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Terminal vs. non-terminal MA Programs

Brian Leiter

The PGR recommends a number of terminal MA programs with strong faculties (as an important sidenote:  financial aid varies quite a bit among these programs, and does not correlate at all with the relative strength of the faculties–in general, I would advise students *not* to take out loans to earn an MA in philosophy).  Often students wonder about MA programs at the PhD-granting programs.  I want to emphasize the advice in the PGR:

Many Ph.D. programs also admit M.A. students.  Students should be more wary of the M.A.  programs at schools in roughly the top 25 that grant the PhD:  often M.A. students take a back seat to the  Ph.D. students (in terms of faculty attention), and students with weak  philosophy backgrounds may find the pace and level of seminars geared to Ph.D.  students daunting.  Students considering  M.A. programs in top-ranked Ph.D.-granting institutions should investigate the  situation of M.A. students at the school carefully before enrolling.  However, some PhD programs that are less  highly ranked, but still have strong faculties, may in fact turn out to be very  good choices for the MA. 

A student who can get a funded MA at a top 25ish PhD program should probably pursue that over an unfunded or only partially funded MA at one of the terminal MA programs.  While some of the terminal MA programs would no doubt rank in the U.S. top 50 if they had a PhD program, and while all of the recommended ones have serious, research-active faculty, their main advantage is usually that when it comes to graduate education, the faculty's entire focus is on the MA students.   But PhD programs vary quite a bit, based on anecdotal reports, in terms of how they integrate their MA students into the program, and what kind of faculty supervision and mentoring they receive.   In general, a high-powered PhD program with terrific PhD students is going to be one where the PhD students command most of the faculty's time–hence my general note of caution about those programs which also offer an MA.  But I've also heard good reports from MA students at ranked PhD programs, which is why that option should not be wholly neglected by prospective students.

I'm opening comments so that students or faculty might post links to PhD programs that fund their MA students.

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3 responses to “Terminal vs. non-terminal MA Programs”

  1. Sherri Irvin

    Here at the University of Oklahoma, we have just adopted a policy of reserving up to 2 assistantships per admissions year to fund MA students. (The policy is so new that it isn't yet reflected on our web page.) We noticed that our applicants from underrepresented groups were disproportionately coming to philosophy from other fields, and thus in need of further training prior to being competitive for our PhD program. We hope that this MA funding will provide opportunities for members of underrepresented groups to begin their graduate work in philosophy without incurring debt, and to move on to the PhD in our department or elsewhere. The deadline for the funded MA is the same as the deadline for our PhD program: Jan. 31.

    MA students are full participants in our program, with access to faculty mentorship inside and outside the classroom. Our graduate students are a tight-knit group, and MA students are fully included in our community.

    http://www.ou.edu/ouphil/grad/info.html

    BL COMMENT: Thanks for this useful information. This seems like an excellent opportunity, and students thinking about terminal MA programs ought to be looking at Oklahoma given this information (and assuming their interests are a good fit).

    Reply
  2. Jack Lyons

    At the University of Arkansas, we have distinct MA and PhD programs that are arranged in serial, as it were, rather than parallel. That is, it's a two-year MA and a three-year PhD (but you have to have an MA in philosophy to be admitted to the PhD). Consequently, there is no sense here that MA students are second class citizens in any way. It is not as if the MA students weren't "good enough" to get into the PhD program; they were not far along enough to be candidates for that program. The MA students receive the same funding as the PhD students and get as much attention from faculty. We often admit them into our own PhD program, but we encourage them to go on to get a PhD from the best program they can get into and try to help them do so.

    I gather (mostly from here and the PGR) that at some schools the MA and PhD programs are somehow in competition with each other. That is not true of us, any more than our graduate program is in competition with our undergraduate program.

    http://philosophy.uark.edu/4508.php

    Reply
  3. David Hunter

    At Ryerson University in Toronto we have a new (started in 2010) terminal MA program and no PhD program. It is a two-year program, with considerable funding for both years. A large part of the funding comes from working as a TA for our critical thinking classes, though we also have several competitive awards. Our students are very active, organizing a graduate student conference and participating in conferences across North America. Several have spent a term abroad, at Oxford, MIT and, this Winter, at UT Austin. And we've been very successful placing graduates in excellent PhD programs, in both the Continental and the Analytic traditions, including Toronto, Memphis, Guelph, Oxford, UMAss Amherst and Rochester. And we are growing–we hired Boris Hennig for Ancient Philosophy last year and we are currently searching for a social/political philosopher in the Continental tradition.

    http://www.ryerson.ca/philosophy/programs/graduate.html

    Reply

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