Citing a declining economy and a stagnant job market, more college graduates are applying to graduate school, and UW-Madison is seeing the effects.

“There has been a significant rise in our applications,” Debbie Gibson, dean of graduate admissions said.

According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, applications for UW’s graduate school are up 15 percent, numbering 11,257 compared with 9,767 a year ago.

Recent college graduates are not the only ones going back to school. The number of U.S. residents taking the Graduate Records Examination has risen by 12 percent since last year.

Lacy Redman, a recent graduate of the business school, said after a two-month job search, she is reconsidering her plans for the future.

“Originally I was thinking I would work for a few years and make the money I need to go to grad school,” Redman said. “But I can’t afford to be unemployed for much longer. Right now I am seriously considering taking out loans and going back in the fall.”

However, officials such as Ann Groves Lloyd, director of L & S/Human Ecology Career Services, cautions students in Redman’s position to hesitate before sending in their graduate school applications.

“The economy is slow right now, but that doesn’t mean you should just go to graduate school,” Lloyd said. “It’s a huge investment to get a master’s degree, and if you’re not sure that’s what you want to do, you shouldn’t head down that path.”

Lloyd said students are easily discouraged by a lagging job market.

“In some cases it may be that your dream job doesn’t land on your doorstep,” she said. “But this could happen in a good economy, too. A lot of us took jobs along the way that weren’t perfect, but they ended up being good experiences.”

It seems that some students following this example are still finding difficulties succeeding in the real world.

Jon Richichi graduated from UW in 1998, intending to return to graduate school in a few years after getting work experience. Now, he says the struggling economy is thwarting his plans to return to school.

“By this time, I had figured on getting a pretty decent job,” he said. “But it’s been almost four years and I’m not even close to getting enough money to get another degree.”

Richichi said he has almost given up hope in finding a job in his major, advertising.

“It’s not that I haven’t been trying,” he said. “It’s just that people are not hiring.”