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Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
111–120 of 315 posts
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Economics is one of the undergrad degrees that is often sort of generic--i.e. you don't really work in the field with just a BA/BS. And you need a PhD to actually be an economist so a Masters probably doesn't buy you much. (Not 100% true of course, but close enough.)
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#113"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.
Yes, having government involved always creates inflation. It's no coincidence that the two areas with most government involvement, education and health care, are the things that have outpaced every other measure of inflation significantly.
I think your point is respectfully very American.
Here in the UK we have some the cheapest healthcare in the western world with a nationalised system.
I actually agree that the US government often causes inflation. But that's because everyone in the states seems to love government subsidies and no one in the states likes regulation, price control, etc. Whether you're a government or not, subsidising X without regulating consumption or controlling the prices of X will lead to inflation...
An example of what I'm talking about is American high school. State schools have much lower prices per kid than private. Because the state starts with a fixed budget and works from there. Imagine if instead government required "education insurance" like health insurance. And insurers were required to pay for anything the teacher decided was required...
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conversely, I don't even have a bachelor's degree in CS, and I haven't suffered at all because of it. I got a job offer before graduating, and decided my time was better spent earning money than learning stuff I would probably never have any use for. Rather than focusing on degrees, I think it's a lot more important to focus on learning, however you don't know what's important to learn until you actually start workin…
Funny how those of us who didn't spend more than a couple years in school think the rest of the years are probably a waste, and those that did spend a lot of time and money in school think it was useful.
I have a BS in computer science. I felt like less than 25% of it actually made me a better programmer. At least 25% of it was a total waste of time. The rest was stuff that was maybe academically relevant or interesting to me at least, but of dubious value given the time and financial costs.
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#115My masters degree in Computer Science was incredibly educating and opened many career doors for me. It filled in a lot of gaps that my undergraduate education left, and significantly raised my profile amongst recruiters. CS might be the exception to the rule about Masters degrees though.
What was your undergraduate degree in?
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#116I've yet to see a useful master's degree. Especially in the US and in STEM it seems like master's has just been a gate to the next thing. I have a master's and one of the biggest reasons behind my education was the opportunity in the US after the master's. Sole benefit of it has been the OPT (~3 years work visa). I learned small things here and there during my education but as an SWE I don't use them at all and I for…
Master's Degree in Social Work is required for licensing in the US (LCSW). To teach at a community college it's generally required to have a Master's degree as well. "useful" is in the eye of the beholder. I would expect a company hiring manager to put a candidate with a Master's degree higher on the pile than those with high school or Bachelor's degrees, too.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag. If the degree becomes meaningless than the hiring manager may apply skepticism to why someone would need that degree.
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course in both cases this is only true in the US.
My 4 year bachelor's degree in Australia still cost me $60000. I'm still not convinced it was worth it
I was surprised to hear this, I had thought it was about 30k
Found a per-year table, appears to depend on what degree topic https://student.unsw.edu.au/fees-student-contribution-rates
A 4year engineering degree (likely what the HN crowd is interested in) is about A$32k / US$24k
Whereas law/commerce/medicine is A$60k
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#118One 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.…
I am not going to pay off my loans
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#119I had a friend who was wanting to get a master's degree in poetry, and it cost about 45k a year, back in early 2000s. I strongly advised against it, my friend did not take well to my advice. Hope it all turned out well. I have no problem with people getting degrees in the arts. My spouse has a Master's in fine arts, from a university in Europe. But she didn't acquire any debt from that degree, while I did in the US w…
On the other hand, degrees are "free" in Europe, and I don't want my tax money spent on people doing masters degrees on "poetry".
The fact that you have to pay for your degree out of pocket may mean that more people will choose to do degrees that are worth something, which is a great thing for society overall. Having said that the prices of degrees in the US are outrageous. A middle ground should be found.
Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conversely, I don't even have a bachelor's degree in CS, and I haven't suffered at all because of it. I got a job offer before graduating, and decided my time was better spent earning money than learning stuff I would probably never have any use for. Rather than focusing on degrees, I think it's a lot more important to focus on learning, however you don't know what's important to learn until you actually start workin…
Funny how those of us who didn't spend more than a couple years in school think the rest of the years are probably a waste, and those that did spend a lot of time and money in school think it was useful.
I have a degree. It will go down as the biggest regret of my life and my life has changed drastically simply because I thought getting an education was good for society.