18 ms·

Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

• CraftingLinks 5y ago
  In the US.
  • disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Sure, but personally I would argue that it almost always makes more financial sense to do a combined Masters-PhD (i.e. a research degree), especially in fields with plentiful funding. That was the case for me in Ireland when I did my doctorate.
    • sgregnt 5y ago
      Can you share which fields are these?
      • disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        Definitely not psychology, which is what my doctorate's in. Generally, more hard-sciencey type fields tend to have better funding (physics, engineering that sort of thing). They also have less PhD students, because there are more opportunities in industry so less competition for places. It seems like CS is one of those disciplines also, tbh.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • unishark 5y ago
      In engineering a MS pays best, at least historically. Lately PhD's are becoming very common and much more product-oriented I'd say (as opposed to long-term high-risk research). So may be a better ticket to the upper ranks of technical tracks at large tech companies.
      • disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        Historically, with professional degrees you are totally correct. I think that's more because there's a professional organisation ensuring that people get rewarded for better qualifications. I mean, PhD's are great if you want to learn how to structure and finish a long-term project, and learn how to research. I definitely don't regret mine, but I remember looking the the cost structure of masters vs PhD's and concluding that masters were for suckers as you could always just finish a PhD in 18 months with a research masters.
  • Waterluvian 5y ago
    Was gonna say. My Master’s program paid for itself by the time I graduated and absolutely helped land me my dream job which turned into a dream career.
• deleted 5y ago
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• ta2021JULY 5y ago
  I can only speak from myself (Economics, in Portugal). In employability terms, my master's degree was not a good investment, and these degrees are cheap here compared to the US (I payed 5k for two years). I do however feel I developed plenty of resillience due to the amount of studying I had to do, a real understanding of what academic life is like by doing my thesis (we are not very exposed to papers in the undergrad), and most importantly, a strong and useful framework and intuition for thinking about the world - but I think that might just be a combination of my degree and innate inclinations.
  • tomrod 5y ago
    Don't forget to factor in the opportunity cost of 2 years of lost wages!
    • ta2021JULY 5y ago
      "Fortunately" wages in Portugal are low, so the associated opportunity cost is not that high :)
• tester756 5y ago
  Will Master's allow me to obtain US visa / get job in US & relocate easier? or the diff between bachelor/engineering degree is barely significant
  • zubiaur 5y ago
    It does. One goes through a separate, advanced degree, pool for the h1b lottery. If one is not selected on that pool, then one enters the regular one. Also, a STEM masters allows one to do three years of OPT, which is basically a work permit. A masters was a great choice for me. I did my engineering undergrad abroad, got a very good education for not much money. Doing a masters in the US allowed me to specialize and enter the US market. Comparatively, the price of a technical masters in the US was on part with that of an MBA on my country of origin. After crunching the numbers, it was an easy decision. I am happy with the education I got, and the opportunities it opened for me.
    • tester756 5y ago
      Thank you for explanation
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• tomrod 5y ago
  I got my PhD in a field where you nonchalantly get a masters along the way (because masters degrees have an in-field glass ceiling). A terminal masters program was started by my program while I was in attendance. If you needed the education, it was billed as a professional degree and I think is put to good use. But if you had an undergraduate degree in the field and were not pursuing a PhD then it was just window dressing.
  • Robotbeat 5y ago
    Are you in physics?
    • tomrod 5y ago
      Economics.
      • pram 5y ago
        Haha I knew you were talking about Econ when I read the post. It seemed pretty clear it was PhD or gtfo when I did Econ undergrad. Masters seems like an actual scam.
        • ghaff 5y ago
          Economics is one of the undergrad degrees that is often sort of generic--i.e. you don't really work in the field with just a BA/BS. And you need a PhD to actually be an economist so a Masters probably doesn't buy you much. (Not 100% true of course, but close enough.)
          • tomrod 5y ago
            There are a few industries I'd consider as targets for economics. Management consulting and litigation consulting are top in those.
            • ghaff 5y ago
• rvz 5y ago
  I guess they are paying $300k for the connections and access to the elites who go to these universities but whats the point of paying if the 'elite university experience' is not only virtual, but anyone can go and get a MS degree online for cheap access? (Obviously for some courses) Still the pandemic has made it glaringly obvious that depending on the course you study, in this case, history, media, drama and film studies, a Masters Degree in either of those fields is a complete scam if the probabilities in getting a high earning job is that small as I have said before. [0] As for a PhD in especially in either of those fields. Well... Just don't take my word for it and just look at the responses right here and you can make your own decision to see if it is worth it. [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27620695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27620695 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27580605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27580605
  • xenihn 5y ago
    >I guess they are paying $300k for the connections and access to the elites who go to these universities Can you expand on what you mean by "access to elites"
    • rvz 5y ago
      Let's just say it's not about what you know, but it is about who you know. This applies better at the top universities in the world. Why not ask Paul Graham (pg) and Patrick Collison (pc)? Maybe you can ask Peter Thiel and the Thiel fellowship recipients?
  • ghaff 5y ago
    In the case of J-School, mentioned in the article, even back when journalism was not such a beleaguered profession, a lot of people were pretty skeptical that it was a better option than, you know, being a journalist. I know a lot of working journalists and very few of them went to J-School. (Many worked on undergrad newspapers and some colleges have undergrad elective classes.)
• wirthjason 5y ago
  One of the key issues I see is that we don’t place a high enough value on adult education. A philosophy professor of mine told me the word “andragogy”, which is the theory of adult education. It’s different from “pedagogy” which means the education of children. I always thought that learning is learning. It never occurred to me that there’s a difference between how and why children learn and that it could be different from adults. As an adult, who considers myself a life long learner, I see the differences. The education system hasn’t adapted to adult learning. Most masters classes are simply just repackaged versions of undergraduate classes, maybe with a little more depth. The schedules haven’t changed either. As the article points out almost all the bad practices are online classes. It’s hard for adults to juggle family, kids, and work while being a student. People feel it’s necessary to further their schooling but don’t have many options. They can’t just take off two days of the week to attend a class. Few schools offer nights and weekend classes. Online becomes the only option. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andragogy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andragogy
  • lordnacho 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_high_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_high_school In Denmark and some neighboring countries there's this concept of a school you can go to just to learn stuff later in life, as an ongoing thing. There's a whole bunch of themes (sports, history, etc), and often you can book yourself in for whatever amount of time makes sense for you.
    • amelius 5y ago
      Do you get an academic degree?
      • potato_juice 5y ago
        Generally no
        • agumonkey 5y ago
          Is that recognized socially ? As in opening a business after passes these classes.
• fallingknife 5y ago
  When are we going to learn that encouraging everyone to get more education is a waste of resources? All it leads to is lowered standards and devalued degrees. Your credential is only worth something because someone else doesn't have it.
  • jonnycomputer 5y ago
    One would hope that one's salary would depend on one's expected productivity, which an education should increase. Lowered standards and devalued degrees is probably a thing though.
    • zsmi 5y ago
      I would say this depends strongly on the field. In the field I'm most experienced in, electrical engineering, I tell people considering a Master's is that it's a possible short cut to the pay of someone with 3 years of experience. So if you can get it fast enough, and the math works out, then do it. Otherwise skip it.
  • ajuc 5y ago
    > Your credential is only worth something because someone else doesn't have it. That would be true only if all the jobs requiring these credentials were already filled and none were to be created in the future.
  • BurningFrog 5y ago
    One way to think of this is that the "ruling class", for lack of a better term, in the US is college educated professionals. To them, "college is good" is an unquestionable truth, and the systems they build will always give more resources to colleges.
    • deleted 5y ago
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  • CydeWeys 5y ago
    > Your credential is only worth something because someone else doesn't have it. This is an unbelievably cynical take on the world. Society and the economy are not zero-sum, and having better education and better skills make someone better off without taking away an equal amount of opportunity from others.
• MikeDelta 5y ago
  In Europe a Master's degree is a necessity for the (better) starter jobs in industry, but usually in the more common (traditional) fields like economics, law, engineering, or science.
  • chrisseaton 5y ago
    But in these cases aren't undergraduate degrees normally three years, and a master's degree one? So that's four years total, which is what Americans do anyway. An American undergraduate plus masters is six years, which is absolutely insane. Let alone their PhDs, which mean you could easily end up 29 before you graduate. I had a friend in Europe who finished their PhD with top-tier publications in two years - much less mucking around than in the US.
    • docdeek 5y ago
      Europe is generally 3 for Bachelors + 2 for Masters.
      • ajuc 5y ago
        And in some countries it's more common to do 5 years straight to Masters (for example it was the system in Poland when I graduated but it became more popular to do 3+2 since then). At any rate - I wouldn't say it's a scam in countries with free university education. It's actually cheap to teach people and it improves the society. Win-win. University system in US is a scam for the same reason that healthcare system in US is a scam - because it has bad incentives and no taxpayers control over them.
        • vladvasiliu 5y ago
          > for example it was the system in Poland when I graduated but it became more popular to do 3+2 since then In France, there is the "3+2" system, but that's just on paper. Basically, there are two types of bachelor's: a practical one that's supposed to be the last in line, and another, more "theoretical" one that's supposed to be followed with a Master's. Students have to choose between the two fairly early, so if your goal is a Master's, you'll take the bachelor that's supposed to be followed by the Master. You do get a piece of paper at the three-year mark saying you've got a Bachelor's, but that's unusable if you want to get a job (as in no-one will hire you). You technically can go to a Master's after the practical one, but there are extra steps, and it's not as easy.
• lordnacho 5y ago
  The base problem is the idea that a given academic degree gives you access to some career. It's messy, because clearly some do work that way. With the film degree it should have been clear that there's only so many relevant jobs going each year, and thus your chance as a graduate is going to be minimal. It would certainly be in everyone's interest to have transparency about the destinations. Master's degrees are also often the kind of thing people do if they did an unspecifically directed undergrad (eg English, History) and then want to get their door in somewhere (eg law conversion), so it's important that people understand what they're buying. If you look at most things though, there's no connection between what you do at work and what you studied. At best studying some subject means you are interested in some broad area, and you are conscientious enough to have done all the exercises, so employers should perhaps hire you in the hope that you can learn how the online advertising industry works, or how the plastic supply chain works, etc. Looking back at my degree, it was really a bunch of indexing interesting things in science and math for potential further investigation. And then an exercise in flaneuring: wandering about, coming upon something interesting, and then being able to focus on figuring out that thing as opportunities arise.
  • ghaff 5y ago
    Film is actually interesting because I think you'll find that many of the most respected directors, editors, cinematographers, etc. in Hollywood didn't go to film school.
• xor99 5y ago
  This is why I prefer PhD or research degrees to Masters as the "curriculum" is more modular (i.e. I can quickly change my focus if something wasn't working out or learn new things without needing permission). US/Europe govt should pay people to do research degrees for 12-15 months with some screening as to ability. Run it like a library and/or makespace and remove bloated universities out of the equation. This plus some sort of machine rental or access service (e.g. pay per use) for scientific/fab equipment and open methods for peer review publication would revolutionise adult education in the sciences and engineering.
• rockclimber 5y ago
  Going to a university is a waste of time. I know a few software contractors making £100k+ in the UK and they don't have any formal education.
• deleted 5y ago
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• jonnycomputer 5y ago
  I had a friend who was wanting to get a master's degree in poetry, and it cost about 45k a year, back in early 2000s. I strongly advised against it, my friend did not take well to my advice. Hope it all turned out well. I have no problem with people getting degrees in the arts. My spouse has a Master's in fine arts, from a university in Europe. But she didn't acquire any debt from that degree, while I did in the US with my CS Master's. But living with enormous debt--debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy (in the US)--is such a burden, and the degree itself may really not offer that much in terms of job prospects (though we shouldn't discount the value of humanities degrees--turns out they often do pretty well in life). It is hard to see why a poetry program should cost so much.
  • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    That said about federal student loans, it is a low interest unsecured type of debt. At a bank an unsecured loan is at least 11-16% depending on the amount. So if you as a student do have some of that debt leftover, it is much smarter to use that toward a car down payment or a deposit on an apartment. I feel like most college kids don't have even the slightest grasp on budgeting and how all transactions affect the accounting equation honestly.
    • deleted 5y ago
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  • tonfreed 5y ago
    I think the debt problem is one of a predatory nature. I love music and history, but I came from a family that pretty much only got by because of welfare. I didn't have the time or money to waste getting a degree in something that had zero job prospects after school. You show a $50k a year degree to an 18 year old from a more middle to upper middle class family, though, and they're not going to understand how much money that actually is. They're going to see one big party that they don't need to pay for until they're done. I also remember when I was in high school, all the boomer teachers and parents were saying university is a gateway to easy money after. We were sold something that hasn't held true, and I think a lot of people are very bitter about that.
• caseysoftware 5y ago
  FTA: > For colleges and universities, master’s degrees have essentially become an enormous moneymaking scheme, wherein the line between for-profit and nonprofit education has been utterly blurred. There are, of course, good programs as well as bad ones, but when you scope out, there is clearly a systemic problem. Cool. Now do the higher education system as a whole.
• wffurr 5y ago
  My masters degree in Computer Science was incredibly educating and opened many career doors for me. It filled in a lot of gaps that my undergraduate education left, and significantly raised my profile amongst recruiters. CS might be the exception to the rule about Masters degrees though.
  • lordnacho 5y ago
    CS is pretty special: - It's not a legally qualifying degree like studying medicine - It's academic in the sense that you can use it to gain entrance to a phd, and has academic content that isn't just "how to code". - And yet you learn a fair bit about how to code. You'll in all likelihood come across actual tools, not toys, that real coders use, eg Git. You might also do some specialist stuff that is directly applicable to an employer, rather than just demonstrating interest. Eg if you do a systems programming course, you might actually understand systems in a way that's useful from the start.
  • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    I've read universally it's very hit or miss unless you specialize in some specific field.
  • ghaff 5y ago
    It's probably generally true of engineering degrees. While there's obviously an opportunity cost, there's usually not a big out of pocket expense other than living expenses. In my case, it wasn't so much that I really used a lot of specific things I learned getting the Master's but I still think it was a useful supplement to what I learned undergrad--the thesis in particular. The same applies to some degree of the sciences in general but, there, you probably have to get to a PhD for the opportunities to be significantly elevated relative to a BS. In any case, this meme about Master's degree scams is mostly directed at high-cost degrees in journalism and the like where the career opportunities aren't great with or without the degree.
  • depressedpanda 5y ago
    Conversely, I don't even have a bachelor's degree in CS, and I haven't suffered at all because of it. I got a job offer before graduating, and decided my time was better spent earning money than learning stuff I would probably never have any use for. Rather than focusing on degrees, I think it's a lot more important to focus on learning, however you don't know what's important to learn until you actually start working on real problems.
• muststopmyths 5y ago
  it's been a long, long time for me, but graduate school (for Master's) was where I actually learnt a lot. I was too swamped under a load of undergraduate coursework to deeply absorb anything. Lighter coursework and deeper dives into subjects were so much better for my brain during my Master's. It might have helped that I was too young and stupid to have any well-considered career goals and enjoyed learning for the sake of it. This was engineering/CS though, and the article seems to be about MFAs.
  • laurent92 5y ago
    I went to a top-tier IT engineering school in France. Despite programming (in GWBasic) since 7 years old, the IT school didn’t transform me into a good developer. In fact most of my colleagues became managers. It’s only 4 years AFTER school that I landed in a famous startup, where I learnt to recompile open-source and use Maven properly and understand the underlying concepts, what to study, what to look into. And immediately, I created my startup which is now successful. This whole beginning of career / engineering school has been a terrible waste of youth energy, along with stressing me out because I knew something wasn’t right, and making me intensely depressed. I’m enraged that studying is so hard, and yet, you’re left with absolutely no time to program on your own and discover the scroll of truth.
• ldiracdelta 5y ago
  The two factors are: Credentialism the worship of credentials throughout many industries when other cheaper metrics are available, but may be illegal (like testing for IQ in USA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism_and_educational_inflation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism_and_educational_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. and inability to declare bankruptcy so as to include student loans. Bankruptcy says that the _lender_ has responsibility to not enslave people with debt -- or rather the _lender_ may only enslave a borrower for a limited amount of time, after which it is ultimately the lenders problem that they gave that person too much money and that they should have known that the borrower would have never been able to repay. Debt is a useful tool, but the ability to enslave people with debt should be limited by the law.
  • sombremesa 5y ago
    If testing for IQ works for your purposes, then why not use GMAT, GRE, SAT scores? I’m not sure any of this helps, though, since it would only prove you’re good at the test.
    • yCombLinks 5y ago
      Standardized tests are highly predictive of IQ. https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/what-do-sat-and-iq-tests-measure-general-intelligence-predicts-school-and-life-success.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/what-do-sat-and-iq-test... Here's a layman read. Here's a little more depth : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/
      • parsecs 5y ago
        Just wondering, as someone currently preparing for SAT - why is it so easy to drastically improve one's performance on standardized tests if they predict IQ? My score was pretty mediocre (due to a year of slacking off during COVID) but after some practice I improved it significantly - does that mean my IQ is greatly increasing as well? I know of some very, very clever people who do not perform well, and the opposite too.
• deregulateMed 5y ago
  I can't agree. My masters degree inspired my first entrepreneurship, not to mention over half of the cost was paid by my company. I also took a marketing class that changed my life. If you buy products from Nintendo, Apple, or Jeep, a marketing class will make you disgusted/woke.
• emilfihlman 5y ago
  Bachelor degrees are the scam in higher education. It should be only masters.
  • lumost 5y ago
    Why?
    • emilfihlman 5y ago
      Because bachelors don't know shit, and you don't need a degree to do bachelor stuff. Ie you need to gauge people based on their skill not their degree for bachelor level stuff anyways so instead of some mid degree that's useless we should get rid of it and push people to actually complete something useful, like a master's degree.
• k__ 5y ago
  I had the impression, it's what you make of it. I learned new interesting things, but I could also have boring stuff I would never use anywhere later.
• chmod600 5y ago
  "We can’t just rely on the market to provide all of the quality discipline that master’s programs need." It seems like if the federal government stopped lending for master's degrees, and allowed students to file for bankruptcy to get out of private loans, then the market might very well sort everything out.
  • hallway_monitor 5y ago
    Yes, having government involved always creates inflation. It's no coincidence that the two areas with most government involvement, education and health care, are the things that have outpaced every other measure of inflation significantly.
    • bonzini 5y ago
      Of course in both cases this is only true in the US.
      • tonfreed 5y ago
        My 4 year bachelor's degree in Australia still cost me $60000. I'm still not convinced it was worth it
        • GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
          I was surprised to hear this, I had thought it was about 30k Found a per-year table, appears to depend on what degree topic https://student.unsw.edu.au/fees-student-contribution-rates https://student.unsw.edu.au/fees-student-contribution-rates A 4year engineering degree (likely what the HN crowd is interested in) is about A$32k / US$24k Whereas law/commerce/medicine is A$60k
        • devenson 5y ago
          plus lost wages for four years.
    • chiefalchemist 5y ago
• DontWalkRun 5y ago
  Post Secondary Institutions have put undergraduate education on the back burner. It's all about graduate degrees now. More money, grants, and cheap student labour.
• nazrulmum10 5y ago
  Is it really?
• jeroenhd 5y ago
  I can't comment on the American education system (which this article is about) but here and in other parts of Europe, the bachelors vs masters distinction is a quite recent addition (30-40 years ago, I think?) Before then, higher education took at least five, maybe six years versus the 4+2 or 3+2 system that has replaced it. An artifical split was added after three or four years (depending on the level of education) to align with the foreign bachelor/master system and make our degrees easier to use in foreign countries. Nowadays, people consider the bachelor enough of an education to join the workforce. And power to them, if they can get their jobs done with only their bachelors', they have no need for more education. However, it does imply that less knowledge has been transferred to those students than to the students who followed the old system. The vocational education has also shaped itself more to that form, at least here, which is detrimental for the quality of education those people receive.
• eralps 5y ago
  I've yet to see a useful master's degree. Especially in the US and in STEM it seems like master's has just been a gate to the next thing. I have a master's and one of the biggest reasons behind my education was the opportunity in the US after the master's. Sole benefit of it has been the OPT (~3 years work visa). I learned small things here and there during my education but as an SWE I don't use them at all and I forgot the rest of my classes. I wrote a thesis but it was nowhere near a PhD level research. Additionally higher entry level areas such as ML and AI often require PhD so getting a master's is not getting your foot in the door.
  • genewitch 5y ago
    Master's Degree in Social Work is required for licensing in the US (LCSW). To teach at a community college it's generally required to have a Master's degree as well. "useful" is in the eye of the beholder. I would expect a company hiring manager to put a candidate with a Master's degree higher on the pile than those with high school or Bachelor's degrees, too.
    • lumost 5y ago
      It’s a bit of a mixed bag. If the degree becomes meaningless than the hiring manager may apply skepticism to why someone would need that degree.
• mastrsushi 5y ago
  Many students fail to look into prospects and hopelessly enroll in post-grad thinking they’re entitled to them. Do your homework when you choose to sign up for a degree, stop playing victim.
• thrower123 5y ago
  The biggest cheapening of Master's degrees is in education, where many school districts provide reimbursement and fairly significant pay raises for teachers who get masters. Which has led to a large number of garbage paint-by-number programs to service that demand. My mother got one while I was in high school, from a well respected regional university, and the level of the coursework was laughable.
  • viburnum 5y ago
    A university near me gave ed master’s credit for playing golf. Not even in a class, you just play golf and send in your score.
• murderfs 5y ago
  The article doesn't mention one of the biggest draws: having a masters degree from an accredited U.S. institution improves your chances at getting an H-1B visa.
  • quantumofalpha 5y ago
    You meant STEM OPT? H1B masters pool only marginally improves H1B lottery chances, which are far too low today to begin with.
    • murderfs 5y ago
      My understanding is that the masters pool is a rather significant improvement in your chances: some Googling finds a random source that claims your chances are 60% higher: https://www.waylit.com/post/what-are-my-chances-of-h1b-lottery-selection-in-2021-cap-year-2022 https://www.waylit.com/post/what-are-my-chances-of-h1b-lotte...
      • quantumofalpha 5y ago
        Whereas OPT not being lottery-based is 100%, no? And more importantly, you can pretty much go work wherever you want with it, every tech firm is ok with it, but relatively few bother with H1B today for overseas candidates.
• arpinum 5y ago
  At at top 10 school in the UK: masters and even doctorates are being essentially sold to foreign students. The standards are incredibly low (students getting degrees without functional use of English), but the revenue to the university is essential. There is a business risk if schools try to maintain standards (students have paid for degrees, not learning), but the cumulative effect is that I completely ignore graduate degrees when hiring.
  • BlissWaves 5y ago
    In engineering?
    • arpinum 5y ago
      Business school
  • markus_zhang 5y ago
    This reminds me an episode of Yes Minister but I didn't expect it to go down that fast. Is it the same for STEM as well?
    • arpinum 5y ago
      I don’t know about the STEM fields, this is from the business school, which is a cash cow funding other programmes.
• kaiwen1 5y ago
  I wonder if this scam also applies to executive MBA programs? For example, the Kellogg-HKSTU program cost US$220,000 for about 18 long weekends of on-site classroom time. This is exorbitant, but the Financial Times has ranked the program as the best EMBA program in the world 10 times, primarily due to the large increase in salary after graduation, up 67% to $528,057 in 2020. [1]. In fact, the reported salary increases on all of the top EMBA programs imply that these programs are legitimately worth their costs. They're priced like scams, but (if accurate) the salary increases suggest they aren't. I wonder if there are any master's programs that outperform the best EMBAs in terms of salary increase? [0] https://emba.hkust.edu.hk https://emba.hkust.edu.hk [1] https://rankings.ft.com/home/masters-in-business-administration https://rankings.ft.com/home/masters-in-business-administrat... [1]
  • ghaff 5y ago
    Typically, in my experience, companies are paying for these. In my experience from decades ago, these sort of programs were oriented towards e.g. people who had come up through the engineering ranks, didn't have an MBA, and were being groomed for more senior management. Of course, that was from a time when MBAs were probably more of a requirement even in tech for senior exec roles than they are today. These programs obviously still exist but I'm not personally aware of anyone who has gone to one any time recently.
  • tyingq 5y ago
    Is it maybe a self powered thing where companies are reimbursing tuition for specific hand selected people they intend to promote?
  • adamdusty 5y ago
    One of the admission requirements is that your company sponsors you as outstanding with potential within the organization. Another requirement is that you are already or will soon be an executive. This makes me assume the salary increase is due to the fact that they only accept people that are positioned to get big salary increases. Also the fees page suggests that it costs at minimum, 550k, and if I'm reading it correctly, 1.5m. https://emba.hkust.edu.hk/admissions/fees/ https://emba.hkust.edu.hk/admissions/fees/
• deleted 5y ago
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• andi999 5y ago
  Coming up next: luxury watches biggest scam in retail. (they serve the same function as an ivy league degree: signaling status)
  • markus_zhang 5y ago
    And diamonds. I wonder if you can rent those watches for the big events.
• alanfranz 5y ago
  Recent OMSCS graduate here, and I was already working as a software engineer. I learned a lot, I'm very happy with the experience, the price is totally reasonable (around $7k) and it's a kind of education which suits and is oriented to adults. I totally recommend the program. But, I totally understand the issue with a $50k Master's.
  • mbil 5y ago
    +1 for OMSCS. I’m about to start my final class of the program. The low relative cost and scheduling flexibility made it attractive. I don’t feel as though I’ve been scammed. I was exposed to a lot of computing topics I wouldn’t have been able to explore as easily and with as much depth or rigor elsewhere.
  • hedgehawk 5y ago
    Would you recommend OMSCS for someone trying to switch into tech but has some only some CS coursework in undergrad (OOP, discrete, DS&A, an unrelated major like Biology) ?
    • rybosworld 5y ago
      It's one way to make the career switch but possibly not the best. As with most things, it depends on your circumstances. What OMSCS offers imo is: - an elite CS education - specialize in topics that interest you - very low cost (I'll have spent around $8k total by graudation) - the flexibility that naturally comes with an online-first education What it doesn't offer: - a starting point for someone with near zero cs-background (if this is you, it will be a hard program) - job/coop placement - networking is hard imo
      • hedgehawk 5y ago
        I feel like I have the necessary foundations of CS so I think it is a good starting point for me but the main goal is to maximize my time to get the necessary foundation in CS to do well at my job as well as open up my possibilities such that recruiters don't throw away my resume once they see "Biology with CS coursework". In terms of networking and job placement, I am thinking of applying to in-person masters programs (USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Cornell) but that would put be in some debt (40-50k). After reading this article, I am utterly lost.
• bastardoperator 5y ago
  1. You don't need a masters to apply to a doctorate program. 2. You're not making that much more than someone with a bachelors and 2/3 additional years of experience. I managed two people with a masters degree at a previous position and they weren't any better then the person I hired with a high school diploma. In fact I'd say the death metal guy with the HS diploma ran circles around them. Doesn't seem like a sound investment from my very limited perspective.
  • robomartin 5y ago
    What bothers me the most about US higher education is the sheer waste of time and money it can be. This is directly connected to how bad our secondary (say, middle to high school) education has become. In terms of secondary education, after a dozen years of schooling young adults are launched into the world with exactly zero marketable skills. Zero. What is the average US high school graduate good for? Stacking boxes and, after training, making coffee and a number of other low skill/knowledge jobs. This, from my perspective, is a travesty, a serious breach of the trust we place on a system of education that seems to have no ability to deliver real value for the money we spend. At the university level we easily add a year or two to degrees by adding what I call “degree-irrelevant” courses. An engineering degree should not have —as a graduation requirement— history, social science or non-technical classes. Please note I said “graduation requirement”. You should not need to pass a class on Middle Earth History and Poetry to obtain an Electrical Engineering degree. This is silly and it wastes a tremendous amount of time and money. Why do we have this? Well, our secondary education sucks, so we teach and re-teach that which should have been learned in high school. Worse than that, because the government is in the student loan business (and they are dumb as can be) the education “mafia” figured out how to fatten-up degrees to extract more money out of the system. A history class is inexpensive to teach, and yet it costs the same per credit than, say, a chemistry class that requires more infrastructure. Degrees are padded with crap no employer values at all. If you go to a university that costs, say, $30K to $50K per year, you likely have somewhere in the range of $30K to $80K in coursework loans that is utterly irrelevant to your degree. The other angle is that, without this coursework we would be able to graduate engineers about 25% faster than we do, which would be a competitive advantage. These graduates would start their professional lives with about 25% less debt. The lifetime benefits of this cannot be understated. The opportunity cost, for the person and prospective employer, of taking an additional year or more to graduate people with technical degrees is, in the aggregate, massive in scale. Someone might say: A well rounded education is important! Absolutely agreed! Just not as a graduation requirement that adds tens of thousands of dollars to the already abusive cost of education and, in most cases, over a year of time to obtaining a degree. This is where secondary education should shine. We should demand that young adults emerge from that system with both a well-rounded education and marketable skills. Society would benefit immensely if we were better at the business of education, from K through university. EDIT: As one of many personal examples. Many years ago I hired an EE out of Intel. He spent around five years there designing switching power supplies. That's what I hired him for. He worked for my company for several years doing exactly that, designing switching power supplies. The fact that his US degree required him to take a bunch of irrelevant courses added exactly zero value to what he could do for anyone who might hire him, myself included. This means this person wasted a year+ of his life in school taking courses nobody cares about (and nobody will pay him for). A year later I hired yet another EE to do the same work. His degree was from Europe. He had nearly zero non-STEM coursework. He performed just as well, and in some aspects better, than the US-graduated EE. I don't understand why we allow the education system to do things that are demonstrably detrimental from nearly every angle. If someone does want to study philosophy or history while obtaining a degree, no problem at all. It should be THEIR decision. And, if they think it might have future value to employers, they would get to highlight the fact that they took and passed such coursework. They could even opt to go for a minor in a certain area of study. Again, this should be the decision of the student and it should self-select based on the ultimate value assigned to such studies by society, not imposed upon every single student by a system with already ridiculous cost structures.
• markus_zhang 5y ago
  Unless hugely motivated, I would not considering getting a Master degree. Masters and Docs are mostly for research. There are course-based Masters and I consider them as a convenient solution to get around the unnecessary electives in Undergraduate studies. I recently transferred to a graduate diploma which serves the same purpose.
• xenihn 5y ago
  One of the most valuable things you get from a degree in the US is access to internships.
• phsource 5y ago
  One reason that often gets glossed over (including in this article) is how (non-online) Masters programs are huge moneymakers as a ticket to working in the US. I've seen that in CS programs at University of Buffalo and Yale, a majority of Masters students are from abroad, especially from Asia. Basically, if you wanted to work in tech in the US, you could either: - Find a multinational company in your home country, work for them for a year, and request a transfer (highly competitive) - Find a job for a company in the US while abroad, ask them to sponsor you for a H-1B, and hope you win the visa lottery (unlikely, since companies don't like their chances on the lottery) - Get a Masters degree. Sure, it's $50,000, but you're guaranteed a 3-year work visa (OPT with STEM extension) during which you can apply for the H-1B multiple times (it's a winner!) This is actually completely rational, and benefits both the students, the school, and arguably the US since it gets some highly skilled workers who did not take out loans. Are Masters degrees outside of STEM (and online ones, like the OPM-managed ones this article mentions) that cater to local Americans in low wage sectors a scam? Maybe! Are Masters degrees in STEM (which definitely are cash cows) a scam? Almost definitely not; in fact, they're a great workaround until the US reforms its immigration system
  • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Assuming you're actually smart and skilled - wouldn't it be better to just start your own consulting business, or if you're really ambitious, eventually an agency? Aren't H1-B visa workers mostly in extremely HCOL areas and significantly underpaid / taken advantage of? I imagine if you're from India and you really want to get out of India - this sounds like a good deal (although wouldn't $50k for tuition be hard to get?) But, I'm assuming most people just want to have more money / a better life? Wouldn't the first option be better? And then you could stay closer to friends and family.
    • break_the_bank 5y ago
      1. I think you are mixing smart with courageous, starting a business requires some courage. 2. Nope. At least those working for FANGs aren’t. You can see so many cases of folks were for low paying consultancies in India getting masters and then getting a job at FANG. 3. Getting an education loan for STEM is really easy and people are willing to put their parents house up for collateral. I think with a FANG or good tech job you can be done with your loan in an year or two. Some people go to state schools and don’t get into any debt, or pay it off via internships. The US in most Indian people’s head comes with a better quality of life, a lot more money and better infrastructure. Perhaps some status too.
• andrew_eit 5y ago
  I disagree. Firstly, the question needs to be narrowed down. The topic of a master's degree in Europe vs in the UK and in the US varies, hugely: 1) The UK and the US have a great focus on the elitism of the university name. Countries like Germany do not, a masters from a (known) university with good grades, is pretty much as valuable as all the others. 2) Fees in Europe its free (as has been mentioned countless times here) so there's less of a "shopping" market here, in terms of looking for the most elite degree to graduate with, and much more about content 3) It depends on what you want to do as a career. In Europe, scientific and engineering fields do look for postgraduate degrees as a minimum. Companies like Amazon, hire data scientists mostly with PhDs in Germany or on exception, highly talented engineers. But the main "pro masters" degree argument for me, is the learning experience. My master's studies, was so intense, so stressful and so unbelievably intellectually rewarding that it shaped me and my character in a way that my bachelor's did not come close to. It gave me that confidence to approach fields and advanced topics, where I am not familiar with the notation, the terminology and don't know where to start, and it taught me how to dive in deep, in a self-motivated and self organised way. I really felt the whole time like an independent researcher, picking up books where I needed to, learning mathematical tools and programming skills I never thought of using to solve new problems. And participating in the latest SOTA research, in a way that has made me quite intellectually fearless now, going forward in my career.
  • isubasinghe 5y ago
    Agreed my current masters is intense, stressful and extremely intellectually rewarding as well
  • AJ1998 5y ago
    And which country did you get your masters from? Do you think your experience would have been different had you chosen a different country to do your masters in?
• Dumblydorr 5y ago
  STEM masters degrees are a necessary hoop to jump through to get promotions in many industries. Humanities masters are just students paying to enjoy their passions, fine if you're rich but too pricy for most.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > STEM masters degrees are a necessary hoop to jump through to get promotions in many industries. Humanities masters Are also hoops people in certain fields need to jump through for jobs (e.g., community college faculty, lecturer at some other institutions), advancement or pay incentives, etc.
• SavantIdiot 5y ago
  It skips the part that masters degrees are required for some jobs, like teaching higher education. (Odd it picked on film writing and arts.) This in itself is part of the racket. Want to teach in any college, public, community, private? You need a masters, no matter how uninformative the content really is. It's a big circle.
• lizknope 5y ago
  At least 75% of the people I know with masters degrees didn't pay a thing and in fact got free tuition AND a stipend. I have a lot of relatives from India that came to the US to get their masters in various engineering disciplines. None of them paid a dime. They had to work a lot of weekends for professors doing research but it was just 2 years and then they had published research papers and industry connections to get a job.
• steelframe 5y ago
  Many moons ago I earned a Master's degree from the UT Austin CS department while I was working full-time. Reading the article, I was struck by how much my own experience differed. Because of my Master's degree I feel that my technical abilities improved significantly, and I enjoyed career advancement as a direct result of my efforts. That said, I'm going to agree with a lot the article. If you're going into $300k debt to get an advanced degree in screenwriting, you're probably making a poor decision. As is the case with most things in life, there can be a tremendous variation in what a "Master's degree" ends up being for you. My undergraduate degree was Computer Engineering, which at the time was under the purview of the EE department at my university. As such, it was heavier on things like BJT properties and lighter on topics like algorithm complexity theory, modern language constructs, and database and networking theory. Once I got into industry, I quickly realized that I was missing a lot of knowledge that my peers had in these areas, and I felt it was important to find a way to fill those gaps. My employer had a program where they would let me work as a full-time employee while I simultaneously pursued higher education. They covered my tuition so long as I maintained a minimum acceptable GPA. Since UT Austin was nearby, I jumped at the opportunity, as they have a very reputable CS program. Tuition ended up costing all of $13k over the 3 years that it took me to complete the program while working full time. Meanwhile I pulled an entry-level tech salary with benefits. I already knew that I wanted to focus on security in my career, so in every class that had a term paper or final project, I focused on something security-related. For my databases course I studied and implemented k-anonymity. For my computer architecture courses I implemented Blowfish on an experimental CPU architecture and implemented data cache tagging as a mechanism for isolating regions of memory to specific chunks of executable code. For my networking class I wrote a paper summarizing some recent advancements in onion routing protocols. For my machine learning class I implemented a k-nearest-neighbor algorithm to look at access patterns done on encrypted storage to infer the types of files being accessed and the applications manipulating the files. All the while I filled many gaps in my knowledge on Computer Science as a discipline, and that helped prepare me to eventually be able to pass the infamous highly technical Google interview loop. From that point I leveraged the expertise I had developed in the field of security to build some notable security features, one of which you are using right now if you happen to be reading this on an Android device. If I hadn't pursued my Master's degree, I honestly can't say whether I would have had the same level of career success in the years that followed. Because I went to a public university that didn't charge exhorbitant fees (and because my employer covered them anyway), I did it without accumulating any debt. I had specific personal goals for what knowledge and skills I wanted to develop in the program. I took advantage of the opportunity to deep-dive on topics with knowledgeable professors who were accomplished in their respective fields. I honed my knowledge of data structures and algorithms to be better prepared for technical interviews. So the takeaway perhaps is that there is a right way and a wrong way to go about a Master's degree. If you're going into significant debt to zombie through the base requirements to get a piece of paper, in general you can't expect to get the same results as you would if you were highly intentional and strategic about where you go and how much you pay to go there.
• drewg123 5y ago
  I graduated from a no-name state school in the early 90s into a down job market. I was at the top of my class and did well on the GREs and was offered a fellowship to a PhD program at a private engineering school (RPI). I enrolled in the PhD program, and I used the time saved by the fellowship to take an overload of classes. Between the overload, and transferring in credits from graduate level classes I had taken as an undergrad, I bailed out with an almost free MS after one calendar year. The cost to me was the full price I paid for the credits to do the MS project. IMHO, I learned exactly nothing from my MS. My undergrad classes at a no-name state school were more challenging, and I felt like the grad level classes were a poor copy. The MS project was useless drudgery that I was not interested in at all. The entire thing was a waste of time, except for the piece of paper that I got at the end. I firmly believe that piece of paper opened several doors that might otherwise have been closed, and has resulted in better jobs and better pay throughout my career.
• ineedasername 5y ago
  I think the title overstates it, even per it's own arguments in the article itself whose criticism is more narrow in scope. (Though criticisms on high prices do apply across the board) What it really takes issue with are programs that amount to a professional certificate, essentially a sort of trade school for a particular industry or role within that industry. I don't think the same criticism of quality applies to more traditional academically-oriented programs. For example an undergrad Biology major is essentially getting a wide survey of the field. At the master's level it goes into a lot more depth and you usually have some fairly specific area of focus. In short, you're acquiring a base of knowledge rather than focussing mostly on the application of that knowledge. Far different than, say, a 9-month Master's degree in cloud infrastructure that may be obsolete before you pay off the loan.
• hedgehawk 5y ago
  I'm not sure how to take this article considering that I am trying to switch into tech with a Biology undergrad with some CS coursework. I'm already been admitted to OMSCS but I've been thinking of applying to on-campus masters programs at Cornell, USC, and Stanford but the >$50k price tag is making me resist. Are these on-campus programs at prestigious universities worth it to get access to high-growth startups and big tech companies as well as more face-to-face time with instructors and other classmates as opposed to a part-time online masters?
  • titanomachy 5y ago
    I think the easiest path into tech is through internships. Being a student at a well-known university can help get you in the door for good internships, but it doesn’t have to be an expensive private college. Some schools also have a “second bachelor’s” program in CS which might get you into the kind of internships you want. I was in a similar situation as you. I did a 3-month “boot camp” and then worked at an unknown startup until FAANG recruiters started to email me, but obviously YMMV.
    • hedgehawk 5y ago
      Yeah the main thing with OMSCS is that it's part-time and apparently some companies require you to be a full-time student in order to intern. I'm scared I'd be limited if I do OMSCS. In terms of the bootcamp pathway, I feel like I have the foundation to teach myself the skills I need but it seems like the one positive thing that can come out of the bootcamp for me are the potential connections and job placement I would be able to get. Let me know if I am wrong about it though!
      • titanomachy 5y ago
        That was my experience. I already had enough skill to be a junior dev but I needed the connections (internship opportunities) that the boot camp provided.
• beefok 5y ago
  My college mentor always said, "do not pay for a Master's degree, find a company who will pay for it." Best damn advice I've ever gotten!
  • zsmi 5y ago
    Is that possible? Every company I've every worked for offered money for education but usually it only covered slightly over 1/3 of the total expense when everything was said and done. (And this was early 2000s when University was cheaper) Also, two companies required at least a B for reimbursement which is not always that easy in a competitive STEM class. I found I could do work, or school, well. But not work and school and subsequently dropped out of my Graduate program. It worked out in the end. :)
    • beefok 5y ago
      Sorry I never responded to this, yes it's absolutely possible. I think things are changing and a lot of companies will pay for your degree. Typically you can also negotiate it in a job interview. Usually it does involve keeping good grades in school (B or above), so yeah, that happens. :) I ended up leaving the job and having to pay over $7k in classes, but the company I moved to had an even better deal and paid for my entire degree with no qualms. It's a lot of work and stress, but it was worth it. :) If a company is going to help you get a master's degree, they should understand that they can't push you too hard, considering the degree is a job in itself!
• deleted 5y ago
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• barbazoo 5y ago
  That sorry of education is a scan in a system where you take on huge amounts of debt. The financial aspect definitely makes it a scam.
• grawprog 5y ago
  A friend of mine and I went through the same bachelor's degree program. My friend ended up continuing on to get a masters degree. Even my friend admitted they just went for the degree to get the degree. In the end, my friend went back to the job they were doing after the first degree and has been there ever since. Even by the end of the bachelor's program I took, it felt like I was kind of wasting money. As soon as teachers started trying to convince us to move on into the masters degree program, it was just a hard no from me. It would have cost the same as what I'd already paid for school, if not more and wasn't going to lead to a significant increase in job opportunities. By the end of that last year, it had become a lot more clear the school was more about making money than anything else.
• wildmanxx 5y ago
  Come on, could the title be any more click-baity? Arts and U.S. Ivy are missing key words in the title. If you lift your eyes beyond the U.S., there are countries where the student does not pay tuition and the offered degree program actually contains really useful material with a high quality teaching experience. But sure, let's just all watch 10min youtube clips and claim it's at least as good.
• screye 5y ago
  I did my masters at a top 10-20 Masters university for ML. It was an intense course and I learned a ton. IMO, a masters is necessary for fields like ML and it is also an excellent way to transition from a non-CS undergrad to CS. All of them are now working on their STEM-OPT or an H1B, but the course had been paid off within the 1st year. They seem to be paid in exactly same range that levels.fyi reports and many are rising up the ranks at a pace beyond their median American peer in the same company. It seems like a win-win to me. Universities make more money used to fund research and undergrad scholarships. The US gets a steady stream of the top 95+ percentile of developing countries. They meaningfully contribute to the economy and the US maintains it hegemony by literally sucking other nations dry of their most important resource. Also, the US is literally (I mean literally, in as close a sense that figuratively will allow) impossible to immigrate to as a STEM GRAD if the masters programs didn't exist. L1 transfers are incredibly small in number and actually exploitative. No one sponsors an H1b when they have to wait a non-descript number of ears before their employee can join. As for code sweat-shop H1b exploiters (infosys, TCS,etc), the H1bs in FANG+s hate them far more than your standard anti-immigration american.
• peter303 5y ago
  In the various STEM fields I work in the Masters degree and PhD coursework is essentially the same. You learn most of what there is to know about the subject. The doctorate bolts on another 2-4 years of learning how to research in that field: what are frontier problems that can be done a couple years of work. Doctoral newbies often select a problem too easy, too hard or already done and have to be steered awayfrom that.
  • cwbrandsma 5y ago
    In software development I’m not sure there is a difference between a bachelors and a masters. At least for hiring purposes I do not view them as any different. I also hire people out of code schools as well. I get a lot of resumes from people with a degree in some random field…then spent a few months at a boot camp. So far, our boot camp employees have been very good.
• jmpman 5y ago
  Here’s an idea. Make it so that individuals can offer loans from their 401k. Maybe even let them approve the individual applying for the loan. 3.9 GPA, going into petroleum engineering, I’ll give you 10k at 7% interest with a minimum of $250/month repayment. Make it so this is the only way for people to get college loans, and the lending criteria will be solved. Also, the complaining about “we should be able to declare bankruptcy and get out of paying for our loans” will go away.
• autokad 5y ago
  I don't think masters degrees are a scam. However, there are a lot of online only masters programs out there now, and I am not sure they provide the same value. More on that later, Yes, MS are much more career targeted. That's a feature, not a detriment. In computer science undergrad, I had to take 2 religion, 4 philosophy, 2 history, and 3 language classes. None of those 11 made me a better person nor helped my career. There were 10+ other humanities classes I had to take which left me no room to do what I actually wanted to do: dual major in business and computer science. Note: there were ZERO classes I was given that had any web, cloud, or big data learning in them. I still felt restricted by the 10 courses I had to take for my computer science masters, but I routinely use what I learned in my masters at work. It was extremely beneficial/applicable. There is something to be said for context switching as well. I liked having a smaller-focused course load. Another thing I liked / found beneficial is the dedication of my classmates. In undergrad, many students wanted to do the bare minimum and move on with their lives. A lot was about partying and sleeping in, which isn't bad, but having classmates who are passionate about the topics and dedicated to putting their best foot forward in class is nice to also have. Its nice having these two separate learning experiences. I've kept in touch with almost no one from undergrad, but lots from masters. The most valuable aspect of a masters is the students, which is why I am highly skeptical of online only masters programs. In the end, my masters degree doubled my earnings and set my career on a whole new trajectory. Its a great way to energize or restart your career as well.
• superqd 5y ago
  This likely depends on the degree and the purpose for which you tried to obtain it. Some online Masters degree programs are just scams preying on people's desire to improve their careers. They are successful because so many employer's won't pay or promote to certain positions without advanced degrees. So there is a real demand for degrees like MBAs. For some degrees, the real value is the additional education you receive because of the increased complexity of the subject. Not everyone goes after these degrees for the same reason. For me, I went to grad school in physics not because I thought it would help my career, but because I wanted to learn more physics. I don't think this is the typical reason for which advanced degrees are sought anymore, but at least in some cases, like mine, master's degrees aren't scams, but a necessary part of deeper education into a specific area.
• xyzzy21 5y ago
  Outside of engineering, probably. It's a simple ROI problem.
• beej71 5y ago
  I got a BS and MS in CS and thought it was a great use of time and money. No regrets at all. But that was in the 90s. It saddens me to see how things are today. We've lost something considerable.