A Hundred Grand for This?

As seniors face the terrifying prospect of graduation, two basic choices are held before them. They could enter the job market and put their $100,000 degree to work. Or they could apply for graduate school and spend another two years obtaining a master’s degree in their selected field.

In the last 35 years, enrollment in master’s programs nationwide has grown by 150 percent. This growth rate can be partially explained by societal pressures that create a higher undergraduate enrollment and increased job competition. Economic incentives also increase enrollment in master’s programs. As more students take on more debt than they can control, however, the costs of this education temper the benefits.

Societal pressures come from dual directions. First, generalized statistics are misused to tilt approval towards higher education. Second, the subtle bias and prestige that a college degree carries, no matter the major, compounds the pressure on young people to attend college.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a people who graduated from college in 1992 can expect $600,000 more income than a person of the same age with only a high school diploma. A master's degree adds nearly $200,000 more to lifetime earnings. This type of data portrayal is misleading, however. It implies that a person with a college degree will always make more money than a person without.

This leads to a bias against the trades. Blue-collar jobs are socially snubbed, even though workers can end up making enormous amounts of money. According to Forbes.com, long-haul truck drivers can earn upwards of $100,000 a year, and subway conductors make, on average, more than $62,000 a year. Statistics overlook these career choices and instead instill in their readers a view that only with a college degree can a person become successful.

But the value of a college degree reaches beyond the classes a student has taken. The classes and major a student chooses really don’t seem to matter much at all. A 1997 survey by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics found that, four years after obtaining a bachelor's degree, only 55 percent of graduates were in jobs related to their major field of study.

In an article titled "College at work: Outlook and Earnings for College Graduates," Arlene Dohn wrote that “supervisors often interpret having a college degree as a sign that workers are serious about the job, know how to learn, and can achieve goals. Supervisors considering candidates for promotion may look more favorably upon those who have a college degree than on those who do not have one.” Thus, a college degree carries a subtle and favorable bias that has no relation to the field of study chosen.

The result of this is a dramatic increase in undergraduate enrollment. More than one million students earned their bachelor’s degree in 2000, and that number increases every year.

Because of this influx of bachelor’s degrees, many students feel as though they need to obtain a graduate education to stand out from the masses. Even if a particular job does not require an advanced degree, they may obtain one to boost their desirability in the global job market. Emily Culp, a freshman English major from Middlebury College, for example, believes master's degrees "are indispensable in the increasingly competitive job market”.

Even as a freshman, Culp has already begun to plan both financially and academically for an education beyond her undergraduate. Students who would be satisfied with a bachelor’s degree ten years ago are now planning to advance their education to have a higher marketable value.

Societal pressure is not the only reason students chose to spend two more years in school, however. By furthering their education, they are almost certainly guaranteed a much higher salary.

In 2000, administrators in education and related fields earned an average of $764 a week if they had a bachelor's degree. This figure jumped to $1,105 for those with a master's degree.

This translates into nearly $17,000 more a year for workers with a master’s degree. Over a lifetime, this difference will compound enormously. Students can easily justify two more years of schooling if they see the enormous benefits to it. In some fields of study it is necessary to obtain a master’s degree to get a decent paycheck.

“Earning my master's degree is simply a required step,” says Patrick Bradley, a MSc in European Theatre at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and an Ithaca College graduate. To achieve his goal of teaching English literature at the university level, he must advance beyond his undergraduate.
There are two essential costs associated with this dramatic increase in master’s degrees. First, the actual cost to the student themselves is astronomical. The average graduate student comes out of college with more than $25,000 in debt. Professional degrees such as medicine, law, or business can place students into debts from $50,000 to $100,000. In fact, the average law student in the class of 2001 graduated with more than $80,000 in student loans.

Students need to examine their major and justify this kind of expenditure. Serious thinking must be done before signing on to tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. For some, the decision is easy.

“Waking up every day to do something you love is worth all the student loans in the world!” Bradley says. Everyone must consider for themselves the price they are willing to pay for their education, however.

Second, because of the increase in master’s degrees, some feel that the degree has fallen in significance and status. In the past, a master’s degree would be a sign of high intellectual achievement. However, many students fear that the influx of students will compromise the quality of the degree.

“I do worry about the larger number of students who continue on to master's programs…I don't want to see it change to be a mere extension of the undergraduate years,” says Elysse Meredith, who is currently studying to become a MSc in Medieval Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She cites a “decrease in the quality of teaching” as one of her greatest fears.

So before committing themselves to either the job market or an advanced degree, students must personally assess for themselves and their career path the right decision to make.