<p>Oasis, I can’t give any hard evidence, but I believe that a master’s degree isn’t as valuable as you might think. My college allows students to submatriculate, so they can start taking graduate classes before they finish undergrad. As a result, a decent number of my friends graduated with MAs in addition to their BA/**; some did it in four years total, and others took an extra semester or two to finish up. As far as job seeking, it was no easier for them than it was for anyone else.</p>
<p>One friend in particular stands out… he is extremely intelligent and has plenty of experience (well as much as one can have before having a full time job); he graduated with a ** after eight semesters, and he finished his master’s degree a semester later. There were very few jobs out there that were looking for applicants with his degrees, so he started looking at jobs that were only looking for bachelor’s graduates. He got no less than five rejections because he was overqualified; read: the company thought they couldn’t afford him.</p>
<p>He wound up finding a job, but it took six months and a lot of headache to do it.</p>
<p>My point is that master’s degrees are good - they add credentials, and once you find a good job, you are at a real advantage moving forward - but that you may find that it is initially harder to get your foot in the door just because employers are hesitant to hire people with credentials and no real world experience to back them up.</p>