I’ve got a kid who lives in DC and works on The Hill.
She has moved up, a little, since starting there a couple years ago. She is wondering if she should start chipping away at a masters degree, part-time, in order to be eligible for jobs higher up the ladder.
She tells me she knows people who have gotten their masters degree “in anything”. She says it doesn’t matter what the area of study is, it’s just a box to check, to be eligible for a better position. Could that be accurate?
I never thought of it before, but I guess there is no “in-state” option for DC residents. And it looks like she would have to borrow and pay as she goes if she is part-time (bc loans would not be deferred unless she is full-time).
Some offices on The Hill have student loan repayment budgets for staff, and there is also PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness), but she is wary of counting on either of those options.
For now, she seems to determined to stick it out in DC, even with the high cost of living – but she’s young (early 20s) yet and might get sick of “living like a college student”.
Thoughts or ideas?
A master’s degree without a plan is a very bad idea, particularly if she will need to finance the cost. Plenty of kids with a master’s in public policy are sharing space and jobs with the high school interns on the hill, and she may too if she doesn’t have a careful plan.
…particularly on The Hill.
A higher degree can be helpful for the bureaucracy, but only adds value on The Hill in specialized areas, such as econ, health care, defense, stats, tax, and the like. Adding say, Comp Lit MA, is a total waste for such jobs and won’t make her any more marketable in DC.
And that’s setting aside the possibility that she’s later interested in pivoting to another job role or career. Even if the exact degree doesn’t matter for the job and company she’s in right now (and that might be true, since government jobs do often pay on a strict schedule and even some private companies give automatic raises and title bumps for degrees), it might matter later.
She should pick something she actually likes and is interested in developing her career in.
DC does have one public university - the University of the District of Columbia, a historically black public land-grant university. They offer master’s degrees and doctoral degrees. It may or may not be where your daughter wants to get her graduate degree, though. She also has the option of moving to MD or VA and establishing residency there, then attending the a public university in one of those states.
I definitely would not count on PSLF. The first year of eligibility for loan cancellation for PSLF came up either this year or last - but only a very tiny percentage of the people who applied for it, believing they were eligible, actually got it.
Hmmmmmm… I agree with the others. Just any old master’s degree will not help. Otherwise, she should just find the easiest/cheapest online degree and do that.
What knowledge base or skills set does she want to grow? Does she want to move up where she is? Or be competitive for positions elsewhere?
I hire a lot of new grads, and I am definitely not part of a bureaucracy! So I really don’t care what degree my hires have besides a BS or BA. what I do want, though, is that they know how to DO something. I have noticed that the ones I fight hardest to keep are those who are REALLy good at one thing which I value. If someone is ‘just okay’ at a bunch of stuff, I am not all that sad when they decide to leave. But those who are excel wizards, or have a great eye for slick presentations, or can solve any technical problem in the office, or are just really great working with clients…I keep them as long as I can and will invest in their development.
So where does she want to be, career wise, in five years? Maybe an MS is the way to get there, but maybe there is a better approach.
@Midwest67 : Many masters degrees are worthwhile. For a wide variety of affordable options, your daughter needs to investigate online masters degree programs in an area of interest to her which relates to current or future career plans. Caveat: Avoid “for profit” schools.
Some publics, University of Alabama at Huntsville may be an example if I recall correctly, offer a very low cost online MBA.
I’m curious to know this as well.
I would ask her superiors and friends in the industry what they think of graduate school.
Also, even though she wants to stay in DC does she necessarily want to work for the government/public policy etc?
What would she want to study in graduate school? Law? Public Policy? Public Health?
@sciencenerd
I seem to recall her saying Public Policy.
I know next to nothing about it. She said she can still move up the ladder a bit more until she hits the “you need a masters to be competitive” wall.
She likes working on The Hill, now, but looking ahead 10-20 years is blurry. She said salaries are public record, so you can look up what various positions pay.
Job security is the main problem with the Hill-your candidate or party loses, and you are out of a job generally. Even professional committee staff are subject to electoral whims. It can be fun for a few years, though. The skills aren’t very transferable-the number of eager volunteer public policy interns greatly exceeds the nonprofits and think tanks hiring them, and lobbyists are only hired for high level connections.
That’s a great point.
I was working in DC in 1980, and was attending an ‘election’ party on election day. While most of the polls projected a win by Reagan, few predicted his huge coat-tails. As the returns continue to roll-in on the TV – remember, back in the dark ages before the Internet – the Senate flipped for the first time in many years, I remember several of the party attendees being stunned, that they were now out of a job. (they were direct Congressional staff and committee specialists.)