Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The $6,600 Master's Degree.

linkedin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 80 posts

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#31

Post by ghshephard »

johnbellone wrote: post #30
ghshephard wrote: post #24

Just to put this in comparison - I recently took a two-week networking course (in the United States) for $7300. While this was in-person, with labs/instruction from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM every day, and the class was limited to twelve students, it does put things into perspective. The real cost, as always, in getting a degree is the students time. Someone capable of getting a Masters degree, can, without too much effort,…

I have been contemplating between getting an MBA or a PhD in software engineering (because I want to teach) for the past few years. For the latter it would be strictly because I want to create something, be innovative, and give back to my industry. The former - you're really paying for the connections - and possibly a few lessons on economics that have grown dry in your head. I am justifying the price tag on a two ye…

The variables obviously are Where are you getting the MBA (Ivy League MBAs, even evening ones, have more value), what is the price tag - there is a big difference between a $50K MBA and $200K MBA, and what field you'll be going into.

MBA has very little (some might almost say negative) value in Silicon Valley startup world, but obviously more value in mature companies, or companies that are transitioning from startup->mature (possible exception being the CEO, VP of BizDev/Marketing and possibly VP of Product Management). MBAs have close to zero value for people who wish to be simultaneously tactical and technical. I've never seen a network engineer, or firmware developer get any value out of their MBA. It's really for people who are either going to go into the business side of a company, and/or go into management.

Also - it's important to note if you'll have to quit working while you are getting your MBA - that makes the credential doubly expensive.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#32

Post by inselkampf »

Before they wiped out college tuitions costs back in Ireland in 1996 the cost of doing a an excellent CS degree in UCC (http://ucc.ie) was about 2000 Irish pounds (about $2800 at the time) a year for 4 years.

If you were wanted to do medicine it was a whopping $5000 or so a year over about 5 years.

There were lesser hidden costs (200 for a registration fee kind of thing) but thats about it.

We considered that outlandish at the time.

The costs of the US education system baffle me on a daily basis.

However I don't see online courses as the way to go. Most people don't complete them.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#33

Post by blazespin »

I think we need to have some A|B testing around this.

While I am a huge believer in this, my little finger tells me that Online students will perform worse when it comes to exam time.

There is an energy to synchronous group learning you can't duplicate via websites. I remember when I was in college and university, a bunch of us bonded a bit and got pretty competitive (in a friendly way) when it came to our grades and test results. If you developed a good relationship with your prof, they would often have high expectations of you and you didn't want to let them down. These emotional connections can be pretty inspiring to kids ages 18-22.

If they want to be competitive with campus students, they need to either duplicate these emotions online (via virtual worlds?) or perhaps increase the workload and adjust the bell curve so students fail out quickly unless they take it very seriously.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#34

Post by oceanstone »

I opted out of college. Sometimes it bums me out though, because I feel like by learning on the job, I reached the 10 thousand hour mark too early. And it's annoying, I have this savings account of thousands of dollars, and it's like, what am I supposed to do with it? If I had went to college, I'd have been in debt from the get go, so it would be more motivating to pay off like $100k of student loans. This $6,600 college course sounds like a scam. How are you going to be motivated to pay off loans, if there are none? At least it's better than getting paid to learn.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#35

Post by jmduke »

johnbellone wrote: post #30
ghshephard wrote: post #24

Just to put this in comparison - I recently took a two-week networking course (in the United States) for $7300. While this was in-person, with labs/instruction from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM every day, and the class was limited to twelve students, it does put things into perspective. The real cost, as always, in getting a degree is the students time. Someone capable of getting a Masters degree, can, without too much effort,…

I have been contemplating between getting an MBA or a PhD in software engineering (because I want to teach) for the past few years. For the latter it would be strictly because I want to create something, be innovative, and give back to my industry. The former - you're really paying for the connections - and possibly a few lessons on economics that have grown dry in your head. I am justifying the price tag on a two ye…

The common knowledge I've heard about MBAs is that, as you said, you're paying for the connections -- and that the only valuable connections come from the pedigree of a Top 20 MBA program. If you're not pursuing an "elite" program (I'm sure 95% of MBA curriculums are equivalent no matter where you enroll, but the alumni certainly are not), then it's likely not worth the time or money.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#36

Post by insertdisktwo »

p4bl0 wrote: post #17

As a French person my first reaction to the title was "that's awfully expensive!". Then I thought about the US education system and thought "Oh, the title must actually imply that it's cheap…". I still had to go read the article to make sure. And then I learned that it's actually an online master. So my (second) first reaction was that it's cool to be able to get a master's degree from a top university from almost an…

re: Second-class degree Geogia Tech's engineering program ranks extremely high in the U.S. and the United States' academic institutions rank extremely high on various world-wide charts.

Having spent a long time on the inside track of the Silicon Valley hiring processes, I can vouch that getting a degree from a prestigious institution really does fast-track your interview, at least when it comes to the screening or pre-screening phase.

$6,600 will at the current engineering salaries be at most a month and a half of your future net salary in the USA, or about 4-5 months worth of rent in San Francisco, so it is overall a very small forward investment to make if you live in the US.

I doubt the degree will be treated as "second class," this will occur only if the words get out that the program is somehow easier to finish and I strongly doubt that. If anything, without in-person TA-ing and live peer interaction, it will be harder to complete some of the courses.

re: Cost of graduate-level education in the USA I understand that EU-citizens get free Masters' education. This is somewhat a side-effect of the EU-wide Bologna process, which promoted everyone's Bachelors degree into a Masters by adding a year's worth more of education and introducing a credit-system. If you are a non-EU citizen trying to get a degree in the EU, you will be paying much more than $6600 in many countries, including the socialist-leaning Scandinavia.

Any US citizen can give FAFSA a try and (from memory) more than half of the undergraduate student body receives some form of financial aid from the government. There are reputable sources that say that paradoxically the generous FAFSA grants are partially responsible for a tuition inflation, but this debate is completely off-topic.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#37

Post by insertdisktwo »

ghshephard wrote: post #31
johnbellone wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been contemplating between getting an MBA or a PhD in software engineering (because I want to teach) for the past few years. For the latter it would be strictly because I want to create something, be innovative, and give back to my industry. The former - you're really paying for the connections - and possibly a few lessons on economics that have grown dry in your head. I am justifying the price tag on a two ye…

The variables obviously are Where are you getting the MBA (Ivy League MBAs, even evening ones, have more value), what is the price tag - there is a big difference between a $50K MBA and $200K MBA, and what field you'll be going into. MBA has very little (some might almost say negative) value in Silicon Valley startup world, but obviously more value in mature companies, or companies that are transitioning from startup…

I disagree that MBAs have a negative value in the Silicon Valley. Most investors I know value someone having one business person on the team early on. This person can help drive the validation/marketing/sales side of the business plan forward. People with hybrid skills (MBA + engineering degree) are from my personal experience highly appreciated.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#38

Post by insertdisktwo »

tseabrooks wrote: post #9

Maybe this depends greatly on the particular discipline you're in. In the US it's not that difficult to get your Master's degree in C.S. for free + monthly stipend, at least in my experience. I know a number of people across the natural science disciplines who TA'd / RA'd their way through Grad School. I might be misunderstanding how common this is but it seems any discussion of Grad School cost should discuss the fa…

Please let me know if this applies in the case outside of being a PhD student.

The US educational system has a tradition of issuing a Masters as a consolation price to PhD dropouts who've done enough of the coursework/research.

Bona-fide Masters programs with scholarships/stipends are very hard to find. If there's counterexamples I would like to know about them. From my experience, these are very rare.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#39

Post by insertdisktwo »

mtgx wrote: post #19
jval wrote: post #12

This is completely right. Most of the commenters here keep thinking about it from the perspective of people in countries that already have great access to education, but disruption begins with people who don't already have access to a product or are struggling to afford the existing alternatives. In the case of education, these people are most likely to reside in the developing world - there are billions of people in…

I agree with your general theory, but I don't think $6,600 is "reasonable" for a college degree in BRIC nations. I think even in the more developed countries in Europe that's at the high-end of what it costs to get one. It only seems reasonable for an American, who usually pays what - $100,000-$200,000? $2,000 is what I'd call "reasonable", although if we're really thinking about truly revolutionizing education for t…

Keep in mind that it is $6,600 for a graduate (post-Bachelors) degree, not a college degree.

In the U.S. a Bachelors degree lasts 8-9 semesters and equips you for work far better than the 3-year Bologna "equivalent."

The Masters degree thus can focus almost exclusively on the graduate-level courses, with the exception of some refreshers.

You have to compare the $6,600 to the cost of living in the United States.

U.S. census Bureau's poverty threshold is $11,500/year income. In this income-level very little goes to taxes. So this program is roughly 7 months of minimum wage in the US.

That is very affordable for an advanced degree.

Re: The $6,600 Master's Degree.

#40

Post by insertdisktwo »

jacques_chester wrote: post #5

As an Australian gazing across the pond, it's weird to see what the fuss is about. My alma mater (UWA) has a Master of Professional Engineering degree which I can complete for $15k AUD (and since they guarantee entry to their BCompSci grads, I'm considering it). Sydney Uni have a Master of Project Management that I costed at 20k AUD (edit: I was quite wrong, it's closer to 45k). And the FEE-HELP program means that, i…

You have to keep in mind that Georgia Tech is one of the best engineering schools in the U.S. (disclosure: I am not in any way related to this institution) and consequently worldwide.

$15K AUD is very close to ~$14.5K USD. This is less than half of that.

Post reply on HN