This article could be written from a controversial point of view, especially when the author’s list of the useless graduate degrees include Information Systems, Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration, and surprisingly, chemical engineering.
I heard that for some degrees, adding an MS degree could add not much value if you have already had a BS degree in the same field.
The last comment seems to be interesting. He seems to imply that not all Information Systems degrees are created equal.
Agree with you in principle, especially if we include the factors like the career goal or even the life time goal.
For the purpose of the discussion, let us just arbitrarily accept the definition: usefulness = marketability after considering the loss of opportunity cost in say, two years of investment (time and money.)
For low marketability, what about a law degree from a low ranked law school?
Don’t see why chemical engineering master’s degrees are necessarily a surprise on this list. It is commonly said on the engineering forum section that, for the purpose of looking for a job, a master’s degree is like a bachelor’s degree plus two years of experience. But the two years of industry experience is typically better paid than a funded master’s degree, unless you graduate with a bachelor’s degree during an industry or economic downturn where you would be in the unemployment line if you did not go to graduate school.
I hate these kinds of articles because they focus nearly exclusively on the salary that you can make and whether or not your salary will rise with the graduate degree, but almost never the actual kinds of jobs that you can get or any measure of satisfaction.
For examine, criminal justice - my sister-in-law is in this field, and most of the jobs that she wanted were asking for a master’s degree in that field. No, the pay bump wasn’t that great, but she’s at least doing something in the field she wants rather than working outside that field because she doesn’t have the right credentials. There are lots of jobs in relatively lower-paid fields that you can’t do without a master’s - social work and teaching both come to mind. The pay bump you get over undergrad isn’t huge, but in order to get or keep your job you still need the credential.
And then some of them just don’t make sense - the average graduate degree holder in marketing makes over $15,000 per year more than the average experienced college graduate in the same field. Why would that not be worth it? Even if you borrowed $80,000 for that master’s degree, it would pay for itself in less than 6 years. Same with information systems - the difference is $15,000 a year.
I love how folks often say (somewhat defensively) about little Joey enrolling at third tier law school, “it’s ok to go to xyz law school- he’s interested in becoming a federal prosecutor” (or fill in the blank with another incredibly competitive, insanely prestigious sector of the law).
As long as little Joey is prepared to work as a paralegal after graduating, or doing legal temp work- and can afford to pay back his loans doing that, it’s all good. But nobody is getting plucked as an AUSA from “never heard of it” law school, unless “never heard of it” law school grad managed to land a Federal clerkship.
“prepared to work as a paralegal after graduating”
In my experience, legal employers strongly resist hiring law grads to do paralegal work. Low-paying, no-status, insecure attorney jobs at firms are usually called clerkships. But they want paralegals to be paralegals.
Hanna, I know a couple of early tenured lawyers who are working as paralegals. One of them is getting his paralegal certificate at night at a CC (after passing the bar exam) which shows you the insanity of the legal market today.
I and my wife are retired. Last year we both earned master’s degrees from Boston University Metropolitan College. Mine was in Urban affairs, my wife’s in gastronomy. No second career aspirations, we just enjoyed learning about subjects that interested us. These were interests that we bypassed when we were younger and majored in things that would lead to rewarding careers. It worked, we were able to retire early!
We have had a paralegal with a JD for the past two years. It hasn’t been the same person – our first JD paralegal finally got a job as a lawyer a few months ago, with our enthusiastic support, but we were able to hire another person with a JD to replace her.
Neither one, by the way, got her degree at a third-rate law school. The first graduated from a reputable state flagship (although not as reputable as Michigan or Virginia) outside of this region. She moved here but couldn’t get a legal job. After the first few months, we set her hours so that she could intern for free two afternoons a week in an office in the city’s law department, which was supposed to lead eventually to a full-time job offer. Eventually it did, but she had continued looking for other lawyer jobs, and by the time the city got off its butt in June she had more attractive offers, one from a firm and one from a federal agency. Her replacement is actually a “T14” law school graduate returning to the workforce after a number of years of SAHM-ness, and without a significant record of accomplishment predating that.
I don’t see the point in this author’s list. I wonder if the research included the hundreds of other degrees possible before determining the list. I agree with the complaint about only considering money earned and nothing about the potential jobs available only to those with higher degrees. I was expecting to see PhDs listed- there must be a list somewhere of supply and demand for those degrees in various fields. How many are “overeducated” for some jobs- ie a company won’t hire because they have to pay for the degree obtained but the work doesn’t require that level of knowledge? I also wonder since the unemployment rates all seem to be 5% or less- not too shabby to me.
I’m sure someone could come up with another list of truly useless degrees- degrees obtained but never used. One example is the MD who never even did an internship to be able to be licensed (I know someone who basically got her “Mrs.” degree decades ago, sigh). One could say they have the knowledge they would not otherwise have. This brings us back to the point of any degree- showing learning, getting an education, not just money. Not everyone is into the business way of thinking about life.
The list makes no sense. For one thing, I would assume a fair number of the graduate degrees in the listed fields would go to people who hold undergraduate degrees in different fields. For example, a Fine Arts major decides to become a pharmacist. The graduate degree income represents a significant improvement over Fine Arts.
I saw no effort to separate students by employment. Employers do pay for employees’ further education. Thus, some of the graduate degree holders were employed at the start of their graduate study.
My husband went to what is probably considered a third-tier law school (with an Engineering degree from a third-tier public UG).
Up until recently, he was a partner at a major law firm in Chicago
(He’s senior counsel now - winding things down to retire soon, and he got tired of living at work, wanted to see his kid more during her high school years before she moved out…)
Then again, at the time he was hired, early 90s, there was not a glut of law school grads on the market like there is now.
Just saying… hard work and getting to the top of even your third-tier class might count for something.
However, even he and his colleagues are advising young people to not go to law school right now if heavy debt will be incurred. There are too many law school grads right now and not enough associate positions opening… The firms that are hiring associates are not paying much at entry-level.
