Daniel R. Blake

On the productivity of specialized Masters programs

Several recent studies indicate that the rates of return to graduate programs, especially Masters programs, are relatively low. This study is an effort to determine whether the emerging specialized Masters programs among them that in Urban Planning suffer the same low social and private rates of return. A methodology is developed which permits the estimation of the rates of return to these new programs (which have not existed long enough to provide life-earning profile data for participants or cohorts). The empirical research in this study indicates that some specialized Masters programs have quite high social and private rates of return.