5 ms·

What Is a Master’s Degree Worth?

32 points by robg 17y ago

gaius 17y ago
The liberal education establishment has long maintained the fiction that "all degrees are equal". But no-one should be under any illusion that undergrad is a choice between professional/vocational training in knowledge work or a 4-year vacation (in the sense of spending time pursing a hobby).
- bmcleod 17y ago
  I don't think either of those options can be faulted and I don't think the people who choose either of them are the ones with problems. It's the kids who go to Uni because it's what you do after high school that are wondering what has happened to them. There's also a group of people who went in intending to become academics and have found that academia is now madly cutting costs, but that's a different and more complex story.
  - jerf 17y ago
    "I don't think either of those options can be faulted and I don't think the people who choose either of them are the ones with problems." I do. I'm perfectly willing to fault people for going to University, spending tens of thousands of dollars, and walking out with a degree in some obscure postmodern discipline or something. No matter how you may feel about such a degree, the objective value is quite low. "Shouldn't people follow their bliss?" Well, first of all, no I actually don't entirely believe that, but secondly and much more importantly, have you looked at a real University's course list? You seriously had to pick "French Literature in the 19th century" as your specialization when there are 30 types of engineering, 50 types of science, and a couple hundred other programs with some sort of actual use? When I went to university, I had two basic interests I could have specialized in: Music composition, and computer programming. That's a no-brainer! In the course of my education, I subsequently discovered that I could have tolerated psychology, mathematics, electrical engineering (though I do prefer programming), and there's a couple of other things on a lower tier below those. Note how those are entire disciplines, each with interesting specialties of their own. Did I fail to follow my bliss? No, I still minored in music, in fact. But I have no regrets about spending my money to get real skills. The only people who share the fault with the students are the numerous people who told them to ignore practicality, at a time in the student's life when they still had no actual experience with which to understand the full implications of that and resist. Some might still have chosen to pursue their bliss, and I have no problem with that, as long as it is done with eyes open.
    - gaius 17y ago
      Indeed. Even at 17 contemplating university, it was obvious that some disciplines were massively more employable than others. But there was - is - a myth that employers don't care what degree you have, so long as you have one, and that no matter what the subject is it's just a vehicle for "learning to learn". And that is arrant nonsense!
pj 17y ago
The question is: Who is the customer? You could say the customer is the student who pays the university for the education. Or you could say the customer is the employer who hires the graduate. There has been the impression in the past that getting a degree meant getting a job, but this is not the case. Employers, who have more at stake when hiring don't have to wait 4 years to learn whether or not their "purchase" was a good one. They are learning that the value of a college degree is not much when used as a predictor of job success. More valid predictors are work experience, internships, side projects, and a work ethic. None of which are gained in college. A lot of students think college is enough, but it isn't. This is where the problem starts over the confusion about the customer. Colleges want students to be enrolled for 4 years. If college is hard and students don't make the A's they think they deserve simply for attending class, then the student leaves the university for one where an A is easier. The student consumer is buying a product and their product is a good GPA. A low GPA won't get them a job and that's what they are after. This is a problem with money really. It's a philosophical life issue. Is your goal to receive value from the rest of the world, or to create value for the rest of the world. No one wants to work anymore. We've gotten lazy and complacent. The job has become avoiding work, when all too often, doing the work is easier than avoiding it. Life has become too easy for too many. The rest of the world is eating America's lunch. Even our president thinks it's fine to "bailout" businesses who don't want to put the effort into producing products the world wants to buy. They are losing out to better innovation, better business models, and harder work from their competitors around the world. For too long, education has been selling hope for a better life, a better job, a higher income. So students go into debt. Debt has allowed universities to continue charging more and more and more over time with deferred payment plans that yield little consequence to the full time student who doesn't yet understand the concept of debt or even money. And let's not forget the parents who spend more time at work than at home teaching their children good values, a work ethic, how to care for themselves, the value of money. America is really in a sad state of affairs. A depression is definitely on the way. Life has been too easy for too long. It's amazing as I think about it right now, I can feel it. I can feel the exhuberance evaporating. I can feel the realization setting in that our hopes and dreams for an easy future are being dashed. Only a few people really get it right now. There is still an air of optimism floating around. People are thinking, "No... no really, we can keep going like this... we can. If only we try." But we can't. We can't keep going like this and be worth anything. What we are doing isn't worth anything. Who wants to pay for it? What is the value? What's the value of your college degree? What's the value of your employment? What's the value of your iPod and your 6 room house in the suburbs and your SUV and your $20,000 in credit card debt and $125,000 in student loans. Too many people are falling for the clever sales and marketing strategy of the universities, the car companies, the banks, the real estate agents. The irrational are the prey. The predators are eating your money and you are left empty -- today and tomorrow. The easy path is the path to destruction. You have to work. You have to think. You have to analyze and predict and learn math. This stuff is hard folks. It's hard to do things faster, or cheaper, or better than everyone else. Mediocrity isn't valuable. You have to be the cream of the crop. You have to work and practice and strive for perfection every day. No one said life was going to be easy. It's even harder now that the competition has become everyone in the world.
eleitl 17y ago
The difference between a job, or no job.
- pj 17y ago
  or no job with debt or no job without debt.
- andyking 17y ago
  I know plenty of people with no degree who are working - some in quite highly-paid and fulfilling work. They've got there through being in the right place at the right time, internships, voluntary work and being good at what they do. I also know a number of very talented people who've graduated university with BA and MA degrees this year - most of whom are currently scrambling over one another grasping desperately at what meagre scraps of low-paid part-time work exist in the radio industry at the moment. You can't put it in such simplistic terms. (I went out with a girl who'd been to Oxford a couple of years ago. She was jobless and living in a council flat.)
jlees 17y ago
As an entirely international aside I got paid to do my Master's degree (EPSRC funding in the UK) rather than incur more debt. With a theoretical computer science BA, my MPhil allowed me to specialise and become more employable within my field, as well as having an easy transition into a related PhD - it was a no-brainer, really.
- theblackbox 17y ago
  May I ask for the specifics of your course/field? I wanted to apply for EPSRC funding for a Masters/PhD at Warwick complexity complex but have been somewhat sidetracked by other opportunities. Would like to hear more about other peoples experience down similar roads so I can keep the idea on the back burner and sort out my long term plans.
  - jlees 17y ago
    MPhil in Computer Speech & Language Processing at Cambridge.
jadence 17y ago
[note: off topic but it's still somewhat relevant to this crowd as it's an example of how not to implement print view] That's a rather annoying "print view." http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/?pagemode=print http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-... You gotta go through the article and click on all the "Read more…" links to get the full text before printing and it still has the "Resources" links (as if I can click on them after I've printed out the article, which I'm presumably going to do if I'm looking at the article in print mode). I expect more from the newspaper that gives such nifty charts, various APIs, etc.
metachris 17y ago
bottom line: some degrees pay off more than others. as recent census data shows, advanced degrees in business or engineering may earn up to 15% more, in contrast to degrees in arts or anthropology which face no substantial increase
compay 17y ago
Sometimes, less than nothing. I was in the University of Connecticut's graduate linguistics program for a year before deciding it wasn't for me and dropping out. I could have stuck around for one more year and left with a master's, but in linguistics it's generally viewed as a "consolation prize" for students who weren't good enough to complete the PhD. For that reason I didn't even bother.
msluyter 17y ago
I found this insightful: The prevalence of so many strapped borrowers is why I recommend students borrow no more for their educations, in total, than they expect to make the first year out of school. This rule of thumb won’t work for everyone — heaven knows, you may be the rare literature M.A. who writes a best-selling novel and pays off her debt with one check — but it’s a good starting point for anyone considering strapping herself to more education bills. Also, I should note that if your undergrad degree was in a non-technical field, a technical master's will be quite worth the price. My undergrad was in music, and without my master's in CS I think I would have had a difficult time entering the field. Sure, I hear it's possible to become a programmer without any formal training, but the degree opened doors that allowed me to start in a much higher position.
- physcab 17y ago
  This is certainly true. But it all depends on where you live as well. If you take out $80,000 in loans it makes no sense to live in an area where the average salary is $35,000. Then of course, even in higher paying locations you have to juggle the high cost of living.
- hack_edu 17y ago
  Could you elaborate a bit more about the the CS program and how it prepared you for industry? What distinguished you from other BA holders?
  - crs 17y ago
    I think the original poster was saying that he didn't have a B.S. in a technical field. So getting the Masters gave him the credentials he needed to go after jobs he was intrested in. I do not believe he was saying that he had a B.S. in Computer Science and needed a M.S. in Computer Science to compete. I think its a good example of one of the points made in the linked articles. That if you have an undergrad degree that's not really what your interested in a Masters lets you correct that.
    - msluyter 17y ago
crs 17y ago
At Boeing (where i work) a Masters Degree in an Engineering Field (cs for me) counts as about 2 years experience when promotions are considered. If you get your degree (Boeing will pay for everything) while you are employed here, they also give you a 100 shares of Boeing Stock. So for some like me, getting an advanced degree is free, and only offers upside. So after reading the articles, I could sum it up as advanced technical degrees can help, advanced liberal arts degrees not so much. Oh and some schools have bills and need more students paying tuition to pay them. There are no surprises here.
ori_b 17y ago
A grad degree is a chance to be paid to work on a project of your choice, without as strong a demand to make it mass-marketable. It's a chance to work on a project where novelty and interestingness are the lead factors in the viability, and not how easy it is to sell it to end-users. How valuable is that? Well, that depends on you.

32 points by robg 17y ago

gaius 17y ago

The liberal education establishment has long maintained the fiction that "all degrees are equal". But no-one should be under any illusion that undergrad is a choice between professional/vocational training in knowledge work or a 4-year vacation (in the sense of spending time pursing a hobby).

bmcleod 17y ago
I don't think either of those options can be faulted and I don't think the people who choose either of them are the ones with problems. It's the kids who go to Uni because it's what you do after high school that are wondering what has happened to them. There's also a group of people who went in intending to become academics and have found that academia is now madly cutting costs, but that's a different and more complex story.
- jerf 17y ago
  "I don't think either of those options can be faulted and I don't think the people who choose either of them are the ones with problems." I do. I'm perfectly willing to fault people for going to University, spending tens of thousands of dollars, and walking out with a degree in some obscure postmodern discipline or something. No matter how you may feel about such a degree, the objective value is quite low. "Shouldn't people follow their bliss?" Well, first of all, no I actually don't entirely believe that, but secondly and much more importantly, have you looked at a real University's course list? You seriously had to pick "French Literature in the 19th century" as your specialization when there are 30 types of engineering, 50 types of science, and a couple hundred other programs with some sort of actual use? When I went to university, I had two basic interests I could have specialized in: Music composition, and computer programming. That's a no-brainer! In the course of my education, I subsequently discovered that I could have tolerated psychology, mathematics, electrical engineering (though I do prefer programming), and there's a couple of other things on a lower tier below those. Note how those are entire disciplines, each with interesting specialties of their own. Did I fail to follow my bliss? No, I still minored in music, in fact. But I have no regrets about spending my money to get real skills. The only people who share the fault with the students are the numerous people who told them to ignore practicality, at a time in the student's life when they still had no actual experience with which to understand the full implications of that and resist. Some might still have chosen to pursue their bliss, and I have no problem with that, as long as it is done with eyes open.
  - gaius 17y ago
    Indeed. Even at 17 contemplating university, it was obvious that some disciplines were massively more employable than others. But there was - is - a myth that employers don't care what degree you have, so long as you have one, and that no matter what the subject is it's just a vehicle for "learning to learn". And that is arrant nonsense!

pj 17y ago

The question is: Who is the customer? You could say the customer is the student who pays the university for the education. Or you could say the customer is the employer who hires the graduate. There has been the impression in the past that getting a degree meant getting a job, but this is not the case. Employers, who have more at stake when hiring don't have to wait 4 years to learn whether or not their "purchase" was a good one. They are learning that the value of a college degree is not much when used as a predictor of job success. More valid predictors are work experience, internships, side projects, and a work ethic. None of which are gained in college. A lot of students think college is enough, but it isn't. This is where the problem starts over the confusion about the customer. Colleges want students to be enrolled for 4 years. If college is hard and students don't make the A's they think they deserve simply for attending class, then the student leaves the university for one where an A is easier. The student consumer is buying a product and their product is a good GPA. A low GPA won't get them a job and that's what they are after. This is a problem with money really. It's a philosophical life issue. Is your goal to receive value from the rest of the world, or to create value for the rest of the world. No one wants to work anymore. We've gotten lazy and complacent. The job has become avoiding work, when all too often, doing the work is easier than avoiding it. Life has become too easy for too many. The rest of the world is eating America's lunch. Even our president thinks it's fine to "bailout" businesses who don't want to put the effort into producing products the world wants to buy. They are losing out to better innovation, better business models, and harder work from their competitors around the world. For too long, education has been selling hope for a better life, a better job, a higher income. So students go into debt. Debt has allowed universities to continue charging more and more and more over time with deferred payment plans that yield little consequence to the full time student who doesn't yet understand the concept of debt or even money. And let's not forget the parents who spend more time at work than at home teaching their children good values, a work ethic, how to care for themselves, the value of money. America is really in a sad state of affairs. A depression is definitely on the way. Life has been too easy for too long. It's amazing as I think about it right now, I can feel it. I can feel the exhuberance evaporating. I can feel the realization setting in that our hopes and dreams for an easy future are being dashed. Only a few people really get it right now. There is still an air of optimism floating around. People are thinking, "No... no really, we can keep going like this... we can. If only we try." But we can't. We can't keep going like this and be worth anything. What we are doing isn't worth anything. Who wants to pay for it? What is the value? What's the value of your college degree? What's the value of your employment? What's the value of your iPod and your 6 room house in the suburbs and your SUV and your $20,000 in credit card debt and $125,000 in student loans. Too many people are falling for the clever sales and marketing strategy of the universities, the car companies, the banks, the real estate agents. The irrational are the prey. The predators are eating your money and you are left empty -- today and tomorrow. The easy path is the path to destruction. You have to work. You have to think. You have to analyze and predict and learn math. This stuff is hard folks. It's hard to do things faster, or cheaper, or better than everyone else. Mediocrity isn't valuable. You have to be the cream of the crop. You have to work and practice and strive for perfection every day. No one said life was going to be easy. It's even harder now that the competition has become everyone in the world.

eleitl 17y ago

The difference between a job, or no job.

pj 17y ago
or no job with debt or no job without debt.
andyking 17y ago
I know plenty of people with no degree who are working - some in quite highly-paid and fulfilling work. They've got there through being in the right place at the right time, internships, voluntary work and being good at what they do. I also know a number of very talented people who've graduated university with BA and MA degrees this year - most of whom are currently scrambling over one another grasping desperately at what meagre scraps of low-paid part-time work exist in the radio industry at the moment. You can't put it in such simplistic terms. (I went out with a girl who'd been to Oxford a couple of years ago. She was jobless and living in a council flat.)

jlees 17y ago

As an entirely international aside I got paid to do my Master's degree (EPSRC funding in the UK) rather than incur more debt. With a theoretical computer science BA, my MPhil allowed me to specialise and become more employable within my field, as well as having an easy transition into a related PhD - it was a no-brainer, really.

theblackbox 17y ago
May I ask for the specifics of your course/field? I wanted to apply for EPSRC funding for a Masters/PhD at Warwick complexity complex but have been somewhat sidetracked by other opportunities. Would like to hear more about other peoples experience down similar roads so I can keep the idea on the back burner and sort out my long term plans.
- jlees 17y ago
  MPhil in Computer Speech & Language Processing at Cambridge.

jadence 17y ago

[note: off topic but it's still somewhat relevant to this crowd as it's an example of how not to implement print view] That's a rather annoying "print view." http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/?pagemode=print http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-... You gotta go through the article and click on all the "Read more…" links to get the full text before printing and it still has the "Resources" links (as if I can click on them after I've printed out the article, which I'm presumably going to do if I'm looking at the article in print mode). I expect more from the newspaper that gives such nifty charts, various APIs, etc.

metachris 17y ago

bottom line: some degrees pay off more than others. as recent census data shows, advanced degrees in business or engineering may earn up to 15% more, in contrast to degrees in arts or anthropology which face no substantial increase

compay 17y ago

Sometimes, less than nothing. I was in the University of Connecticut's graduate linguistics program for a year before deciding it wasn't for me and dropping out. I could have stuck around for one more year and left with a master's, but in linguistics it's generally viewed as a "consolation prize" for students who weren't good enough to complete the PhD. For that reason I didn't even bother.

msluyter 17y ago

I found this insightful: The prevalence of so many strapped borrowers is why I recommend students borrow no more for their educations, in total, than they expect to make the first year out of school. This rule of thumb won’t work for everyone — heaven knows, you may be the rare literature M.A. who writes a best-selling novel and pays off her debt with one check — but it’s a good starting point for anyone considering strapping herself to more education bills. Also, I should note that if your undergrad degree was in a non-technical field, a technical master's will be quite worth the price. My undergrad was in music, and without my master's in CS I think I would have had a difficult time entering the field. Sure, I hear it's possible to become a programmer without any formal training, but the degree opened doors that allowed me to start in a much higher position.

physcab 17y ago
This is certainly true. But it all depends on where you live as well. If you take out $80,000 in loans it makes no sense to live in an area where the average salary is $35,000. Then of course, even in higher paying locations you have to juggle the high cost of living.
hack_edu 17y ago
Could you elaborate a bit more about the the CS program and how it prepared you for industry? What distinguished you from other BA holders?
- crs 17y ago
  I think the original poster was saying that he didn't have a B.S. in a technical field. So getting the Masters gave him the credentials he needed to go after jobs he was intrested in. I do not believe he was saying that he had a B.S. in Computer Science and needed a M.S. in Computer Science to compete. I think its a good example of one of the points made in the linked articles. That if you have an undergrad degree that's not really what your interested in a Masters lets you correct that.
  - msluyter 17y ago

crs 17y ago

At Boeing (where i work) a Masters Degree in an Engineering Field (cs for me) counts as about 2 years experience when promotions are considered. If you get your degree (Boeing will pay for everything) while you are employed here, they also give you a 100 shares of Boeing Stock. So for some like me, getting an advanced degree is free, and only offers upside. So after reading the articles, I could sum it up as advanced technical degrees can help, advanced liberal arts degrees not so much. Oh and some schools have bills and need more students paying tuition to pay them. There are no surprises here.

ori_b 17y ago

A grad degree is a chance to be paid to work on a project of your choice, without as strong a demand to make it mass-marketable. It's a chance to work on a project where novelty and interestingness are the lead factors in the viability, and not how easy it is to sell it to end-users. How valuable is that? Well, that depends on you.