully funded sequential PhD program in English Literature at Columbia University, you would be one of around 700 candidates applying for 18 places. For most applicants it will be difficult to stand out amidst this stampede for places. Securing funding may require a little flexibility, not to mention a little thinking outside the box.

One area in which US universities’ financial clout could help you as a prospective graduate student is in offering alternative routes to funding beyond competitive academic merit-based scholarships. While fees may be higher than in many countries – averaging US$19,000 per academic year in 2004 – a plethora of funding sources exists. The admissions office of the institution in which an international student wishes to enrol is the best place to start a search for financial assistance. This can be in the form of a grant, loan, scholarship, teaching/research assistantship, tuition waiver, or work-study.

In contrast to undergraduate education, where admission and financial awards are controlled at the institutional level, US graduate education is quite tightly controlled at the departmental level. Funding for certain fields tends to be more heavily subsidised than for others. For example, a student of physics, chemistry, or biology may find institutional funding more readily available than a student of humanities, the social sciences, or education.

There are also independent foundations and scholarship organizations that provide funding for students studying in the US. Many of these awards will also pay for living and travel expenses. For example, The US-UK Fulbright Commission grants between six and ten postgraduate awards in any discipline at the US institution of the UK student’s choice. The award covers tuition fees, health insurance, and living expenses for the first year of study only. Funding directories, such as Peterson’s Grants for Graduate and Postdoctoral Study (1998) and the annually published, The Grants Register (Palgrave Macmillan), show there are hundreds of independent awards available, so doing as much research as possible is a key factor in getting funding.

Sporting scholarships

One alternative funding avenue that will appeal to the athletically gifted is sporting scholarships, which are far more lucrative and widespread in the US than in the vast majority of other countries. UK graduate Charlotte Buxton studied for a two-year master’s in creative writing at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles, USA with the help of an Athletic Scholarship, awarded as a result of the rowing she did for her university crew while an undergraduate in the UK. “Most colleges in the US give a range of financial support to student athletes in all kinds of sports – from the obvious, like American football, baseball or softball, and basketball, to golf, soccer, and cheerleading,” she says.

Charlotte was amazed to be paid for something she had chosen to do for free as an undergraduate in the UK, and where there was no realistic prospect of graduate funding in the area of study she had chosen. “The value of the whole scholarship was probably around US$30,000 a year, at a very rough estimate,” she says. “My fees were automatically paid for (and they were fairly high, as LMU is a private college), and then I could either have a free room on the university site (which I did in the first year), or get a living allowance, from which I paid my own rent (which I did in the second year),” she says.

If you are looking for an alternative way of funding your graduate studies and have played sport at a high level, it may be worth contacting universities and specific sports teams directly. “There’s a lot of financial help out there, especially in the US,” says Charlotte. “If you are a sportsperson, there may well be a coach somewhere who’d be interested in recruiting you. Have a look around university websites – most of them have quite extensive athletics pages, and you should be able to track down the relevant person fairly easily. Send them an email – what harm can it do?”

Canada

Graduate scholarships are also available to offset some of the costs of studying in Canada (which are usually significantly lower in the first place than those below the border). The best source of funds tends to be individual universities and colleges, many of whom offer a range of different scholarship types that cover tuition costs or living expenses and sometimes both.

Many awards are based solely on academic merit and therefore financial aid is not taken into account through the application process. The Canadian government also offers a range of awards for graduate students as do a large number of individual universities. A free service coordinates most scholarships and is available at: http://www.scholarshipscanada.com.

A number of scholarships that offer funds to cover tuition fees and living expenses are administered by the Association of

Universities and Colleges of Canada, details of which can be found at:

http://www.aucc.ca/scholarships/open_e.html

UK

The number of international graduate students studying in the UK has grown by 160% in the past 12 years, and as well as the worldwide reputation and high quality of graduate programs on offer, many of them have been drawn by investments in graduate scholarship opportunities. Though many of these opportunities remain in place in the wake of the recession, in some cases funding has diminished.

The UK economy has been hit harder than most by the recession, and the higher education sector has faced successive waves of public spending cuts. In February 2010 the outgoing Labour government announced around £950 million of cuts to the sector, with the subsequently elected coalition government then going on to introduce a further £200 million in cuts within weeks of coming to power.

While the brunt of these cuts is likely to be borne by restrictions in the number of places offered at undergraduate level, graduate funding for overseas graduate students has also suffered to some extent. Two of the standard routes for international students seeking scholarships at UK universities have been the Chevening Scholarship, which funds international Masters students identified as potential ‘leaders of the future’, and the Commonwealth Scholarship program – a similar scheme aimed at students from Commonwealth nations studying at both Masters and PhD level.

Though government funding for both of these schemes was reduced in 2009, both continue to be funded primarily through alternative means. There are still almost 1,000 Chevening scholarships and 400 Commonwealth scholarships available per year, though both schemes are highly competitive.

As the majority of scholarships for graduate study in the UK are funded by the UK government in partnership with other governments, your first port of call should always be to contact the Ministry of Education or Education Department in your country of origin. Here you will be able to get details of all government schemes available, and ensure that you are eligible to apply. Opportunities will vary between countries though.

An example of a national scholarship scheme enabling graduate study in the UK is the Huygens Scholarship Programme. This is an initiative run by the Dutch government agency Nuffic [http://www.nuffic.nl], to support Dutch students to do a Masters or second Bachelors degree abroad, as well as to attract foreign students to The Netherlands. The scheme funded Dutch student Chris Cusack to study for a one-year master’s in English literature at University College London in the UK.

“UCL is a prestigious university, and the MA program was very inspiring and contributed a lot to my development as a scholar,” he says. “The experience of living in London is certainly worth repeating.”

Another potential funding avenue, particularly for students from developing nations, is government and NGO partnership schemes. Bangladeshi student, Sheikh Mehdee Mohammed, was funded for his one-year MSc in Disaster Management & Sustainable Development at Northumbria University as part of the Chars Livelihoods Programme (CLP). “CLP provided my full international tuition fee and university accommodation charges,” he says. “I also received £450 per month for living costs. In addition, CLP gave me my return ticket from Dhaka to UK and the costs for my visa and health (TB) certificate.”

Scholarships in Asia

The upward economic mobility of many Asian countries, such as Japan, India and China, has seen huge government investment in attracting international students in greater numbers. Last year, Japan’s government launched the 300,000 International Students scheme, which aims to greatly increase the number of international students at Japanese universities between now and 2020.

The standard path for admission to national (government-owned) universities has been the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) Scholarship. Applications for this scholarship, which covers full tuition and living expenses, are accepted through Japanese embassies and consulates worldwide. Scholarship students spend their first six to twelve months in Japan learning the Japanese language intensively, before enrolling in a regular graduate program. While the scholarship is lucrative, a large investment is required in terms of time (often three years or more for a Masters) and competition is quite fierce – only about 10% of international students in Japan are receiving this scholarship.

UK student Polly Stannard is undertaking her foundation year as part of the MEXT program, after which she is hoping to study for a Masters in Gender and Development Studies at Ochanomizu Women’s University in Tokyo, Japan. She says that alongside the Japanese way of life, the availability of funding was a major factor behind her choice to undertake graduate study abroad.

“Aside from the fact that I wanted to come back to Japan as soon as possible after graduating, for me the key motivating factor was money!” she says. “Realistically, I stood little to no chance of acquiring any kind of funding for an MA from anywhere in Britain so the obvious choice was to go for the famed MEXT (Japanese government scholarship), which I reckoned was basically my sole chance of getting a Masters fully funded and all paid for.”

Mainland Europe

With more university systems in many countries across continental Europe far more heavily subsidized than those in the UK and US – along with expansions to the number of graduate courses offered in English – increasing numbers of international students are looking towards European countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Finland for their graduate education.

Finland is one of a number of up-and-coming European countries that are increasingly providing a credible value-for-money alternative to more established graduate study destinations, helped in large part by generous funding initiatives.

OECD figures from 2006 show that as a proportion of its annual GDP, Finland spends more money on higher education than any other OECD nation – that includes the likes of the US, UK, France, Germany and also Japan.

What does that mean for international students? It means that the government – funded by the Finnish taxpayer – view driving up the standards of their universities as such a worthwhile investment that they may be willing to subsidize the cost of your graduate education.

According to Jaanaliisa Kuoppa, international communications and marketing manager at Finland’s Centre for International Mobility (CIMO), the body responsible for attracting international students to the country, the policy of not charging fees has encouraged many students to pursue Masters and PhD programs. “We have always believed that to encourage international talent to benefit from our education system we must remove as many barriers as possible and make access to studying a social right for all. Although we are reviewing this policy now, the combination of no tuition fees and more English-language programs than any other country in Europe outside of the UK has been very positive for us.”

Things to remember

There’s no denying that finding a scholarship for your graduate education can be a tall order, and the global recession has done little to help in most cases. But despite a downturn in many of their financial circumstances, universities worldwide remain committed to attracting talented students from all over the world – and a large amount of funding is still being invested into doing so.

Start early: Not only will you give yourself more time to investigate all of the options open to you, you will also ensure you have time to make your application do you justice

Contact your National Ministry of Education: They will be able to give you details of any government schemes for which you may be eligible. They may also tell you of specific arrangements with other individual countries – you might find that a scheme is in place that would fund you to do a Masters or PhD in a country you had never thought about studying in before.

Use online scholarship searches: The internet is full of information, and time spent following your nose and seeing what you uncover on the web could end up being time spent very profitably indeed.

Contact individual institutions: In many countries such as the US and UK, the majority of scholarships are awarded at institutional level. Never be afraid to pick up the telephone and speak to admissions officers directly – there’s no knowing how far a bit of confidence and perseverance can get you.

Look beyond the obvious: We would all love to study at Harvard, Cambridge or Yale, but for many people, finding funding may require a little flexibility. There is now a wide range of countries offering a quality graduate education, so don’t be restricted in your thinking and don’t just follow the herd. The more flexible you are willing to be, the more likely you will be to reach that Holy Grail – a funded graduate education.

One thing is for sure: if you apply in a haphazard manner, at the last minute and without sufficient research and planning, your chances of securing funding for your graduate study are minimal. On the other hand, with full-fee awards worth anything up to US$30-40,000 per year at top US universities – and in some cases with a stipend for living expenses on top of that – the hours you spend researching, preparing and submitting your scholarship applications could end up being some of the best-paid work you ever do.

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Useful links

General scholarships

http://graduateschool.topuniversities.com/funding

http://www.internationalscholarships.com/

http://www.scholarships.com/

http://www.scholarshipexperts.com/

US and Canada

http://www.fulbright.co.uk/eas

http://www.usastudyguide.com/aidforgraduates.htm

http://www.aucc.ca/scholarships/open_e.html

http://www.scholarshipscanada.com

UK

http://www.chevening.com/home

http://www.cscuk.org.uk/

http://www.educationuk.org/UK/Article/Scholarships-for-international-postgraduate-students

Japan

http://www.jasso.go.jp/study_j/scholarships_e.html

http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/en/study/mext_postgrad.html

Hong Kong

http://cerg1.ugc.edu.hk/hkpfs/index.html

http://studyinhongkong.edu.hk/eng/01scholarships.jsp

France

http://www.campusfrance.org/en/a-etudier/bourse01.htm

Australia

http://www.jason.edu.au

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Meet top graduate school experts and representatives from top programs at the QS World Graduate School Tour. The QS World Grad School Tour travels with many of the world’s top universities representing the complete A-Z of graduate programs from finance to management, engineering to IT, international affairs, creative arts and education.

You can register for upcoming events for free at www.topgradschool.com/kaplan.

Guest Post By Tim Rogers

The number of universities and grad schools seeking to recruit international students is growing, with many countries including those from Asia and Africa now actively recruiting students from abroad. Such developments will not only increase the number of potential study destinations for international students — they will also give them greater control over the cost of their degree.

Universities from Asian and African countries are not the only ones looking to promote themselves as quality yet cost-effective destinations for international graduate students.  Value-for-money study destinations are dotted across Europe, each promoting their unique study experiences to those eager to balance their thirst for quality graduate education with their budget.  Mariann Lugus from the Archimedes Foundation, an independent body established by the Estonian government in 1997 to promote mobility and internationalization in Estonia, believes that emerging study destinations can offer students an excellent experience.  ”Quality, English-language taught programs are available in many countries and it is only now, when more students are really thinking about studying abroad, that some of the less obvious choices are becoming more popular.  In Estonia we have more than 3,000 international students, many of whom are working in fields such as engineering and IT where we have some of the best facilities in Europe.”

Estonia is typical of many smaller countries, particularly those in Northern Europe, that offer both reasonably priced tuition fees — often less than EU€3,000 (USUS$4,000) a year — and a modest cost of living without compromising the quality of education on offer.  The nation’s six publically funded and four private universities all offer Masters programs in English and play an active role in the support of international graduate students throughout their study period.  Mariann Lugus continues, “In a recent survey of our international students we discovered that we are regarded as one of the most enjoyable and best value-for-money study destinations anywhere in the world, with low-cost housing being a particular feature for single or married students.”

Less than 80 kilometres from Estonia, across the Baltic Sea, lies another value-for-money study destination — Finland.  For many years, Finland has been attracting the more adventurous international graduate student with the quality of its research-led graduate degree programs, its unique natural environment and a national policy of not charging tuition fees.  According to Jaanaliisa Kuoppa, International Communications and Marketing manager at Finland’s Centre for International Mobility (CIMO), the body responsible for attracting international students to the country, the policy of not charging fees has encouraged  many students to pursue Masters and PhD programs.  ”We have always believed that to encourage international talent to benefit from our education system we must remove as many barriers as possible and make access to studying a social right for all.  Although we are reviewing this policy now, the combination of no tuition fess and more English-language programs than any other country in Europe outside of the UK has been very positive for us.”

Kimmo Kuortti, Director of International Relations at one of Finland’s leading research universities, the University of Oulu, believes that countries where there have traditionally been no or low tuition fees for international students have largely been disregarded by many students seeking graduate degrees outside of their home country.  ”Too many students have historically thought that if there are no tuition fees then the quality of the degree is likely to be bad.  This is just not the case — we have had this policy of no fees because we want to make sure good students can come to us whatever their background and our government has been prepared to fund these students.  Our eight international Masters degrees, all taught in English, continue to be free of charge for international students, yet attract accreditation from the Finnish Government and are recognized for the quality of their taught and research components.  The University of Oulu is the home of the inventors of 3-G wireless technology!”

But there is one not-so-hidden cost all international students should take into account when considering a university where no tuition fees are charged — the cost of living.  In both Finland and its neighbour, Norway, the absence of tuition fees for international graduate students disguises the fact that the cost of food, entertainment and accommodation can be higher than anticipated.  Even so, without the level of fees typically charged by universities in the UK and The Netherlands, such study destinations do represent viable alternatives to some of the more established and expensive countries typically favoured by international students.

But perhaps one of the best value-for-money study destinations for international graduate students, certainly in Europe, continues to be Germany.  With the majority of state-funded universities not charging tuition fees to international students, and those that do often charging less than EU€1,000 (US$1,300) a year, German university programs attract international students from all over the world in greater numbers than many of its neighbours.  As is the case in many other countries, most international students are drawn to the capital city — in Germany’s case Berlin, regarded by many as the coolest and most vibrant city in Europe.  Home to some of the country’s leading universities, Berlin provides the perfect mix between access to high-quality academic programs and low-cost living.

Dr Ursula Hans, Director of the International Office at Berlin’s Humboldt University, sees the city’s advantages as being tailor-made for international students.  ”Living in Berlin is still very reasonable and it is surely one of the most cost-effective student cities in the world.  What we call co-op living arrangements with other students are often very reasonably priced, as well as a great communicative and intercultural learning opportunity.  Food and culture are a steal throughout the city and public transportation is included in our low registration fee.  It is easily possible for an international student to live on EU€400 — 600 (US$540 – 800) a month.  I am sure that some students come to Humboldt because they are unwilling or unable to join the financial race for getting the best degree money can buy.  Here, we believe that knowledge does not weigh you down with debt.”

Whether you choose Germany or another low-cost study destination in Europe, it clearly pays to research in more detail the range of countries that welcome international students.  Beyond the popular and comparatively expensive choices of the UK, the USA and other countries, there are plenty of opportunities to study at the highest level without having to break the bank.  If there is one lesson to be learnt from a discussion of the costs of international graduate study around the world, it’s that the price of tuition fees is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of teaching, or the market value of your Masters or PhD degree in the commercial world.

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Meet top graduate school experts and representatives from top programs at the QS World Graduate School Tour. The QS World Grad School Tour travels with many of the world’s top universities representing the complete A-Z of graduate programs from finance to management, engineering to IT, international affairs, creative arts and education.

You can register for upcoming events for free at www.topgradschool.com/kaplan.

• Graduate PLUS Loan: An “add on” loan after a student maximizes Stafford or Perkins borrowing. Interest rate is 7.9%, and there may be more affordable alternative loans available.

  The recent debt ceiling bill ends the “in-school interest subsidy” on subsidized Stafford loans for graduate and professional students.

• Pell Grants: You must fill out a FAFSA form to be eligible. Maximum available to borrow for 2011-2012 is $5,550. 98% of recipients have a family adjusted gross income of less than $60,000.