A Master's Degree Isn't the Job Guarantee It Used To Be
- Reference: 0183269405
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/05/18/1656217/a-masters-degree-isnt-the-job-guarantee-it-used-to-be
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> Going back to grad school has long been the Plan B of young professionals who aspire to climb higher in their careers or struggle to get promoted in a tough job market. New data show that getting a master's degree [1]isn't the guarantee it used to be . The unemployment rate for workers under 35 with a master's degree has rarely been higher in the past 20 years, according to the Burning Glass Institute, a labor-market think tank focused on the future of work, which analyzed data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics going back to 2003.
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> At the same time, the unemployment rate for workers under 35 with a Ph.D., law degree or medical degree has rarely been lower. "For most of the past two decades, these lines moved together -- not anymore," said Gad Levanon, chief economist of Burning Glass. Levanon has a theory about why the payoffs for advanced degrees have uncoupled: "More degrees chasing fewer of the positions those degrees were meant to unlock." [...] While degrees from law school and medical school amount to a license to practice, master's degrees are more of a signal, Levanon said. And a signal loses value when so many people have one, he added: "It's hardly a sure bet to securing a good job."
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> Now master's-degree holders under 35 are at the 77th percentile of unemployment, where the 50th percentile is normal, according to the Burning Glass analysis. Even associate-degree holders have had a higher employment level for the past year. Unemployment among master's-degree holders has been worse only about a quarter of the time in the past 20-plus years. There was a stint during the Covid-19 pandemic when this cohort was out of work at higher rates, and a more prolonged stretch as the U.S. climbed out of the recession in 2008 and 2009.
"Every indication is hiring managers now are more receptive than ever to the idea that a person doesn't need a graduate degree to be competitive," said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president of SHRM, the chief lobbying group for human-resource professionals.
"We are seeing that, hands down, especially in the last two or three years with AI," he said of job readiness. Employers just want to know, "Can you do it?"
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/a-master-s-degree-isn-t-the-job-guarantee-it-used-to-be/ar-AA23qhiW
Economics 101 (Score:2)
You don't need to get your masters to understand basic economics of supply and demand. What... you thought you were the only one who came out of college with no prospects and thought getting a master's will put you back on top?
It's stupid that more companies don't value an MS (Score:2)
It's really a race to the bottom on price with workers and companies. Someone with and MS will have more specialized knowledge and also better abilities to write, think critically, jump through hoops and do research. People don't see the value in long term investments anymore, it's all about how much more revenue can I make in the next quarter, why would they invest in someone that goes to school an extra 4 years. It's crazy too because usually the only way to move up in a career or salary is to switch comp
Companies ever more value real world (Score:2)
...experience and incremental innovation rather than strive for cutting-edge moon-shots. Long-term investments keep biting companies in the tush such that they have trimmed that. Current ROI formulas used in practice expect a return on investment by about 5 years*.
Also, they often move cutting edge research to the 3rd world because Masters and PhD's are much cheaper to rent there. Brain-intensive work is being outsourced.
* Japanese and EU companies tend to be more patient, for good or bad.
Re: (Score:3)
Where have you been? You couldn't be more wrong.
This entire culture has been bent around the idea of quarterly profits for decades. "Stocks are up!" Short term gain at the cost of long term employees and innovation. Ship faster!
While, yes, the trend to seek short term profits has slowed and even in some small ways reversed, we are a good number of years from being focused on incremental innovation and experience, again.
The World Needs Ditch Diggers Too!!!!! (Score:2)
- Judge Smails
A bachelor's degree (Score:2)
The phrase used to be "a bachelor's degree isn't the job guarantee it used to be". Times have evolved, I guess.
It never should have been (Score:2, Interesting)
A master's degree in my personal experience simply denotes someone who was willing to pay an exorbitant amount of $ for 2 more years of "school time" (I'm not going to say learning) in exchange for the ability to claim a "higher" degree.
Aside from my own experience, I know many people with masters degrees. None of us can point to anything meaningfully learned in those 2 (or more) years. It's a ticket punch for cash.
Setting aside my own knowledge from inside, I have worked with *many* MBAs over the years.
Re: (Score:2)
100% agree with the MBA assessment.
Re: (Score:2)
> that (in my opinion) wouldn't have been just as successful without the MBA
Successful in what way? The problem that MBAs is solving is not knowledge of how to run a business, most people who go for MBAs already have an understanding of that. The problem it is solving is:
a) certification: some positions expect you to have that piece of paper.
b) connections.
For b) I actually know someone who got an MBA for the exclusive reason to build connections at university. He didn't need it, he was already running a successful business beforehand, but that MBA gave him something he didn't have
Re: (Score:2)
MBAs are "highly polished turds" because we've lost the ability (legally and culturally) to assess people on merit. You end up with a poor surrogate, which has become gameified to produce people who make the metric the measurement of work instead of basing metrics on the value of the outcome.
Never thought a Master's would help (Score:2)
I spent about half my career as a software engineer and half as a systems administrator, sometimes overlapping, both on everything from a PC to Cray-2, and never really thought a Master's degree would help with what I did day to day - or, at least, not for the extra effort and expense. I had co-workers with Master's who got a few tasks that exercised that extra education, but those didn't really interest me that much and, because of my longer experience over a wider area, I earned the same if not more tha
They dont hire (Score:2)
Cause they know they are going to cost too much to pay off all that student loan debt hole that the sucker employee dug themselves into.
Participation trophy (Score:1)
Other than MBAs, I can't think anyone with a masters... If you aren't going to make PhD at Standford, Harvard, etc. in the hard sciences, they give you a masters and tell you "nice try, now please move along." People either do a PhD (free because you are teaching or doing research) or start working after their BS. After four years of undergrad, you should have the tools you need. If you don't know something, you should be able to quickly teach yourself. A PhD means you can say you are the world's leadi
Master's have always been dubious (Score:2)
My friends that took an extra year to get a Master's from Stanford weren't getting paid any more than I was with my Bachelors... and the lost a year of work and tens of thousands in tuition (Stanford is the hardest school to get admitted to, but not that hard to graduate from once you're in.) My brother-in-law just completed his Master's in Data Science, only to realize that he now needs to get a Doctorate in AI because AI has already rendered his Data Science skills worthless.
Like most degree programs... (Score:2)
...don't pursue a master's because you believe it will "guarantee you a job." This just isn't the case. No degree guarantees you anything other than a piece of paper.
Pursue a degree because it will get you some skills and open some doors. And then invest yourself in it. You only get out of an education what you put into it.
Re: Like most degree programs... (Score:2)
I consider my master degrees as an entry ticket to a job interview. A lot of people that started with me did not graduate. That does tell something. Had an interview where they put me in the room with a few techies. They had a lot of reservations to work with someone that graduated from university. They wanted to check out if I was an arrogant prick. One looked at my resume. Master this, master that, he skipped all that. "Hey, says here you worked behind a garbage truck for two months?" That was my second
Filter effect (Score:2)
At one point only the top 10% got an undergraduate degree. Then, a college degree was the path to a wonderful future. Not because the degree was helpful, but because only the wealthiest, smartest or hardest working people had one. Regardless of whether you were rich or smart, a college degree was an easy way to signify you had advantages that would ensure your success.
Over time, a college degree became more common. Now, about half the population have one and it literally means nothing. For a while, a Po
MS degree was always one strike against (Score:2)
When I interview software engineers, I always say that a master's degree is one strike against the candidate, and a Ph.D. is 2 strikes against the candidate. Some developers are able to overcome these disadvantages, but most do not.
For software developers specifically, I've found that the ones who are good at engineering, want to get their degree and get out there into the real world ASAP. The ones who get higher degrees tend to be better students, but not necessarily better engineers. They're good with the
dime a dozen (Score:5, Insightful)
There are masters degrees and then there are masters degrees. You can get one online, you can get one by mail order, you can get an MBA from a tier 86 "college." The question is, are masters degrees in some subjects actually useful. For that, we need to know which subjects, and which granting institutions, not useless aggregate statistics.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. A "Master's Degree" generally means in this regard an MBA. Get one from a big-name university and it will mean something, get one from a local college or degree mill and it will not. In this case, it is not about what you learn (which is probably about the same), but about the contacts you make with other students and the professors. The actual value of what is taught is not significant enough to justify the higher pay that people with the degree expect. Two years of practical job experience are m
Re: (Score:2)
While you're absolutely right, but the problem is that we never go into these specifics when teaching our kids how to be successful. "Go to school, get a good degree" never specified "Masters are only useful if you get your MBA from Harvard."
A great many people were taught that having MSc in your qualification title were the only thing that mattered.