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[chicandtoughness]

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[erg923]

My vote would be yes. This is not the kind of program that will increased your competitiveness for Phd programs in clinical psych. And that debt is ridiculous.

 

[eeor1006]

I have to agree. I was in a similar situation like you, did a MS in counseling in hopes to get myself into a phd program in clinic psy. I finished it because I was lucky enough to find a research assistantship to fund the degree. My advice for you would be to leave now or do absolutely everything you can to find a GAship, preferably in research. Look beyond your dept, my RA was with psy dept and I interviewed with social work dept & autism research center housed in psy dept.

 

[WisNeuro]

Agree with others. The pure clinical focus won't help with most PhD programs admission chances. And yeah, that debt is crazy ridiculous, worse than a lot of the PsyD debt loads per year.

 

[futurepsydoc]

I too agree. The level of debt is extremely high for an Master's Degree Program and far outweighs the cost associated with many doctoral programs. I am not sure where you live, but there are a small number of post-bac certificate programs at certain schools. Check out the APA website for a list of these programs:

http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psn/2014/09/post-baccalaureate.aspx

Good Luck!!

 

[deleted106747]

I probably shouldn't advise without knowing more details, but I think going to this program is a very bad idea if that is the debt load. That is too much debt even for the PhD program to be worth it.

 

[Justanothergrad]

I wish part of APA reported statistics that accredited programs had to display was average debt load from graduate school in the program.

The amount of debt you are describing is far too much to justify it as Psycycle and others have said.

 

[futurepsydoc]

I completely agree with Justanothergrad here. I think average debt should be an APA required data point for all programs. Though, so far as I know, they do not accredit MA/MS programs. Do they?

 

[Justanothergrad]

I completely agree with Justanothergrad here. I think average debt should be an APA required data point for all programs. Though, so far as I know, they do not accredit MA/MS programs. Do they?

No they don't.

Part of the difficulty is that and the other part is that there are plenty of MS programs within other programs (particularly for counseling) where PhD students may matriculate through the doctoral program following a separate acceptance into the masters- they accrue debt in the masters but not the Phd, but its all part of the same program route had they been accepted up front. It would be a tricky metric to define for sure.

 

[WisNeuro]

No they don't.

Part of the difficulty is that and the other part is that there are plenty of MS programs within other programs (particularly for counseling) where PhD students may matriculate through the doctoral program following a separate acceptance into the masters- they accrue debt in the masters but not the Phd, but its all part of the same program route had they been accepted up front. It would be a tricky metric to define for sure.

True, and there will be high SD's for many programs. Even in my own program, where we received a stipend and full tuition remission, we had most of the students not take out any loans in grad school, but several along the way who took out loans so that they could live a much higher standard of living. I think the best students can do is look at the stipend, the tuition remission data, and the cost of living in an area to get a better metric of their own possible expenses. Depends on how frugal you can be and still be pretty happy.

 

[Justanothergrad]

True, and there will be high SD's for many programs. Even in my own program, where we received a stipend and full tuition remission, we had most of the students not take out any loans in grad school, but several along the way who took out loans so that they could live a much higher standard of living. I think the best students can do is look at the stipend, the tuition remission data, and the cost of living in an area to get a better metric of their own possible expenses. Depends on how frugal you can be and still be pretty happy.

Even if not an effective metric for education of potential applicants, I think of it as public shaming.

In instances like this, I adhere to the earl of shaftebury's logic on shame as a legitimate form of corrective enticement.

 

[WisNeuro]

Even if not an effective metric for education of potential applicants, I think of it as public shaming.

In some circumstances, sure. But, it may be misplaced shame in some of these circumstances. with low n's (usually 5-7) for class, the numbers would just be wonky and highly dependent on the individual students in the cohort and cost of living changes, probably not indicative of the program. Now, they could aggregate data across a larger number of years, which may help, but would also still be confounded with other factors (e.g., constant shifts in state high ed funding, changes in costs of living), just to a lesser extent. What information would that give someone beyond knowing the stipend and tuition remission policy?

 

[Justanothergrad]

Yeh, all true points. We need to do something to emphasize the debt numbers more to students coming in. I'm not sure that its a good solution, but its not the worst idea either. I just hate seeing the debt amounts increase as much as they are in this field given our ultimate salaries. I also expect that some programs would be much worse for it- perhaps the numbers need to be broken down not just in terms of M/SD but also with % of students in debt in various debt levels (akin to the APPIC match info)- helps show more than just a wide range

 

[chicandtoughness]

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