Of all the answers here, this is the one I resonate with the most. There is a tremendous diversity in skill levels of students entering a Bachelor's program, fr

Of all the answers here, this is the one I resonate with the most. There is a tremendous diversity in skill levels of students entering a Bachelor's program, from borderline illiterate to exceptionally equipped. And say what you will about whether or not a college degree is "important", everyone I've ever met[1] who has one has some key skills that not everyone has; the ability to work on a project over time, some ability to research a question, and the ability to work on "uninteresting" things to get to the "interesting" things. Getting a masters degree is about processing information, organizing it into something you can use, and then demonstrating your skill at that by applying to to a problem of your choosing. These programs can "assume" you've got the basic skills already and work from there. [1] And being a nerd is biased toward BS degrees rather than BA degrees but the trend seems consistent to me.