Study Finds Most Popular U.S. Graduate Degrees Not Worth the Money
“The message is that we need to provide better information to students”
This is not a surprise. Higher education is pricing itself out of the market.
The New York Post reports:
Most popular US graduate degrees aren’t worth the money, study shows: ‘A very risky proposition’
Thinking of taking those big brains to grad school? Depending on your field of choice, it may not stretch your career prospects or future earnings — just your own wallet.
According to a study recently released by the Postsecondary Education & Economics Center at American University, which was originally based on research from the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy, degrees in social work, psychology, and curriculum and instruction have the potential to yield a zero to negative return on investment, considering the full cost that goes into earning the degree.
“A graduate degree can benefit you financially in some circumstances, but it is a very risky proposition,” Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Post. “You want to make sure you are working with all the information.”
The release of the report — in which the authors used data on approximately 800,000 students over three decades at Texas public universities to calculate just how much a graduate degree would boost a professional’s lifetime earnings while making adjustments for additional factors (including total cost of attendance and how much their salary may have increased anyway) — coincides with the Trump administration urging potential students to weigh the cost of grad programs before signing up.
On the other hand, those looking to pursue graduate degrees in medicine, law and pharmacy can breathe easier, as the study showed that these degrees have the highest return on investment. Researchers found that salaries nearly tripled for those with medical doctorate degrees and shot up by over two-thirds for those who earned a doctorate in pharmacy.
“The message is that we need to provide better information to students,” Joseph Altonji, a Yale University economist and one author of the report, told The Washington Post, when referring to sussing out which grad programs are worth the time and cost.
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Comments
“guarantees”
thats how the left keeps winning
they control the narrative and have people saying that its allll suppose to be guaranteed …their successes their happiness etc
many of them cant even figure out what gender they are but thats then put back onto society that we owe them b/c of their actions
If you are a teacher, you get a job as a teacher. Because pay at most school districts is based on the graduate units and degrees you have and years of teaching, you are cheap to hire with only a bachelor’s degree. After you are hired, you earn advanced degrees and graduate units until you reach the highest level.
So…all those PhDs in gender/black/5th century lesbian poetry studies don’t earn high 6-figure salaries? No market for their skill sets or knowledge bases?
I’m shocked. On the other hand, just maybe Adam Smith was right about the invisible hand guiding the marketplace. Of course, if the hand becomes visible and palpable—the “warmth of collectivism” comes to mind—maybe Mr. Smith will fade away.
Most graduate programs that are worth attending (in hard sciences) pay the students a stipend, so loans should not be required. And fields like medicine pay so well afterward that loans are easily paid off.
Being a Texas MD grad, I can personally attest. So many people come back to get a Master’s or yet another useless law degree because “…the company is paying…”, rather than using that time or funding to get more practical experience heading up a major project or team developing a useful program. Hands-on experience is far more valuable than a useless graduate degree unless it is required for the next level, e.g. Masters in Nurse Practitioner or Masters in Physician Assistant studies. Another MBA grad won’t solve anything. Too many of them around already.
Yet it is not uncommon to see MD MBA or MD MPA on doctor’s name tags or embroidered after their names on their lab coats.