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Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

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Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#101

Post by ghaff »

kaiwen1 wrote: post #96

I wonder if this scam also applies to executive MBA programs? For example, the Kellogg-HKSTU program cost US$220,000 for about 18 long weekends of on-site classroom time. This is exorbitant, but the Financial Times has ranked the program as the best EMBA program in the world 10 times, primarily due to the large increase in salary after graduation, up 67% to $528,057 in 2020. [1]. In fact, the reported salary increase…

Typically, in my experience, companies are paying for these. In my experience from decades ago, these sort of programs were oriented towards e.g. people who had come up through the engineering ranks, didn't have an MBA, and were being groomed for more senior management.

Of course, that was from a time when MBAs were probably more of a requirement even in tech for senior exec roles than they are today. These programs obviously still exist but I'm not personally aware of anyone who has gone to one any time recently.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#102

Post by tyingq »

kaiwen1 wrote: post #96

I wonder if this scam also applies to executive MBA programs? For example, the Kellogg-HKSTU program cost US$220,000 for about 18 long weekends of on-site classroom time. This is exorbitant, but the Financial Times has ranked the program as the best EMBA program in the world 10 times, primarily due to the large increase in salary after graduation, up 67% to $528,057 in 2020. [1]. In fact, the reported salary increase…

Is it maybe a self powered thing where companies are reimbursing tuition for specific hand selected people they intend to promote?

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#103

Post by rytor718 »

agumonkey wrote: post #38
wirthjason wrote: post #14

One of the key issues I see is that we don’t place a high enough value on adult education. A philosophy professor of mine told me the word “andragogy”, which is the theory of adult education. It’s different from “pedagogy” which means the education of children. I always thought that learning is learning. It never occurred to me that there’s a difference between how and why children learn and that it could be differen…

Very interesting to know there was a term for that already. Slight anecdote, I gave a few geometry lessons to a teen. And witnessing his brain operate was quite staggering. Teen operate at high frequency low depth it seems. He didn't want to grasp the rule or symmetry but ran in many intuitions very rapidly (honestly my brain froze at his pace of change, so vibrant) only to feel defeated or confused. Made me think ad…

Love this story because this has been my experience as well when teaching youth. Children in a classroom scarcely need a teacher explaining things to them. Give them the materials and leave the room for an hour. I guarantee you they'll know what to do and how to to do it when you return. However, they won't have any particular depth of knowledge of the topic. And thats because they usually move onto their own ideas of how to use the new knowledge. They're not interested in how I use that knowledge. So different approaches for youth vs adults has always been something I needed to train either. One approach doesn't really work for the other.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#104

Post by adamdusty »

kaiwen1 wrote: post #96

I wonder if this scam also applies to executive MBA programs? For example, the Kellogg-HKSTU program cost US$220,000 for about 18 long weekends of on-site classroom time. This is exorbitant, but the Financial Times has ranked the program as the best EMBA program in the world 10 times, primarily due to the large increase in salary after graduation, up 67% to $528,057 in 2020. [1]. In fact, the reported salary increase…

One of the admission requirements is that your company sponsors you as outstanding with potential within the organization. Another requirement is that you are already or will soon be an executive. This makes me assume the salary increase is due to the fact that they only accept people that are positioned to get big salary increases.

Also the fees page suggests that it costs at minimum, 550k, and if I'm reading it correctly, 1.5m.

https://emba.hkust.edu.hk/admissions/fees/

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#105

Post by viburnum »

thrower123 wrote: post #93

The biggest cheapening of Master's degrees is in education, where many school districts provide reimbursement and fairly significant pay raises for teachers who get masters. Which has led to a large number of garbage paint-by-number programs to service that demand. My mother got one while I was in high school, from a well respected regional university, and the level of the coursework was laughable.

A university near me gave ed master’s credit for playing golf. Not even in a class, you just play golf and send in your score.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#106

Post by pram »

tomrod wrote: post #46
Robotbeat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in physics?

Economics.

Haha I knew you were talking about Econ when I read the post. It seemed pretty clear it was PhD or gtfo when I did Econ undergrad. Masters seems like an actual scam.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#107

Post by ghaff »

CaptainMarvel wrote: post #97
chrisseaton wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a degree to open a medical business. You need a degree to practice medicine.

This certainly depends on local rules. For example, in the UK I believe dental businesses can only be opened by a qualified dentist. I was surprised when I learnt this earlier this year. This source [0] says “non-dentists cannot set up or buy dental practices as an individual or partnership but they are permitted to be shareholders of a limited company which owns the practice” and “the majority of directors of that l…

I believe this is the case with law firms, and probably some other professional firms, in the US as well. AFAIK a law firm is a partnership of lawyers.

That said, this isn't what most people are talking about when they are talking about starting a business.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#108

Post by agumonkey »

lordnacho wrote: post #47
agumonkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that recognized socially ? As in opening a business after passes these classes.

You don't need a degree to open a business. And mostly it's for learning things for your own satisfaction, which I sense is what you mean?

Depends on the trade, you can't make electrical work without some form of recognition I believe. And beyond that I mostly asked regarding customers, you want something to back your claims and prices.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#109

Post by shinjitsu »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #55
wirthjason wrote: post #14

One of the key issues I see is that we don’t place a high enough value on adult education. A philosophy professor of mine told me the word “andragogy”, which is the theory of adult education. It’s different from “pedagogy” which means the education of children. I always thought that learning is learning. It never occurred to me that there’s a difference between how and why children learn and that it could be differen…

I wish schools got audited for that very thing. Schools are extremely discriminatory against adults not at application time, but when they offer classes. Not only do they not accommodate either, a lot of professors still pull BS where you need to hand in assignments at the end of class! There is absolutely nothing in the education system today that requires you to hand in something with such a short term time table.…

>Higher education is structured for students going from high school to their institutions. They also assume students don't have full time employment or a family. So basically if you have either of

In the US, Depending on your state this might not be true. Many of the 'Elite' schools are absolutely as you describe, but many of the state schools do cater to adult learners. This is particularly true in states which separate their Research Universities from their more teaching oriented Universities. Most of the latter do have night classes and other offerings aimed at adult learners. But the private universities with dreams of grandeur are looking mostly for the "traditional college student"

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#110

Post by LatteLazy »

chmod600 wrote: post #70

"We can’t just rely on the market to provide all of the quality discipline that master’s programs need." It seems like if the federal government stopped lending for master's degrees, and allowed students to file for bankruptcy to get out of private loans, then the market might very well sort everything out.

Wouldn't that just mean rich people got masters they didn't need and poor people didn't get ones they did need?

Maybe markets have a difference concept of efficiency than society...

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