In today’s Pope Center piece, Jenna Ashley Robinson considers that question. Years ago, most students considering grad school had clear academic interests and career goals, but today we find that quite a few go to grad school just because it prolongs the period of time in the academic coccoon and delays the onset of student loan payments. For many students, it will be a long time before the cost of the degree is recovered, even assuming that they’re able to land jobs in the field they’re studying. Since we know that many law school grads can’t find law jobs and many Ph. D.s can’t find anything other than adjunct teaching, the grad-school decision is all the more problematic.