5 Grad Degrees That Don't Pay Off

This has become a tired story at this point, the whole ROI thing, but this short list has a couple of new members so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Five Graduate Degrees That Don't Pay Off | Fox Business

 

I like how they tied a Picture of an High School Graduate to a story on Masters Degree's.

 

"Masters in Computer Engineering" I totally disagree with this. Georgetown University's studies? When the school itself is not technical school, or does not have any Engineering College within the University itself.

 

Only Five?

 

Hmm... PhD in History, PhD in English, and PhD in Archaeology didn't even make the list.

 

Often these degrees come with funding, so the direct cost might not be that high, even if the opportunity cost is cumbersome.

 

Is the payoff asymmetric? The education is not in the credential but in the knowledge? If you have more knowledge, then you can maybe do more things and your portfolio reads better. Are students expending the credential and the university background to take them forward, more than what they know? The employer might be focusing on the individual's background, not the university's.Focus on the knowledge, not the credential may be a good strategy going forward.

Low cost options may not be a bad deal. It would be interesting to know how the rsearch was structured. How did people with a good portfolio and university qualifciation fare in respect of the rest?

 

Wow. Law schools are pumping out students into joblessness and poverty. Everybody should start suing one another in order to stimulate the legal market

 

I love that MD graduates earn 190% more than pre-med undergrad graduates. Ya think? lol

 

About pre-med. I found this on wikipedia. Scary.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine has created a program specifically for non-science majors. The Humanities and Medicine Program grants admission to undergraduates majoring in the humanities or social sciences without requiring the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) or science coursework.

 

The program is unusual, but it's small and not really very scary.

The posted description says: "The Humanities and Medicine Program grants admission to undergraduates majoring in the humanities or social sciences without requiring the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) or science coursework." That just means that you are eligible to apply as a non-science major, without any science coursework, and you may be admitted on that basis. But that doesn't mean that you are exempt from science coursework. You still have to take the science courses in order to complete the program, you just take them after admission, rather than before.

It is true that this program doesn't require MCATs ... but it does require very high SAT scores (average = 1440).
Here is Mt. Sinai's own description of the requirements:

 

This is actually pretty realistic from my perspective. Working at a large, large software company the only folks with Graduate degrees in IT or Management disciplines are those without undergrad degrees in IT or CS. Frankly the Masters offers no real benefit, one's time is much better spent pursing a professional certification or honing skills in an emerging area of tech.