Students often go to graduate school to increase the likelihood of scoring a great job after graduation, but having an advanced degree on a resume may not always be beneficial.Individuals with master’s or professional degrees sometimes have a harder time finding a job than those with undergraduate degrees because of the higher salaries graduate students command, according to some career Web sites. Graduates with advanced degrees can sometimes lose out on jobs because their education puts them outside an employer’s budget for a new hire, said Sara Crow, assistant director for communications at Career Services.”If you have two top candidates, and one is a student with a bachelor degree who will work for $45,000 and the other is a student who just finished a Ph.D. and wants a minimum of $55,000, that may toss the Ph.D. student out,” Crow said.Xi Chen, electrical engineering graduate student, said salary won’t be her main criteria for a job because employers are looking to hire candidates who will get the job done for the lowest price.”If they can hire an undergrad student, they will if the undergrad can do the same job for a lower salary,” Chen said.David Constant, Graduate School dean, said that trend can make it hard to recruit certain students to get a more advanced degree.”There’s certainly opportunities there where the starting salaries are very good for these engineers, and that makes it sometimes difficult to bring them back into graduate school for advanced degrees,” Constant said.Crow said researching one’s desired career path is critical to determine if an advanced degree is necessary or beneficial.”It’s really important to research your occupation so you know realistic salary expectations to have,” Crow said. “There are some fields where having a graduate or professional degree is required — if you want to be an attorney, you have to have a law degree.”Students shouldn’t go to graduate school only because they want a higher salary, Crow said.”We want to see people make that decision because it’s the right step for them,” she said. “We don’t want to meet a student graduating with a master’s degree and have that student crestfallen when they realize that’s not an automatic salary.”Constant said the Graduate School has seen an increase in enrollment since the economy has gotten worse. But students should have a plan before deciding graduate school is right for them, he said.”For people considering graduate school, they need to have a pretty clear idea of their career path,” Constant said.Career Services offers career counseling, which Crow said is a service it’s never too late to use.”There’s no shame in being a senior and coming in to meet with a career decision-making counselor,” Crow said. “We have appointments with alumni in their 60s who are coming in.”—-Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected].