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Is the Master's Degree the New Bachelor's?
Hugh Pickens writes "Laura Pappano writes that the master's degree, once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D., or as a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, is now the fastest-growing degree, with 657,000 awarded in 2009, more than double the level in the 1980s. Today nearly two in 25 people age 25 and over have a master's, about the same proportion that had a bachelor's or higher in 1960. 'Several years ago it became very clear to us that master's education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,' says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. 'There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,' adds Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution. 'We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,' making a bachelor's no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers. But some wonder if a master's is worth the extra effort. 'In some fields, such as business or engineering, a graduate degree typically boosted income by more than enough to justify the cost,' says Liz Pulliam Weston. 'In others — the liberal arts and social sciences, in particular — master's degrees didn't appear to produce much if any earnings advantage.'"
We would not be having this discussion if things were booming. Back in 2000, you could get a job if you could spell HTML. The reason M is the B is that degrees for many/most jobs serves as a WAY TO CUT DOWN THE PILE FOR HR. Nothing more, nothing less.
... the advantage is that you can GET a job. By and large the previous generation, as in most things, has a clear advantage in gainful employment, with or without the MFA, but even most of them don't want to talk seriously with you unless you're at least working on one. Unless, of course, you only want to load/unload a truck or schlep heavy boxes. Then an undergrad degree will do.
Engineering is interesting. But the MBA is a vocational degree, so it doesn't really fit into the traditional college degree format. Perhaps in the economic downturn you need to not only prove you can think (Bachelors Degree), but prove you've received specialized instruction in your field (Masters)?
"making a bachelor's no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers"
What many employers fail to realize is that various Bachelor's Degrees require different levels of work. Some much more than others.
A BS in Engineering or BA in History require extensive reading and research. A generic "Business Degree" requires just showing up to class.
Easy access to on-line degrees and the for-profit colleges are huge drivers in this. There was no University of Phoenix (or whatever) back in the 1960s. If people can make money at it, you can bet it's going to expand until every dollar that can be spent is being spent.
You're doing it wrong. Most masters programs purportedly won't pay you to get a masters, but at least at my University I haven't seen anyone without some sort of research assistantship or scholarship to pay tuition+stipend. At least in Engineering; the situation is probably very different for English or Education majors. Then there are those whose employers will pay for the masters degree. Honestly if you're going to spend another $80k for two more years of post-college education, it's not worth it for most fields. When it's free, that's a different matter all together.
I saw this masters trend years ago so just got the top one to not have to worry about it...
It is.
It seems to me that technical bachelors degrees involve less learning than they did maybe 40 years ago. So maybe a Master's degree these days == the same level of technical education as a bachelor's degree 40 years ago?
How about 8 in 100? I suspect it's closer to 6 or 7 in 100, which might lessen the impact.
I want to see some with a masters in golf aka won the masters so I can say I have a trophy that says that for a job that needs a MS.
The possession of any degree doesn't prove a person has the ability to perform outside of an academic setting. I've known plenty of educated fools who couldn't think if their lives depended on it. What I mean by "think" is the ability to engage in independent thought by which one arrives at tangible real-world results. Look at the work of Robert Noyce,
or Bill Gates, or Watson and Crick, or Burt Rutan, if you want examples of tangible results. Note that not all these
people even had a degree. It's the man ( or woman ) that counts, not the piece of paper.
A degree might get you in the door, but actual performance keeps you from being escorted out of the building
by security while you carry with you the contents of your desk in a cardboard box.
Ummm... no...
This simple chart pretty much answers the question. There are related links on the site to get more specifics.
Why, you might ask? Simple: because it screened out the lower classes such as Okies.
Back in the early 70s, the hiring officer for my first job after graduation had a sign on his wall: "A four year degree means a man is trainable." (Yes, "man." Times were different and nobody even pretended to be gender-neutral.) He explained it: "If you can put up with four years of bullshit to get a piece of paper, you can stick out the six months it'll take us to train you to be useful."
Pure screening system. The whole idea isn't that you learn anything particularly useful in college, it's that it makes it easy to reject enough candidates to keep the applicant list manageable.
Well, now more people have BS degrees and they need to screen more people out. It's just that simple.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I have 4 Bachelors, 3 Master, a ThD, a PhD, and by the end of the year I'll have finished my DS.
Lots of fun but no jobs waiting. Guess it is back to begging for research grants.
Some of those Master's degrees are just teachers trying to keep their jobs under the "Highly Qualified" provision of the No Child Left Behind act.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
A Masters of Business Administration from a late night television mill doesn't count.
Me though, 60 grand of undergrad debt, minus whatever I chipped off these past three years (a bit!), I've gotten the need to feel smart out of my system. I am working, making good money, and hedging my bets -- I wouldn't bet on me to finish the master's and get an even higher paying job to cancel it out.
But my opinion is worthless since I am employed. Ask someone who's been out on the front lines, trying to find work and ask them how bad one needs a master's degree.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
There's not a whole lot you can do with a BS in the sciences except get into grad school.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm sure that all the overpaid provosts and student loan agents on commission will agree. Most engineers I know started their own companies, built products, and got rich. University had little to do with it. Now I can understand the value in something like Civil or Structural Engineering, or some medical programs, but everything else is mostly liberal-arts garbage. Even at that, I'm sure that experience / aptitude testing through organizations like ABET could all but eliminate today's dead College/University system.
Sig: I stole this sig.
I'm seeing this happen all the time. It seems like that a masters of some kind is required for STEM work, whether that is a technical or business masters. I've seen it happen in other industries upgrading from masters to doctorate: pharmacy, audiology, and nursing. In the case of engineering, it seems like schools are struggling to cram everything into a four-year degree. There's not just the old technical stuff, but large capstone projects, computer classes, and electives spread the BS too thin.
Not that I think this is a bad idea, though. Don't get your masters right away -- get out and work, and then see if you need a masters to further your career. And if you're getting a technical masters, for God's sake get a teaching or research assistantship. Don't pay for it.
Yes it is, likely it's worse, because even Masters is not what it used to be when education counted.
We had these talks already here, haven't we?
The culprit is the fact that government provides loans to anybody who wants them, the education system is aimed at eating up those loans and spitting the students out with huge debt and nothing to show for it, as the students are convinced by the system that they need a degree to get ANY job, never mind a job in their profession, because everybody is getting a degree. The money is being transfered from the tax payers/inflation via printing to the colleges, be they public or private, and the results of-course are rising prices for education and worsening of standards, as nobody is allowed to fail, people are graded on a curve, because a failing student only means that the college will make less money but the result of either passing or failing is pretty much the same, nothing of value is really taught anyway.
The problem is that nobody actually cares about the education itself, because it doesn't matter if you know anything or not, we have just discussed the reasons for that here as well, haven't we?
Who cares what you actually learn there if all you are concerned with is getting any degree just to get any job, so people go for the easiest subjects and in the process they accrue somewhat of mortgage size debts, while not learning anything useful there either. So this is inflation of the education process and it's happening because there are moral hazards created by the government with the loans and because there are no jobs anyway, the government is pushing all the manufacturing out of the West by causing capital flight by regulations/taxes, etc. The students stay in school much longer, accruing much more debt because they are scared of coming out into the real world, because obviously there are no jobs.
At some point some of them have to come out, but with the education they have many find that their next option is to go through another school, to take up law and to become a lawyer, so this is another problem created by the system - too many lawyers, because so many students are switching to that, thinking that this is the next possible step for them from their sociology major. Of-course they won't go into hard stuff, sciences, engineering, who blames them, there is no demand!
You can't handle the truth.
When I was finishing my Bachelor's degree an embarrassingly long time ago now, my parents made more-or-less the same observation, and encouraged me to continue on with my doctoral work.
From my experience with a career in academia, I would say that the expectations of society have not increased, resulting in a more educated populace, but that the requirements for obtaining a bachelor's degree have eased. There are people I interact with on a regular basis that didn't study one whit in college, and yet have a degree without having had unusual brilliance to rely upon to get them through.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
There's too much emphasis on having a Bachelor's degree these days so it's driving people to get a Masters as some way of differentiating themselves to perspective employers.
I know a few people who are working jobs that have nothing to do with their college degree, but many jobs want experience or a degree from applicants. One of my relatives also just started his own landscaping business, despite having a Chemistry degree. Why he needed to pour nearly $100,000 into a degree that he'll never use is beyond me, but it seems that even the village idiot needs to have a degree these days.
It's been my experience in the engineering field that going straight through school to the masters degree is far less useful than getting the bachelors, working for a while and then getting the masters (or concurrently getting the masters while you're working your first job out of undergrad). The academic type can come out of a masters program and still not know squat about actually getting things done, making them basically useless. On the other hand, those of us who have gotten a bachelors, worked a while, and then gone back for the masters really do get more value.
When I see a resume pass my desk that is for someone who went straight through to a masters, I'm actually less likely to recommend them. They often don't have any better real world skills but they cost more to employ while you get them trained. In fact, they tend to be harder to train as they are so completely immersed in academia and have a hard time making the transition to the real world. On the other hand, internship experience while going straight through school does compensate quite a bit. A few terms doing real work while going to school makes all the difference.
Funny, I'm doing just fine in engineering (medical devices) and I didn't bother with a bachelor's either. I kind of wish I had it just for the cred. some people ascribe to it, but it seems to me that if you're smart enough to hack it you can either, A) spend the dough and earn your chops through 4 years of college, or B) study on your own whilst working your way up at an actual job. I did take a couple years of college courses around my work schedule for my higher math, but overall I'd say my work experience has been a far more valuable selling point at interviews. I've worked at a number of different companies in a variety of industries from medical to industrial to agriculture, been on design teams that won awards, had a lot of fun doing it, and I've never had a student loan. Would I spend the money on a master's? If I had it lying around, probably, but I certainly wouldn't spend the time and money to go back and get one at the expense of what I have now.
Jobs have changed because there aren't as many of them. Machines do a lot of the tasks that used to be done half a decade ago. As a result, more higher education jobs are in demand and fewer menial tasks are required. These are the first steps towards pushing the entire monetary system to total collapse.
Mechanization displaces menial jobs, and as mechanization becomes more advanced, so too will more jobs become displaced for two reasons: 1) machines perform most specialized tasks far better than a human and 2) machines are far cheaper, don't form unions, and can work every day of the year.
For example, take the taxi driver. He must perform a difficult task of driving and navigation. However, recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed Google to create an entire fleet of cars that more or less drive themselves. While only experimental, these will become more and more integrated into society. Taxi companies may eye it suspiciously at first, but it will eventually overtake the industry.
Taxi drivers do not need degrees. So you can see how the demand for jobs that use our more basic skills are being phased out and replaced. Jobs that require creative thinking, complex problem solving, and complex pattern recognition are in demand, because machines cannot do them.
tech IT need more hands on / on job training or at most 2-3 years school + 1-2 years tech school But masters For help desk? desktop support? IT ADMIN? Coder?
Maybe MASTERS or MBA for IT manager but even then I want a manager be more on the tech side then the class room side.
Long term you can't have people in school for 6+ years to get a level 1 job and then need 1-2 years on the job pick on how things are done?
When people have a hard time getting menial jobs unless they have a high school diploma, jobs that require grade 6 literacy and math skills at best, is it really any surprise that masters are becoming the new bachelors?
Part of the reason is that employers need some way to differentiate potential hires. Better degrees represent more responsible individuals who have an ability to acquire and retain knowledge. As an added bonus, if the degree is in the right field, they also offer more skills and may have more relevant training.
Would a grocery store prefer a high school graduate over a drop-out? Of course. Why would they want to hire someone who probably didn't attend class punctually and worked hard enough to pass it?
Would a bank want an MBA over a BA? Of course. Why would they want to hire someone who isn't willing to continue their training to adapt to a changing workplace?
Granted, there are more cynical reasons too. But I'll leave others to bring those up ...
I came to this conclusion a while back when I was looking into the job market and I was running across a very significant number of "entry level" positions that were requiring masters degrees.
These days completing a A.S. degree basically means you can learn, something that graduating high school should prove but hasn't for decades. A B.S. degree typically means you've been exposed to the fundamentals of your field but will likely require extensive training. While a Masters implies some sort of competence in the field. Regardless of the truth of these statements that is how they are perceived and people are trying for every leg up they can get especially in a competitive job market.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Of all the PhD's I've interviewed for engineering positions, only a couple got my vote. Most are too specialized, too arrogant, and generally too stuck in the clouds.
Master's folks are 50/50'ish. Same story, but there are a lot more mixed in that turn out to be great engineers and simply wanted to know (or earn) more. I still greatly adjust the thrust of my interview questions when I see the advanced degrees, as nothing is worse than a dolt in sheeps clothing, as management is usually too slow to catch onto the real score in time.
Bachelor's folks who slip in and are idiots are SO much easier to get rid of later, or at least much easier to train into someone who can hold the right end of a soldering iron. Generally bachelor's folks realize they have a lot to learn, while the PhD's not only don't know any more, but they adamantly believe they know it all.
People live longer, work longer, so why not go to school longer? Its not like the world is getting simpler, in fact quite the opposite.
I'm not sure how it was back in the 80's but as a recent graduate (2010) and current Graduate Student in engineering, with the job field how it is now, you need minimum a 3.5 GPA to even consider getting a decent job straight out of undergrad. A masters is the only other way to really search for a job. Otherwise, you can really only count on 1 or 2 job offers coming out of college, both of which will involve some sort of CAD or low level programming. In my graduating class, i know of at least 3 people who should not have graduated but skirted some of the requirements because of solely who they knew. IMO that downgrades my degree. The Bachelor's degree is turning into a high school diploma.
I dunno. TFS specifically mentions that people go back to school to wait out a down-turn, but then fails to connect the dots between the 2008 downturn and a glut of MAs and MSs in 2009. I got mine for just that reason (from a real school, FWIW).
Also, if you look at what is happening in Europe, after the Bologne reforms everybody who goes to University these days is getting a Masters. This is because under the new system a Bachelor is only 3 years long and the Master is another 2. In reality, neither of the EU degrees are worth what the synonymous American degrees are worth*, but I bet that in the global workforce this is pushing a lot of Americans to get the Master's simply to have equivalent bullet points on their CVs.
* This is not flame bait. My Master is from a European university; I have every interest in singing its praises, but the simple fact is that the degrees are earned in much less time and the the resulting quality of education suffers.
How much longer can our workforce afford to higher someone because they own a piece of paper and not on their ability?
Most of them aren't like that idiot in Tuttle was. Some of them may be uneducated- but that's not the same thing as "lower classes" and you should really, really refrain from making remarks like that.
Yes.
I was once told that HR considers engineering MS = BS + 4 years of work experience and nothing more.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
In 2 years, I made it to the Grade Level of Entry Level Masters (from Grade level of a Bachelor's). And I have 2 years of salary, and 2 less years of loans. I think I came out ahead.
Now, if I want to switch companies... okay... I may be in trouble?
college degree format is a poor fit for lots tech fields but it seem to be like some certs that all it can prove is that you can pass tests or get away with cheating at them.
Now by cut downing the math a bit, downsizing the gen ed, cutting filler classes then maybe you can get a masters level in 4 years and a BS level in 2-3. But even then in some tech jobs the theory is next to useless and more hands on based work is much much better some jobs some theory is a better fit but still take a theory loaded CS BS VS a IT tech school AA/ BA and what is better for stuff like networking? help desk? IT admin? windows admin? programer?
The Bachelor's Degree, in my experience (Of having gotten one, graduated, and entered the job maket) is nigh-worthless already in actually working. Someone said that it signals you're willing to do the 'deep dive' - in short, that you have tolerance for an extraordinarily large pile of bullshit to be shoveled into you.
But you know what I've learned, very quickly, in the business world?
They've got no interest in shoveling it at you! They've got to actually produce a product of some kind, that people want to buy, in order to survive! The colleges work on a circlejerk philosophy; the more people they produce, the more valuable their product becomes (As you're comparatively worthless - see how they cut on Masters just because they can), and thus, more demand for their educational product.
If you know economics, lemme put it this way: For colleges, when their supply goes up, their demand also goes up. And based on how tuition is skyrocketing, at a faster pace. This is why janitors will have PHDs; they set a standard and keep raising it. Nobody seems to care that the experience is irrelevant - at least not now. Businesses can hire Masters at BA prices right now with such a crappy economy, so they win. Colleges get more money, so they win. The student loses if they don't get a degree because of the competition. The student loses if they do get a degree because they're wasting more money. And the quality of the degree is meaningless because even from the same INSTIUTION, the professors you have make a monumental difference. (I had two professors who were crappy enough to get FIRED! Compared to other students in my class who took classes in a different order, thanks to that, they're much better prepared then me.)
We need an educational overhaul. The teachers are problematic, the obsession with testing is pointless, the obsession with degrees is pointless, and we're just stacking illusory value on top of illusory value so that nobody realizes just how screwed up it all is. Too busy looking at the new sleight-of-hand to remember the old. Can't wait for it to collapse and stop wasting time as college gets away from academia and back towards more useful skills and teaching.
listen, the correlation being made isnt valid.. The majority of the planet is facing one of the largest economic recessions in history. when you factor in jobless, many places in the united states harbor as much as 25% real unemployment. around 40 states in the united states of america are actively borrowing money from the federal government to pay for unemployment.
people are gobbling up loans and going back to college under a historically burdenous debt, but this isnt because one degree has suddenly become any more enticing than another. People have equated a masters degree with a greater potential to find work; this conjecture wasnt even remotely true before the recession. loan officers are encouraging this because they have a monetary incentive to do so.
expect upon graduation the same fate to befall education as has housing. These newly minted masters graduates will find themselves declaring bankruptcy and defaulting on education loans.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I think the problem is more like it is way to easy to get a BA, and a Masters. Seriously. They pretty much rubber stamp it in the California educational system.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
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--
As a collection of humans, we learn more and know more. Perhaps more knowledge is now necessary to be generically knowledgeable about things in general.
Did I learn super focused job skills with my BSc in Computer Science? No. Did I learn? Yes. Was it useful? Yes, it has been.
Did I learn super focused job skills with my BM in Theory and Composition? No. Did I learn? Yes, tons. Was it useful? Yes, very. Not for my money-making job... but there's more to life than making money.
plumbers
electricians
Lineman
are very hands on and IT is in own way much of the same and job like the ones listed have a apprentice system that is a mix of class room + hands on.
Now in IT there is lot that you can only pick up by doing hands on well maybe high level stuff is better picked in the old fashion class room system but that still makes you lacking in the area of doing the install, support, roll outs, on the fly fixes, shoehorning it in to a older system and so on.
"Laura Pappano writes that the master's degree, once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D., or as a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, is now the fastest-growing degree[.]
Er, doesn't this sentence totally explain the current phenomenon, thus rendering the whole discussion rather, um, academic?
G.
If you can't get a job with a Bachelor's degree, I don't see how spending two additional years at school will add value over someone with two years of real world experience.
For me this is something I've already internalized and decided on: As much "fun" it would be, and nice in terms of self-worth, and all those happy feelings, there's basically zero benefit to a master's degree in my field at this stage (or any) in my career.
I entered in with my Bachelor's as a code monkey, got as far as that could take me, and now I've transitioned into the all too common analyst/PM role after only 3-4 years total in the business. In particular with the company I work at, most of the day to day stuff is outsourced anyway.
I've considered going back to school to get my MBA, as that has actual potential real world value, but the long and short of it is, once you're in the industry, you can get by a lot further with (1) Basic people skills (2) Actually doing your job well (3) Knowing your corporate system and exploiting/adapting to it (See #1 again)
There people out that are disabled and can do IT jobs but there Disability's make it hard to go though a college program and maybe more a hands on or tech school is a much better fit for them but stuff like this just makes it easier not to hire people with Disability's now do you want people with Disability's to work a good JOB or to sit on welfare?
about 30 years late.
Yours At Harvard,
Kilgore Trout
In my dabbling in graduate courses, I found many CS students who couldn't software engineer themselves out of a bag.
Software engineering is not an efficient solution for escaping a bag.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Arguing about the relevancy of a MS/MBA degree isn't the issue, the issue is competing with this group in the future, much like High School only degree's have been doing in the non-Technical field for years. Yes, I will agree the technology field is much more forgiving in degree omission when there is experience and proof to back you up. A degree or advanced degree will greatly increases your chances of landing a job if you have no experience. The U of Phoenix degree's and other for profit schools will be takes with a grain of salt in the future. I have hired a lot of really good people with degree's from DeVry. All with a solid technical foundation and real world skill-set, BUT they wanted to learn and got the most out of their schooling. I also have read the articles about people being recruited out of homeless shelters with Government aid thrown at them, only to screwed over for Government aid later. I'm going to say that accredited higher ed will still be valuable and a deciding factor in the future, regardless of what we feel today.
www.moonnext.com
The MBA is a tough course, it is commonly referred to as the "divorce course".
The reason being that there is so much work to get through that it has a negative impact on the home life of the student.
RTFM is not a radio station.
Not to contribute to the general level of blather and misplaced angst generated by this discussion. I think it is useful to point out what college can be helpful for after all the screaming about grade inflation, tuition costs and how pointless all this education is (thank you Slashdot). The real question that should be asked of any undergraduate at the end of their 4 year (or five in my case, I had Coop rotations and problems with depression) is "Did you learn how to learn?" If the aspiring young person can't answer that question, then yes, their undergraduate education was problematic. I didn't get the best grades during my academic career, I had a hard time with several classes, but I never quit and I learned how to learn. I keep doing it all the time now. If I run into something new and interesting to work on, I know how to take a ride over to the Northwestern Engineering Library and dig in and learn everything I need to know. I am always open to learn new skills and anything my employer wants me to learn. I can turn around and teach what I have learned to other people. Is school good for teaching that process? Hard to say now. I know I got my money's worth from the Michigan State college of engineering.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
That doesn't change the fact that when they were sorting enlistees and draftees in WWII, they sent precious few Okies to officer training -- more than Darkies, mind, but that's a damned low bar.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Everything in the summary is entirely too true. The situation is ridiculous. One of the root causes is the dumbing down of higher education into yet another consumer product (the customer is always right --graduated that is). In my brief time as a T.A. I saw people who thought I was giving them unacceptable customer service when I failed them for not turning in anything all semester. Then there's lazy/inept employers who, instead of taking the trouble to assess applicants' abilities, look for a degree as proof of employability. Since higher education generally hasn't established any standards for what a degree holder should know, I can't imagine what employers think the letters tell them. Fail. Then there's for-profit educational institutions that obviously have ulterior reasons to push people who aren't college material into pursuing a degree. And another key factor, as I see it, is that thanks to decades of wage stagnation and squeezing all the money to the top 5%, kids from middle class families now need to get a PhD to achieve the same success as their parents.
My solution? Maybe society could start paying ordinary people a decent wage again, stop looking down on occupations that really don't require four years of liberal arts education, and give college education to only those who pass stringent entrance exams (regardless of how much or little money their daddy has).
Ask me about my sig!
Nowadays, especially in "well-rounded education"-doctrine colleges, a bachelor's degree is just a general expression of interest in a subject. Half of a bachelor's degree is general education, and the rest are introductions to specific fields in your area of study. (For example, a Linguistics degree will require one class in Phonology, one class in Morphology and Syntax, one class in Semantics, and then a little of whatever else catches your fancy.)
Anyone considering actually doing something in the discipline they're studying are practically forced to get a Master's degree simply because most B.A. programs don't offer enough content to actually teach you much about anything.
As someone who has just completed the first year of a physics degree, I wonder if it is worth me going on to do a masters. The place I'm at run an MPhys which can be chosen to embark upon at the end of the second year, for a total of four years instead of the three for BSc (Hons) which can also be chosen. I just don't know if it is worth it for the future.
I want you to finish high school before you post again.
Why would you have two more years of loans? Who pays for a Master's degree with their own money? Either you get the school to pay for it with a TA/RA position (which comes with a monthly stipend that more than covers housing, food, spending money, and some savings) or you get a job and have your employer pay for it via tuition reimbursement. If you go the former route, you get an additional two years to defer student loans, additional savings, project experience that looks good to employers, and a higher starting salary. If you go the latter route, you get that 2 years of salary. Either way, it doesn't cost you a penny to get a Master's degree.
My comment is in the context of whether a Masters gets you any closer to a job in your field or more pay. If you want to teach or do something highly specialized, that's another topic.
I graduated with a BS in Computer Science, Summa cum Laude. The only thing that degree did for me in terms of real practical programming, was in terms of all the coding jobs I did to pay for it, and the experience I could write down from those jobs on my resume.
My current job is with a Fortune 20 defense contractor. They didn't ever even ask to see proof of my degree and GPA that I put on my resume. They did call all my previous employers however.
I can't image how two-three more years of theoretical, non-practical schooling is going to beat out two-three years of practical experience in the field when it comes to hiring. In the meantime, you were making money instead of paying money, and you were clocking more years of experience towards those high-paying jobs asking for 5-10 years of experience.
No.
In the energy industry where I work a masters is the current optimal entry point for maximum career salary. PhDs dont go into management as much.
I was a developer from the dot com era that did not have a degree. After a year of not getting any descent offers in 2001 because of a lack of degree, I enrolled in a well known regional university at night for my BA in General Business. When I completed that I enrolled into another well known regional school for my MBA, and then the financial crisis happened so I decided to do a dual MBA/Masters in Finance, what the hell, a techie needs to know how to invest money right? Both completed at night mind you.
Fortunately the company I was working for paid for most of that dual masters effort and I have decided to earn an MS in Computer Science from an elite school, I prefer not to say which one but Carl Sagan said it was his favorite.
I say it matters where you went to school and as well as what you studied because the courses I am taking now are among the most difficult I have ever taken in my life, not so much because of the material but because of the teaching style. But if I ever get into a position where I can hire people again ::crosses fingers:: I would give someone without a degree a chance if they showed drive, aptitude and were willing to take classes at night as a way of giving back to the handful of managers that gave me a shot even though I did not have a degree.
The person matters as much as the piece of paper.
I have no idea, what does Wikipedia say?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd like to know how many of these masters degrees are in education. Most teacher union contracts increase pay based on degrees held, and require continuing education. This means most teachers end up with masters degrees by default. And they get their masters degrees wherever it's easiest to get them, since unlike the private sector, the union contract doesn't pay more for a masters degree from a quality institution (as measured by employer experience with the capabilities of students who graduate from such an institution.)
Of course, those masters degrees don't do crap to improve the quality of education received by students, but they do a great job of keeping Universities open to award masters degrees.
paintball
So there maybe 600000 new M degrees granted, but I figured 0.1% are Physics or Math.
is the problem with the USA...your broke.
Reform the PhD SYSTEM.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/04/26/0129201/Reform-the-PhD-System-or-Close-It-Down
as alot of that has little to do with stuff out side of the world the academia.
a 2-3 year vocational education system will go a long to way to clearing up all the push to of people who don't belong in a BS, BA, MS, and PHD program.
Germany has a good dual system to basic things on.
[From The Big Bang Theory]
[Prof. Gablehauser enters the office.]
Gablehauser: Hello, boys.
Raj: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Dr. Koothrappali.
Leonard: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Dr. Hofstadter.
Sheldon: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Dr. Cooper.
Howard: Dr. Gablehauser.
Gablehauser: Mr. Wolowitz
Gablehauser: [talking about Koothrappali's picture in People magazine] And this boy's picture in People magazine is gonna raise us a pile of money taller thanwell, taller than you. [pats Howard on the head]
Howard: I have a Master's Degree.
Gablehauser: [Dismissive] Who doesn't?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE
after all, it is Starbucks, not Stardimes.
jr
I refuse to get any sort of college degree because all you're doing is paying tons of money for a piece of paper that says, "congratulations, you can memorize things and are now on par with any fucking person in the world with real intelligence that uses reference materials".
Since half of the grades given by American universities are now A, the MA/MS is as meaningless as BA/BS.
The Left has corrupted every last American center of excellence.
Your comments are spot on. I get annual calls from the school fund drive program asking me to donate. My stated excuse for not donating is that I'm still paying off my college loans which is true.
But frankly, I just see how they spend the money and think what a waste. New athletic facilities (new stadium, gym, tennis courts, etc), new alumni center and all these other items that have nothing to do with the student body. They never spend the money on scholarships, reducing the cost of books or even on high-end laboratories, engineering facilities or research materials. It just goes to the "public" facing items. Just a waste.
We would not be having this discussion if things were booming. Back in 2000, you could get a job if you could spell HTML. The reason M is the B is that degrees for many/most jobs serves as a WAY TO CUT DOWN THE PILE FOR HR. Nothing more, nothing less.
In general, bachelor's degree's are now the base certification for getting employed. And I think this was inevitable when we decided that we should send everyone to college. It was a sure thing that a bachelors would be cheapened that way. A bachelors is the new high school diploma, and high school diplomas are now worthless outside of being just another requirement for entry into college.
What's funny is that skilled blue collar workers... plumbers, air conditioning repairmen, construction equipment operators, etc... are making more money than the average office drone with a bachelors. Not only are they making more money, they skipped the whole college debt pitfall, so their real purchasing power is even greater than the immediate income disparity.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Unfortunately, he probably IS a high school graduate. More evidence why a bachelor's isn't worth a damn.
mod me funny
requiring 4-8 years of advanced study at a huge cost to simply enter the mainstream of our society is cultural suicide. setting aside the facts that the schools are crap, why do we even toy with this idea? I dont have a college degree at all, and if i had to have one to get by, i wouldnt. we no longer have meaningful trade schools or apprenticeship programs, unions are gone, and the corporate owners and monied classes are making sure they are the only ones who can win. even doctors struggle now. If you want a masters degree to be a ticket to full citizenship, it has to be free. including rent and food. but why bother even talking about it, its too horrible to contemplate any more.
Just because a bunch of people got laid off and decided to go "back to school" so there wouldn't be a hole in their resume doesn't make them smarter than me.
- Anonymous (but employed) Coward
As somebody who was raised to believe the world was a meritocracy, and who dropped out of their own successful local computer business to be in college during the dot-com bubble, then facing no job-finding assistance upon graduation and the domination of things like the Geek Squad, then the rise of SMS killing the market for on-site support, I hope like hell this isn't a degree escalation. I'm 2400 miles away from home, both adoptive parents dead, just turned 30, work in field deployment for servers and the like, and consider myself damn lucky to even have a seasonal (Happy Thanksgiving, have a pink slip until April next year) hourly job, much less have a paid off (15 year old) car, an apartment I can afford, no credit card debt, no college loans, and no tax burden. No savings, no margin for error, the health care thing is going to destroy any extra money and then some.
The last thing I need is to be passed over for some cable-jockey noob with a masters in EE, or lose precious years of field experience and put myself in life-long debt for another useless bit of paper.
As jobs have become scarcer and the applicant-per-opening ratio kicks up, companies have gone to using the master's to filter out applicants. IMO, this is a waste of 2 years of the student's life and a lot of money, but it may be a cost that students have to pay to be considered for a job nowadays. Unfortunately, I suspect that even if the downturn ends, the inflated educational requirements will remain.
I rarely do. I'd say a Bachelor's is the new High School.
The number of master's degrees may have doubled but the population from 1980 to 2011 has increased by 85 million people, many of them came in on H-1B visas and end up staying.
... Worthless and meaningless.
++//--
Writing software (GNU) != Selling software (Microsoft)
I think MBA is useful in connecting and selling to customers in globalized economy.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
You are interviewing candidates for engineering positions, while phds typically seek research careers. The talented phds are off being professors, research scientists, working in national/corporate labs, directing R&D, etc. It's the bottom of the barrel essentially that end up with you, competing for non-research jobs against non-phd candidates.
It's not that getting a phd makes you dumber, a bewildering suggestion you make, it's that the only phds that you encounter in your domain are the bad ones.
Sorry to ruin your worldview, but good phds are indeed brilliant, borderline genius if not fully so. From the sound of it, they are out of your league. And they have no reason to be around you. They would easily put a 10-15 year experienced engineer to shame in a matter of months or weeks, if they were so inclined. Fortunately for most engineers, they don't take pleasure in taking candies from babies.
Food for thought: find out who *invented* (i.e. not "use") transistors, the internet, linux, encryption, C, C++, Java, computing in general etc etc etc (hint: not run of the mill engineers). Phds:engineers::engineers:end users.
Parent is correct that requiring higher and higher degrees for the same jobs is merely a screening method. The thing is--for many occupations, it wasn't always this way.
It relates to the Supreme Court decision Griggs vs. Duke Power Company, and to over-reaching anti-discrimination laws present in the US that effectively prevent private employers from doing their own skills testing of applicants.
You can read one article explaining it here-
http://www.popecenter.org/news/article.html?id=1749
Here in the D.C. area there's a plethora of diploma-mill "universities"....most "degree-programs" are a collection of simple courses that don't really have anything to do with what has usually been thought of as a college experience. Of course, there's a scramble to get "degrees" from these places as a way to get promoted...and most companies (as well as the Government) tout tuition reimbursement/assisitance as a great benefit......
The value of the Masters is the fact that after getting the first degree they went back to more... And a lot of those people who didn't decide to invest in their undergrad didn't come back, leaving Master students more people who wanted to invest in their education, vs. just getting the paper.
It isn't as much the school, but the culture of education, where actually wanting to learn stuff vs. just passing the class is discouraged.
Ah, but you see, once the value of extraordinary is recognized, it becomes the norm and then "just passing the class" encroaches onto it too.
Eventually, no academic degree will remain a mark of a genuine knowledge seeker and vice versa, no diploma will be trusted. Some more cunning way of selection is in order - covert psychological testing, knowledge honeypots, etc. However, each and every method of discrimination will get cracked and eligibility simulated, given enough time and motivation.
Sometimes I think that perhaps every really important job in the world should be payed miserably, so that it would be assured that only individuals with strong internal motives and love and passion for it would actually seek it, even against the obstacles. If we express our gratitude (which should be in fact immeasurably high) in any form of power (money, influence), we are inviting wrong kind of people and we will regret it dearly.
I'll have the 7-8 years of relevant experience in the industry as well as a Masters degree in a relevant field, without having to have the year or two out of the workforce to upskill and reeducate.
For me, as I took slightly longer to graduate from University, this route is necessary to achieve my life and career goals..
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
and certs trun out paper mcse's colleges trun out theory loaded people that are better set for coding then other IT work so that is what needs to be fixed to make the trade schools better and have real non lab apprentices.
LOL@people still trying to get degrees and thinking they matter. Wake up sheeple. Your ideas and bodily energy are all that will save you.
I have never seen so many people outraged at getting a Master's Degree. I am in an engineering field. It is difficult enough to get both depth and breadth of knowledge as an undergrad. Despite having worked for a year after graduation (and 22 hours a week part-time while in school [5 classes]), I have decided to go back simply because I learn better in a focused environment, and I do not want to be screwing over my employer by having commitments to both school and work. It's not a money maker considering the amount of assistantships that exist for graduate engineers. Further, engineers may not have a required apprenticeship period, but if you want a job in industry, you're working every summer for different companies and putting your name out there, AND many schools have required co-op semesters. Not to mention, most engineering schools these days have at least a seminar class to prepare engineers for the work place (taught by a professor of the practice). I have gotten a LOT out of my undergraduate courses, from learning to program, circuit theory, professionalism in the workforce, etc, and I felt like there was so much more to learn after I graduated that I certainly don't get from sitting behind my desk plugging through entry-level engineering work. I don't see this as a bad thing.
The way the most voted up commenters sound saying recent undergrads and Master's students have no clue about industry makes them sound like either the old, disillusioned industry guys that have no idea what modern education entails, or someone that didn't find college right for them. While I do agree that it's a result of the economy problems that kids are heading for these higher degrees, I really do not see it as a bad thing to have people that were willing to put the time in for a Master's degree and further their knowledge in a technology-related field.
Not to mention, that piece of paper does say to employers that the person put the time in, performed research, wrote a thesis, etc. Will they be your managers right away? No, everyone should start at the entry level. But don't be hating because the youngins look more attractive for promotions now than your BS from 30 years ago.