Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education? • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by screye » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

I did my masters at a top 10-20 Masters university for ML. It was an intense course and I learned a ton. IMO, a masters is necessary for fields like ML and it is also an excellent way to transition from a non-CS undergrad to CS.

All of them are now working on their STEM-OPT or an H1B, but the course had been paid off within the 1st year. They seem to be paid in exactly same range that levels.fyi reports and many are rising up the ranks at a pace beyond their median American peer in the same company.

It seems like a win-win to me. Universities make more money used to fund research and undergrad scholarships. The US gets a steady stream of the top 95+ percentile of developing countries. They meaningfully contribute to the economy and the US maintains it hegemony by literally sucking other nations dry of their most important resource.

Also, the US is literally (I mean literally, in as close a sense that figuratively will allow) impossible to immigrate to as a STEM GRAD if the masters programs didn't exist. L1 transfers are incredibly small in number and actually exploitative. No one sponsors an H1b when they have to wait a non-descript number of ears before their employee can join.

As for code sweat-shop H1b exploiters (infosys, TCS,etc), the H1bs in FANG+s hate them far more than your standard anti-immigration american.

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

#252

Post by peter303 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

In the various STEM fields I work in the Masters degree and PhD coursework is essentially the same. You learn most of what there is to know about the subject. The doctorate bolts on another 2-4 years of learning how to research in that field: what are frontier problems that can be done a couple years of work. Doctoral newbies often select a problem too easy, too hard or already done and have to be steered awayfrom that.

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

#253

Post by azinman2 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

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…

Where I went (MIT Media Lab) our classes were unique and only graduate level. In fact masters and PhD took the same classes, PhD just took more of them. There were no undergrads, and the knowledge assumptions, type of classes, and speed were very much more advanced than undergraduate. During my undergraduate (UCSD) I took a few masters classes — they were definitely harder and assumed a lot more knowledge with less hand holding. YMMV.

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

#254

Post by cwbrandsma » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

peter303 wrote: post #252

In the various STEM fields I work in the Masters degree and PhD coursework is essentially the same. You learn most of what there is to know about the subject. The doctorate bolts on another 2-4 years of learning how to research in that field: what are frontier problems that can be done a couple years of work. Doctoral newbies often select a problem too easy, too hard or already done and have to be steered awayfrom th…

In software development I’m not sure there is a difference between a bachelors and a masters. At least for hiring purposes I do not view them as any different.

I also hire people out of code schools as well. I get a lot of resumes from people with a degree in some random field…then spent a few months at a boot camp. So far, our boot camp employees have been very good.

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

#255

Post by jmpman » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

Here’s an idea. Make it so that individuals can offer loans from their 401k. Maybe even let them approve the individual applying for the loan. 3.9 GPA, going into petroleum engineering, I’ll give you 10k at 7% interest with a minimum of $250/month repayment.

Make it so this is the only way for people to get college loans, and the lending criteria will be solved. Also, the complaining about “we should be able to declare bankruptcy and get out of paying for our loans” will go away.

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

#256

Post by apgobuf » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

phsource wrote: post #150

One reason that often gets glossed over (including in this article) is how (non-online) Masters programs are huge moneymakers as a ticket to working in the US. I've seen that in CS programs at University of Buffalo and Yale, a majority of Masters students are from abroad, especially from Asia. Basically, if you wanted to work in tech in the US, you could either: - Find a multinational company in your home country, wo…

Masters at Buffalo in computer science costs about 26k in tuition.

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

#257

Post by kaitai » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

cool_dude85 wrote: post #238

vericiab wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for a small tech company in the suburbs outside of St Louis, which is definitely not a HCOL area. When I left (to move back to a HCOL tech hub), probably about half of the engineering staff were H1-B visa holders. This was because we often had trouble finding qualified candidates that were either already local or willing to relocate to the area. Visa sponsorship was a much more compelling reason to rel…

>This was because we often had trouble finding qualified candidates that were either already local or willing to relocate to the area. Visa sponsorship was a much more compelling reason to relocate than anything we could offer US citizens. Seems rather unlikely. What I guess you might mean is that you couldn't find qualified candidates at the pay ranges you were offering.

No, speaking from the Midwest there is in some areas a real shortage of experienced/qualified candidates. Even if you pay $200k, $300k, more, there are a lot of Americans who will not move to the Midwest. Folks from overseas, though, don't have the same preferences or prejudices. If you're coming from China, India, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Colombia, what does Minnesota vs Missouri vs Maryland really matter if you're coming for a job? Iowa vs Ohio? As long as you can find a suburb with good schools it's interchangeable. People who are attached to San Francisco or Seattle or the Northeast though do not harbor the same openness to moving to Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, etc.

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

#258

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #246

chmod600 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people who choose degrees with good career prospects will get a loan. Poor people who want a degree with bad career prospects may not have the chance to waste a year or more of their life pursuing one.

Surely no one will get a loan because as soon as you pay your last fee, you can declare bankruptcy? That way you don't have to pay back that money and there is nothing to be repo'd. And if no one pays back loans, lends don't lend. Isn't this the broad logic behind student loans not be dischargable already? I don't think the current US system is correct. But I think there needs to be some balance rather than just neve…

> Surely no one will get a loan because as soon as you pay your last fee, you can declare bankruptcy?

Well, no because there are lots of incentives for the people who could pay to not declare bankruptcy, because bankruptcy has adverse impacts on employability, housing, etc. And with income contingent repayment available on federal loans, pretty much everyone can stay in good standing with them (people don't, but that's mostly servicers trying to get people not to take available income contingent plans.)

Also, the main lender is the federal government (since other , who lends because that's what the law says they do. The already narrow space of private student loans might narrow a bit further with easier dischargeability, but that’s about it.

> Isn't this the broad logic behind student loans not be dischargable already?

IIRC, private, non-federally-guaranteed student lending was trending upward, with no graduate-and-declare-bankruptcy trend when limited dischargeability for such loans was adopted, so, to the extent it was the justification it wasn’t factually justified, just an excuse for a financial services industry subsidy. (IIRC, it was later displaced somewhat by expanded federally-guaranteed lensing then hit a sharp cliff around the 2009 financial crisis.)

And for federally-guaranteed loans, private lenders have been excluded for many years, as private federally-guaranteed loans have been replaced with exclusively direct federal loans, and when therr was private lending they had federal guarantees, so encouraging lenders isn't a factor in that space, either.

> Some of the "equity" based models offered by a few places (where you pay a percentage of income for X years) seem better to me.

Those seem to a strictly-worse variation of the income-based plans already available for federal loans.

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

#259

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #228

chrisseaton wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right so the employees providing the actual services may need qualifications. The person opening the business doesn't. I've never seen anywhere where opening a business needs a degree or qualification.

Dentist, vet clinic, lawyer are three. Daycare center, hairstyling and financial advisor are others that require qualifications / lic

> Dentist, vet clinic, lawyer are three.

People aren't learning these professions at folk high school are they?

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

#260

Post by jxidjhdhdhdhfhf » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #179

ghaff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are schools that are much more oriented (or have programs that are much more oriented) towards people who are working or are otherwise not attending school full time. I'm not sure I can really fault the average undergrad program for orienting things towards the 95% case situation. (Some schools are also much more commuter-oriented than others are.)

You are absolutely right and that definitely makes sense. But, and I have to preface this has been my experience, there are virtually no accommodations. School is your job when you go back to a university and colleges believe that is what you should be doing. Now to the legalities. The Age Discrimination Act mandates any institution receiving federal funding from preventing someone from being able to participate[0].…

It may be discrimination towards people with jobs, but it's not based on age. Legally, employees are not a protected class. Also, the protected class for age is "people over 40", who are not necessarily more likely to work full time than people under 40.