Do most of the people that start an MA or Ph.D. finish the degree?
The short answer is no, and recent data compiled by Richard Rubinson at Emory University confirms this. There are three categories of graduate students, one category of which should not be in graduate school at all, one category of which should be in graduate school, and one category to which one might refer as a “wild card” category. The first category—which makes up about 60 to 70% of all graduate students—consists of those who go to graduate school because they don’t know what else to do in life and so they figure that they might as well bide some more time in school. Individuals in this group frequently fail to emerge from graduate school with anything more than a “terminal” Masters degree and often don’t even manage this much before leaving the program. Make sure that you do not fall into this category. Graduate School is very difficult—much more difficult than, for example, Business School or Law School. If your heart is not in it, the experience of pursuing a graduate degr
