[HN Gopher] Master's degrees are the second biggest scam in high...
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Master's degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?
Author : rustoo
Score : 218 points
Date : 2021-07-17 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (slate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (slate.com)
| emilfihlman wrote:
| Bachelor degrees are the scam in higher education. It should be
| only masters.
| lumost wrote:
| Why?
| emilfihlman wrote:
| Because bachelors don't know shit, and you don't need a
| degree to do bachelor stuff.
|
| Ie you need to gauge people based on their skill not their
| degree for bachelor level stuff anyways so instead of some
| mid degree that's useless we should get rid of it and push
| people to actually complete something useful, like a master's
| degree.
| andi999 wrote:
| Coming up next: luxury watches biggest scam in retail. (they
| serve the same function as an ivy league degree: signaling
| status)
| markus_zhang wrote:
| And diamonds. I wonder if you can rent those watches for the
| big events.
| MikeDelta wrote:
| In Europe a Master's degree is a necessity for the (better)
| starter jobs in industry, but usually in the more common
| (traditional) fields like economics, law, engineering, or
| science.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| But in these cases aren't undergraduate degrees normally three
| years, and a master's degree one? So that's four years total,
| which is what Americans do anyway.
|
| An American undergraduate plus masters is six years, which is
| absolutely insane.
|
| Let alone their PhDs, which mean you could easily end up 29
| before you graduate.
|
| I had a friend in Europe who finished their PhD with top-tier
| publications in two years - much less mucking around than in
| the US.
| jltsiren wrote:
| The typical structure is 3 years for the bachelor's degree
| and 2 years for the master's degree. In many countries,
| master's is the primary undergraduate degree, while
| bachelor's is considered a glorified dropout.
|
| American undergraduate degrees often have plenty of classes
| unrelated to the major/minor subjects, while European degrees
| tend to be more focused. In some countries, those breadth
| requirements are considered a part of secondary education.
| While an American nominally starts a four-year degree at 18,
| a European may start a three-year degree at 19.
|
| As for PhDs, they were traditionally considered more like
| certifications than degrees. You could graduate quickly if
| you managed to finish your thesis, but it was far more common
| to continue working on it well into your 30s. This has
| changed in the past decade or two, as universities started
| favoring short "American-style" PhDs, with the ideal to
| graduate before 30. (The British with their short PhDs were
| always an exception to this.)
| docdeek wrote:
| Europe is generally 3 for Bachelors + 2 for Masters.
| ajuc wrote:
| And in some countries it's more common to do 5 years
| straight to Masters (for example it was the system in
| Poland when I graduated but it became more popular to do
| 3+2 since then).
|
| At any rate - I wouldn't say it's a scam in countries with
| free university education. It's actually cheap to teach
| people and it improves the society. Win-win.
|
| University system in US is a scam for the same reason that
| healthcare system in US is a scam - because it has bad
| incentives and no taxpayers control over them.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > for example it was the system in Poland when I
| graduated but it became more popular to do 3+2 since then
|
| In France, there is the "3+2" system, but that's just on
| paper. Basically, there are two types of bachelor's: a
| practical one that's supposed to be the last in line, and
| another, more "theoretical" one that's supposed to be
| followed with a Master's.
|
| Students have to choose between the two fairly early, so
| if your goal is a Master's, you'll take the bachelor
| that's supposed to be followed by the Master. You do get
| a piece of paper at the three-year mark saying you've got
| a Bachelor's, but that's unusable if you want to get a
| job (as in no-one will hire you).
|
| You technically can go to a Master's after the practical
| one, but there are extra steps, and it's not as easy.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The continent is generally 3+2. In the UK it's generally 3 +
| 1.
|
| Eg I got a Master's 4 years after high school in the UK.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > But in these cases aren't undergraduate degrees normally
| three years, and a master's degree one?
|
| It's usually three years + two years.
|
| At least in France there used to be a degree at four years,
| before the Master's (at five) but I don't think that exists
| anymore since they introduced the EU-wide new system
| (Bachelor's -- Master's -- PhD).
| kitsune_ wrote:
| I think academically the first year of an US undergraduate
| degree is probably more on the level of the last year of a
| European "high school" (lycee, gymnasium etc).
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| Almost every European I have met through work, and through my
| European friends have master degrees.
|
| Mostly in softer fields like marketing and (English) language.
|
| They have all communicated the same thing - it's a necessity
| for starter jobs.
| ithinkso wrote:
| I think that was the case when Universities offered only 5year
| Master's degree programs but it changed after the Bologna
| process and you have Bachelor's 3years (3.5 for engineering) +
| 2years (1.5 eng) Master's.
|
| Bachelor's degree is often enough for a starter job in industry
| and I don't think it matters that much if it's Master's or
| Bachelor's even later in your career (at least in software
| dev), PhD is definitely regarded much higher
| thrower123 wrote:
| The biggest cheapening of Master's degrees is in education, where
| many school districts provide reimbursement and fairly
| significant pay raises for teachers who get masters. Which has
| led to a large number of garbage paint-by-number programs to
| service that demand. My mother got one while I was in high
| school, from a well respected regional university, and the level
| of the coursework was laughable.
| viburnum wrote:
| A university near me gave ed master's credit for playing golf.
| Not even in a class, you just play golf and send in your score.
| grawprog wrote:
| A friend of mine and I went through the same bachelor's degree
| program. My friend ended up continuing on to get a masters
| degree. Even my friend admitted they just went for the degree to
| get the degree. In the end, my friend went back to the job they
| were doing after the first degree and has been there ever since.
|
| Even by the end of the bachelor's program I took, it felt like I
| was kind of wasting money. As soon as teachers started trying to
| convince us to move on into the masters degree program, it was
| just a hard no from me. It would have cost the same as what I'd
| already paid for school, if not more and wasn't going to lead to
| a significant increase in job opportunities.
|
| By the end of that last year, it had become a lot more clear the
| school was more about making money than anything else.
| k__ wrote:
| I had the impression, it's what you make of it.
|
| I learned new interesting things, but I could also have boring
| stuff I would never use anywhere later.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "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.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Yes, having government involved always creates inflation.
|
| No it doesn't.
|
| > 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.
|
| The government is less (EDIT: _more_ ) involved
| (proportionate to total expenditures in the domain) in
| healthcare lots of places outside the US without equal, much
| less greater, healthcare inflation.
|
| It is the _manner_ , not the _mere fact_ of government
| involvement that produces inflation.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| It sounds like you're saying that places with less
| government involvement have less healthcare inflation -
| isn't what the comment you are replying to is arguing?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It sounds like you're saying that places with less
| government involvement have less healthcare inflation
|
| Yeah, it did; that was an error.
| jmull wrote:
| The success of the more socialized approaches to healthcare
| relative to the partially-private US approach suggest we need
| more government involvement in healthcare. Much cheaper,
| better outcomes, more people covered.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| And let's not forget housing. (Our government) making large
| loans more available and cheaper drives up demand for the
| intended goods/services. That, naturally, drives up price.
|
| It's difficult to understand why so many people advocate for
| even more government "intervention" (i.e., do more to
| increase the availability and cost of loans).
| bonzini wrote:
| Of course in both cases this is only true in the US.
| tonfreed wrote:
| My 4 year bachelor's degree in Australia still cost me
| $60000. I'm still not convinced it was worth it
| devenson wrote:
| plus lost wages for four years.
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| 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
| Aunche wrote:
| The problem is that "government involvement" in the US is
| synonymous with "throw money at the problem." It's a easy way
| to get results in the short term, so which gets you political
| approval, but in the long term, it just creates a money black
| hole.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| 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...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Wouldn't that just mean rich people got masters they didn't
| need and poor people didn't get ones they did need?
|
| Maybe markets have a difference concept of efficiency than
| society...
| gffbkugf wrote:
| hacker news: I've got mine!
| chmod600 wrote:
| 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.
| 8note wrote:
| Waste seems like a strong word. The career isnt the only
| reason to learn things
| LatteLazy wrote:
| 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 never being
| dischargable.
|
| 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. Or at least suitable in some cases.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 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.
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| I think immigration laws play a big role too, a lot of people
| seem to use a masters as a way of getting a visa - I believe
| having a masters improves the chances of getting an H1-B, and
| also being in school in the US makes it much easier to apply to
| US companies.
| andrew_eit wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Firstly, the question needs to be narrowed down. The topic of a
| master's degree in Europe vs in the UK and in the US varies,
| hugely: 1) The UK and the US have a great focus on the elitism of
| the university name. Countries like Germany do not, a masters
| from a (known) university with good grades, is pretty much as
| valuable as all the others. 2) Fees in Europe its free (as has
| been mentioned countless times here) so there's less of a
| "shopping" market here, in terms of looking for the most elite
| degree to graduate with, and much more about content 3) It
| depends on what you want to do as a career. In Europe, scientific
| and engineering fields do look for postgraduate degrees as a
| minimum. Companies like Amazon, hire data scientists mostly with
| PhDs in Germany or on exception, highly talented engineers.
|
| But the main "pro masters" degree argument for me, is the
| learning experience.
|
| My master's studies, was so intense, so stressful and so
| unbelievably intellectually rewarding that it shaped me and my
| character in a way that my bachelor's did not come close to.
|
| It gave me that confidence to approach fields and advanced
| topics, where I am not familiar with the notation, the
| terminology and don't know where to start, and it taught me how
| to dive in deep, in a self-motivated and self organised way. I
| really felt the whole time like an independent researcher,
| picking up books where I needed to, learning mathematical tools
| and programming skills I never thought of using to solve new
| problems. And participating in the latest SOTA research, in a way
| that has made me quite intellectually fearless now, going forward
| in my career.
| autokad wrote:
| I don't think masters degrees are a scam. However, there are a
| lot of online only masters programs out there now, and I am not
| sure they provide the same value. More on that later,
|
| Yes, MS are much more career targeted. That's a feature, not a
| detriment. In computer science undergrad, I had to take 2
| religion, 4 philosophy, 2 history, and 3 language classes. None
| of those 11 made me a better person nor helped my career. There
| were 10+ other humanities classes I had to take which left me no
| room to do what I actually wanted to do: dual major in business
| and computer science. Note: there were ZERO classes I was given
| that had any web, cloud, or big data learning in them. I still
| felt restricted by the 10 courses I had to take for my computer
| science masters, but I routinely use what I learned in my masters
| at work. It was extremely beneficial/applicable. There is
| something to be said for context switching as well. I liked
| having a smaller-focused course load.
|
| Another thing I liked / found beneficial is the dedication of my
| classmates. In undergrad, many students wanted to do the bare
| minimum and move on with their lives. A lot was about partying
| and sleeping in, which isn't bad, but having classmates who are
| passionate about the topics and dedicated to putting their best
| foot forward in class is nice to also have. Its nice having these
| two separate learning experiences. I've kept in touch with almost
| no one from undergrad, but lots from masters. The most valuable
| aspect of a masters is the students, which is why I am highly
| skeptical of online only masters programs.
|
| In the end, my masters degree doubled my earnings and set my
| career on a whole new trajectory. Its a great way to energize or
| restart your career as well.
| murderfs wrote:
| The article doesn't mention one of the biggest draws: having a
| masters degree from an accredited U.S. institution improves your
| chances at getting an H-1B visa.
| quantumofalpha wrote:
| You meant STEM OPT? H1B masters pool only marginally improves
| H1B lottery chances, which are far too low today to begin with.
| arpinum wrote:
| At at top 10 school in the UK: masters and even doctorates are
| being essentially sold to foreign students. The standards are
| incredibly low (students getting degrees without functional use
| of English), but the revenue to the university is essential.
|
| There is a business risk if schools try to maintain standards
| (students have paid for degrees, not learning), but the
| cumulative effect is that I completely ignore graduate degrees
| when hiring.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| In engineering?
| arpinum wrote:
| Business school
| markus_zhang wrote:
| This reminds me an episode of Yes Minister but I didn't expect
| it to go down that fast. Is it the same for STEM as well?
| arpinum wrote:
| I don't know about the STEM fields, this is from the business
| school, which is a cash cow funding other programmes.
| CraftingLinks wrote:
| In the US.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Sure, but personally I would argue that it almost always makes
| more financial sense to do a combined Masters-PhD (i.e. a
| research degree), especially in fields with plentiful funding.
|
| That was the case for me in Ireland when I did my doctorate.
| sgregnt wrote:
| Can you share which fields are these?
| [deleted]
| unishark wrote:
| In engineering a MS pays best, at least historically. Lately
| PhD's are becoming very common and much more product-oriented
| I'd say (as opposed to long-term high-risk research). So may
| be a better ticket to the upper ranks of technical tracks at
| large tech companies.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Was gonna say. My Master's program paid for itself by the time
| I graduated and absolutely helped land me my dream job which
| turned into a dream career.
| steelframe wrote:
| Many moons ago I earned a Master's degree from the UT Austin CS
| department while I was working full-time. Reading the article, I
| was struck by how much my own experience differed. Because of my
| Master's degree I feel that my technical abilities improved
| significantly, and I enjoyed career advancement as a direct
| result of my efforts.
|
| That said, I'm going to agree with a lot the article. If you're
| going into $300k debt to get an advanced degree in screenwriting,
| you're probably making a poor decision. As is the case with most
| things in life, there can be a tremendous variation in what a
| "Master's degree" ends up being for you.
|
| My undergraduate degree was Computer Engineering, which at the
| time was under the purview of the EE department at my university.
| As such, it was heavier on things like BJT properties and lighter
| on topics like algorithm complexity theory, modern language
| constructs, and database and networking theory. Once I got into
| industry, I quickly realized that I was missing a lot of
| knowledge that my peers had in these areas, and I felt it was
| important to find a way to fill those gaps.
|
| My employer had a program where they would let me work as a full-
| time employee while I simultaneously pursued higher education.
| They covered my tuition so long as I maintained a minimum
| acceptable GPA. Since UT Austin was nearby, I jumped at the
| opportunity, as they have a very reputable CS program. Tuition
| ended up costing all of $13k over the 3 years that it took me to
| complete the program while working full time. Meanwhile I pulled
| an entry-level tech salary with benefits.
|
| I already knew that I wanted to focus on security in my career,
| so in every class that had a term paper or final project, I
| focused on something security-related. For my databases course I
| studied and implemented k-anonymity. For my computer architecture
| courses I implemented Blowfish on an experimental CPU
| architecture and implemented data cache tagging as a mechanism
| for isolating regions of memory to specific chunks of executable
| code. For my networking class I wrote a paper summarizing some
| recent advancements in onion routing protocols. For my machine
| learning class I implemented a k-nearest-neighbor algorithm to
| look at access patterns done on encrypted storage to infer the
| types of files being accessed and the applications manipulating
| the files.
|
| All the while I filled many gaps in my knowledge on Computer
| Science as a discipline, and that helped prepare me to eventually
| be able to pass the infamous highly technical Google interview
| loop. From that point I leveraged the expertise I had developed
| in the field of security to build some notable security features,
| one of which you are using right now if you happen to be reading
| this on an Android device.
|
| If I hadn't pursued my Master's degree, I honestly can't say
| whether I would have had the same level of career success in the
| years that followed. Because I went to a public university that
| didn't charge exhorbitant fees (and because my employer covered
| them anyway), I did it without accumulating any debt. I had
| specific personal goals for what knowledge and skills I wanted to
| develop in the program. I took advantage of the opportunity to
| deep-dive on topics with knowledgeable professors who were
| accomplished in their respective fields. I honed my knowledge of
| data structures and algorithms to be better prepared for
| technical interviews.
|
| So the takeaway perhaps is that there is a right way and a wrong
| way to go about a Master's degree. If you're going into
| significant debt to zombie through the base requirements to get a
| piece of paper, in general you can't expect to get the same
| results as you would if you were highly intentional and strategic
| about where you go and how much you pay to go there.
| kaiwen1 wrote:
| I wonder if this scam also applies to executive MBA programs? For
| example, the Kellogg-HKSTU program cost US$220,000 for about 18
| long weekends of on-site classroom time. This is exorbitant, but
| the Financial Times has ranked the program as the best EMBA
| program in the world 10 times, primarily due to the large
| increase in salary after graduation, up 67% to $528,057 in 2020.
| [1]. In fact, the reported salary increases on all of the top
| EMBA programs imply that these programs are legitimately worth
| their costs. They're priced like scams, but (if accurate) the
| salary increases suggest they aren't. I wonder if there are any
| master's programs that outperform the best EMBAs in terms of
| salary increase?
|
| [0] https://emba.hkust.edu.hk [1]
| https://rankings.ft.com/home/masters-in-business-administrat...
| [1]
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It's actually just a double-scam.
|
| Scam #1 is the level of executive compensation, particularly in
| the US.
|
| Scam #2, the EMBA, rides on the back of #1. Cost is "justified"
| by what #1 makes possible, but nothing else.
| csa wrote:
| 1. These students are almost always sponsored by the their
| companies.
|
| 2. In addition to technical knowledge, the students are also
| exposed to other future executives in other industries. This
| network can be very powerful.
| ghaff wrote:
| Typically, in my experience, companies are paying for these. In
| my experience from decades ago, these sort of programs were
| oriented towards e.g. people who had come up through the
| engineering ranks, didn't have an MBA, and were being groomed
| for more senior management.
|
| Of course, that was from a time when MBAs were probably more of
| a requirement even in tech for senior exec roles than they are
| today. These programs obviously still exist but I'm not
| personally aware of anyone who has gone to one any time
| recently.
| tyingq wrote:
| Is it maybe a self powered thing where companies are
| reimbursing tuition for specific hand selected people they
| intend to promote?
| adamdusty wrote:
| One of the admission requirements is that your company sponsors
| you as outstanding with potential within the organization.
| Another requirement is that you are already or will soon be an
| executive. This makes me assume the salary increase is due to
| the fact that they only accept people that are positioned to
| get big salary increases.
|
| Also the fees page suggests that it costs at minimum, 550k, and
| if I'm reading it correctly, 1.5m.
|
| https://emba.hkust.edu.hk/admissions/fees/
| csa wrote:
| > Also the fees page suggests that it costs at minimum, 550k,
| and if I'm reading it correctly, 1.5m.
|
| Fwiw, those are HK$, so about $193k USD.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| MBA are mostly for connections and maybe an advanced degree (in
| some countries it's considered as equivalent to a Master's
| degree and salaries adjust for that especially for government
| positions). Occasionally, if not sponsored by companies, they
| serve as a convenient place to find a proper mating partner.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The base problem is the idea that a given academic degree gives
| you access to some career. It's messy, because clearly some do
| work that way. With the film degree it should have been clear
| that there's only so many relevant jobs going each year, and thus
| your chance as a graduate is going to be minimal. It would
| certainly be in everyone's interest to have transparency about
| the destinations. Master's degrees are also often the kind of
| thing people do if they did an unspecifically directed undergrad
| (eg English, History) and then want to get their door in
| somewhere (eg law conversion), so it's important that people
| understand what they're buying.
|
| If you look at most things though, there's no connection between
| what you do at work and what you studied. At best studying some
| subject means you are interested in some broad area, and you are
| conscientious enough to have done all the exercises, so employers
| should perhaps hire you in the hope that you can learn how the
| online advertising industry works, or how the plastic supply
| chain works, etc.
|
| Looking back at my degree, it was really a bunch of indexing
| interesting things in science and math for potential further
| investigation. And then an exercise in flaneuring: wandering
| about, coming upon something interesting, and then being able to
| focus on figuring out that thing as opportunities arise.
| ghaff wrote:
| Film is actually interesting because I think you'll find that
| many of the most respected directors, editors,
| cinematographers, etc. in Hollywood didn't go to film school.
| DontWalkRun wrote:
| Post Secondary Institutions have put undergraduate education on
| the back burner. It's all about graduate degrees now. More money,
| grants, and cheap student labour.
| xor99 wrote:
| This is why I prefer PhD or research degrees to Masters as the
| "curriculum" is more modular (i.e. I can quickly change my focus
| if something wasn't working out or learn new things without
| needing permission).
|
| US/Europe govt should pay people to do research degrees for 12-15
| months with some screening as to ability. Run it like a library
| and/or makespace and remove bloated universities out of the
| equation. This plus some sort of machine rental or access service
| (e.g. pay per use) for scientific/fab equipment and open methods
| for peer review publication would revolutionise adult education
| in the sciences and engineering.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| wildmanxx wrote:
| Come on, could the title be any more click-baity?
|
| Arts and U.S. Ivy are missing key words in the title.
|
| If you lift your eyes beyond the U.S., there are countries where
| the student does not pay tuition and the offered degree program
| actually contains really useful material with a high quality
| teaching experience.
|
| But sure, let's just all watch 10min youtube clips and claim it's
| at least as good.
| nazrulmum10 wrote:
| Is it really?
| drewg123 wrote:
| I graduated from a no-name state school in the early 90s into a
| down job market. I was at the top of my class and did well on the
| GREs and was offered a fellowship to a PhD program at a private
| engineering school (RPI). I enrolled in the PhD program, and I
| used the time saved by the fellowship to take an overload of
| classes. Between the overload, and transferring in credits from
| graduate level classes I had taken as an undergrad, I bailed out
| with an almost free MS after one calendar year. The cost to me
| was the full price I paid for the credits to do the MS project.
|
| IMHO, I learned exactly nothing from my MS. My undergrad classes
| at a no-name state school were more challenging, and I felt like
| the grad level classes were a poor copy. The MS project was
| useless drudgery that I was not interested in at all.
|
| The entire thing was a waste of time, except for the piece of
| paper that I got at the end. I firmly believe that piece of paper
| opened several doors that might otherwise have been closed, and
| has resulted in better jobs and better pay throughout my career.
| ta2021JULY wrote:
| I can only speak from myself (Economics, in Portugal).
|
| In employability terms, my master's degree was not a good
| investment, and these degrees are cheap here compared to the US
| (I payed 5k for two years).
|
| I do however feel I developed plenty of resillience due to the
| amount of studying I had to do, a real understanding of what
| academic life is like by doing my thesis (we are not very exposed
| to papers in the undergrad), and most importantly, a strong and
| useful framework and intuition for thinking about the world - but
| I think that might just be a combination of my degree and innate
| inclinations.
| tomrod wrote:
| Don't forget to factor in the opportunity cost of 2 years of
| lost wages!
| alanfranz wrote:
| Recent OMSCS graduate here, and I was already working as a
| software engineer. I learned a lot, I'm very happy with the
| experience, the price is totally reasonable (around $7k) and it's
| a kind of education which suits and is oriented to adults. I
| totally recommend the program.
|
| But, I totally understand the issue with a $50k Master's.
| hedgehawk wrote:
| Would you recommend OMSCS for someone trying to switch into
| tech but has some only some CS coursework in undergrad (OOP,
| discrete, DS&A, an unrelated major like Biology) ?
| rybosworld wrote:
| It's one way to make the career switch but possibly not the
| best. As with most things, it depends on your circumstances.
|
| What OMSCS offers imo is:
|
| - an elite CS education
|
| - specialize in topics that interest you
|
| - very low cost (I'll have spent around $8k total by
| graudation)
|
| - the flexibility that naturally comes with an online-first
| education
|
| What it doesn't offer:
|
| - a starting point for someone with near zero cs-background
| (if this is you, it will be a hard program)
|
| - job/coop placement
|
| - networking is hard imo
| hedgehawk wrote:
| I feel like I have the necessary foundations of CS so I
| think it is a good starting point for me but the main goal
| is to maximize my time to get the necessary foundation in
| CS to do well at my job as well as open up my possibilities
| such that recruiters don't throw away my resume once they
| see "Biology with CS coursework".
|
| In terms of networking and job placement, I am thinking of
| applying to in-person masters programs (USC, UCLA,
| Stanford, and Cornell) but that would put be in some debt
| (40-50k). After reading this article, I am utterly lost.
| mbil wrote:
| +1 for OMSCS. I'm about to start my final class of the program.
| The low relative cost and scheduling flexibility made it
| attractive. I don't feel as though I've been scammed. I was
| exposed to a lot of computing topics I wouldn't have been able
| to explore as easily and with as much depth or rigor elsewhere.
| [deleted]
| rockclimber wrote:
| Going to a university is a waste of time. I know a few software
| contractors making PS100k+ in the UK and they don't have any
| formal education.
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| I think the title overstates it, even per it's own arguments in
| the article itself whose criticism is more narrow in scope.
| (Though criticisms on high prices do apply across the board)
|
| What it really takes issue with are programs that amount to a
| professional certificate, essentially a sort of trade school for
| a particular industry or role within that industry.
|
| I don't think the same criticism of quality applies to more
| traditional academically-oriented programs. For example an
| undergrad Biology major is essentially getting a wide survey of
| the field. At the master's level it goes into a lot more depth
| and you usually have some fairly specific area of focus. In
| short, you're acquiring a base of knowledge rather than focussing
| mostly on the application of that knowledge. Far different than,
| say, a 9-month Master's degree in cloud infrastructure that may
| be obsolete before you pay off the loan.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That sorry of education is a scan in a system where you take on
| huge amounts of debt. The financial aspect definitely makes it a
| scam.
| screye wrote:
| 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.
| tester756 wrote:
| Will Master's allow me to obtain US visa / get job in US &
| relocate easier?
|
| or the diff between bachelor/engineering degree is barely
| significant
| zubiaur wrote:
| It does. One goes through a separate, advanced degree, pool for
| the h1b lottery. If one is not selected on that pool, then one
| enters the regular one.
|
| Also, a STEM masters allows one to do three years of OPT, which
| is basically a work permit.
|
| A masters was a great choice for me. I did my engineering
| undergrad abroad, got a very good education for not much money.
| Doing a masters in the US allowed me to specialize and enter
| the US market.
|
| Comparatively, the price of a technical masters in the US was
| on part with that of an MBA on my country of origin. After
| crunching the numbers, it was an easy decision.
|
| I am happy with the education I got, and the opportunities it
| opened for me.
| tester756 wrote:
| Thank you for explanation
| [deleted]
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I 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 with my CS Master's.
|
| But living with enormous debt--debt that cannot be discharged in
| bankruptcy (in the US)--is such a burden, and the degree itself
| may really not offer that much in terms of job prospects (though
| we shouldn't discount the value of humanities degrees--turns out
| they often do pretty well in life).
|
| It is hard to see why a poetry program should cost so much.
| ydlr wrote:
| I did my MFA in poetry in the US. Tuition and living expenses
| were completely covered by fellowships and a TA position. I
| think this is the norm. While expensive on paper, no one really
| pays that. Most programs are not predatory like those described
| in article.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I certainly hope that was the case for her.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| That said about federal student loans, it is a low interest
| unsecured type of debt. At a bank an unsecured loan is at least
| 11-16% depending on the amount.
|
| So if you as a student do have some of that debt leftover, it
| is much smarter to use that toward a car down payment or a
| deposit on an apartment. I feel like most college kids don't
| have even the slightest grasp on budgeting and how all
| transactions affect the accounting equation honestly.
| [deleted]
| Finnucane wrote:
| MFA programs in creative writing are the most worthless. In my
| experience as an editor, writers with MFAs were not as a class
| better than those without.
|
| At least with some graduate programs--in areas of actually
| value--you might qualify for an RA or TA subsidy. But it's not
| worth paying full freight.
| tonfreed wrote:
| I think the debt problem is one of a predatory nature. I love
| music and history, but I came from a family that pretty much
| only got by because of welfare. I didn't have the time or money
| to waste getting a degree in something that had zero job
| prospects after school.
|
| You show a $50k a year degree to an 18 year old from a more
| middle to upper middle class family, though, and they're not
| going to understand how much money that actually is. They're
| going to see one big party that they don't need to pay for
| until they're done.
|
| I also remember when I was in high school, all the boomer
| teachers and parents were saying university is a gateway to
| easy money after. We were sold something that hasn't held true,
| and I think a lot of people are very bitter about that.
| websites2022 wrote:
| > We were sold something that hasn't held true, and I think a
| lot of people are very bitter about that.
|
| In what way has it not held true? 33% of Americans have at
| least a four year degree and earn an average of $1m more than
| their peers without over their lifetimes.
|
| By all measures, university is a gateway to easy money after.
| So long as you finish.
| skewart wrote:
| I bet Ferrari owners earn even more than that compared to
| people without Ferraris.
|
| I don't think that means we should tell young people to
| take out loans to buy a Ferrari because it's a ticket to
| easy money.
|
| When the only kids going to college were either rich or
| highly motivated then having a degree made you stand out
| and could open doors. When everyone gets a degree it
| doesn't make you stand out any more. Instead, not having a
| degree makes you look bad. (And unlike high school, which
| anyone can attend for free, most kids in the US need to
| take on a lot of debt just so the don't get left behind.)
| jsbdk wrote:
| 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.
| andrew_eit wrote:
| How bleak are our prospects as a civilisation when we reduce
| the value of a higher education in the arts, such as
| literature, to something as rudimentary as a waste of tax
| money. It is short sighted to think that since a "degree in
| poetry" won't yield a substantial dollar-value return
| economically, that it therefore has no value. Especially when
| several of recent history's social and political movements
| were in fact born of literature, writing and the kind of
| written articulation that characterises such academic fields.
|
| And to your point about "free" education in Europe. The act
| of decoupling the pursuit of education and knowledge, from a
| high financial cost, is a crucial mechanism to ensure that
| institutions retain the freedom to pursue knowledge for its
| own sake, and to not be (solely) steered by the industrial
| interests of the status quo.
| jsbdk wrote:
| That's a very romantic view of society, but a graduate on
| poetry will most likely spend the rest of her days writing
| copy for a marketing agency, selling burgers, or cleaning
| latrines. And that's ignoring the fact that you really
| don't need to study "poetry" for four years to be able to
| write poems.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > _For colleges and universities, master's degrees have
| essentially become an enormous moneymaking scheme, wherein the
| line between for-profit and nonprofit education has been utterly
| blurred. There are, of course, good programs as well as bad ones,
| but when you scope out, there is clearly a systemic problem._
|
| Cool. Now do the higher education system as a whole.
| tomrod wrote:
| I got my PhD in a field where you nonchalantly get a masters
| along the way (because masters degrees have an in-field glass
| ceiling).
|
| A terminal masters program was started by my program while I was
| in attendance. If you needed the education, it was billed as a
| professional degree and I think is put to good use. But if you
| had an undergraduate degree in the field and were not pursuing a
| PhD then it was just window dressing.
| lumost wrote:
| It's pretty ridiculous, but there are a bunch of fields gate
| keeped by these terminal masters programs regardless of
| undergraduate background or work experience.
|
| E.g. most industrial fields that include scientist in the
| title. DS/AS roles in tech, Product management roles etc.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Are you in physics?
| tomrod wrote:
| Economics.
| pram wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.)
| tomrod wrote:
| There are a few industries I'd consider as targets for
| economics. Management consulting and litigation
| consulting are top in those.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes, but many of the partners at those firms who are
| "economists" probably have PhDs.
|
| I imagine it's also fairly common for banks, trading
| firms, and the like to have economists on staff but my
| point is that they're likely not mostly undergrad (or
| even Masters) economics majors.
| tomrod wrote:
| Indeed. There is a ceiling without the advanced degree!
|
| Banks surprisingly hire few economists outside of
| information/trading groups and, for the more quant heavy,
| risk groups.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| 1. You don't need a masters to apply to a doctorate program. 2.
| You're not making that much more than someone with a bachelors
| and 2/3 additional years of experience.
|
| I managed two people with a masters degree at a previous position
| and they weren't any better then the person I hired with a high
| school diploma. In fact I'd say the death metal guy with the HS
| diploma ran circles around them.
|
| Doesn't seem like a sound investment from my very limited
| perspective.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > You don't need a masters to apply to a doctorate program.
|
| Don't make overly broad statements. This is true for many
| programs, but false for many programs. It tends to be true for
| CS, and less true for EE, for example. When I applied for grad
| schools in EE, the universities that let you in the PhD program
| with just a BS were a minority. The top 10 school I got into
| said they would allow it only for special circumstances, and
| even then, would make you take about 2 extra years of
| coursework compared to those coming in with an MS (so
| practically the same as being admitted to a MS first). In my
| time there, I didn't encounter a single person who got into the
| PhD program with just a BS.
|
| Googling now, what I say may be less true. My undergrad
| university, which absolutely required a MS to get into the PhD
| program, no longer does. Although the grad school I went to
| hasn't changed - you still have to take about 2 more years of
| coursework if you get in without a MS, and your qualifying exam
| is delayed pretty much as if you were first getting an MS.
| robomartin wrote:
| What bothers me the most about US higher education is the sheer
| waste of time and money it can be. This is directly connected
| to how bad our secondary (say, middle to high school) education
| has become.
|
| In terms of secondary education, after a dozen years of
| schooling young adults are launched into the world with exactly
| zero marketable skills. Zero.
|
| What is the average US high school graduate good for?
|
| Stacking boxes and, after training, making coffee and a number
| of other low skill/knowledge jobs.
|
| This, from my perspective, is a travesty, a serious breach of
| the trust we place on a system of education that seems to have
| no ability to deliver real value for the money we spend.
|
| At the university level we easily add a year or two to degrees
| by adding what I call "degree-irrelevant" courses.
|
| An engineering degree should not have --as a graduation
| requirement-- history, social science or non-technical classes.
|
| Please note I said "graduation requirement". You should not
| need to pass a class on Middle Earth History and Poetry to
| obtain an Electrical Engineering degree. This is silly and it
| wastes a tremendous amount of time and money.
|
| Why do we have this?
|
| Well, our secondary education sucks, so we teach and re-teach
| that which should have been learned in high school.
|
| Worse than that, because the government is in the student loan
| business (and they are dumb as can be) the education "mafia"
| figured out how to fatten-up degrees to extract more money out
| of the system.
|
| A history class is inexpensive to teach, and yet it costs the
| same per credit than, say, a chemistry class that requires more
| infrastructure. Degrees are padded with crap no employer values
| at all.
|
| If you go to a university that costs, say, $30K to $50K per
| year, you likely have somewhere in the range of $30K to $80K in
| coursework loans that is utterly irrelevant to your degree.
|
| The other angle is that, without this coursework we would be
| able to graduate engineers about 25% faster than we do, which
| would be a competitive advantage.
|
| These graduates would start their professional lives with about
| 25% less debt. The lifetime benefits of this cannot be
| understated.
|
| The opportunity cost, for the person and prospective employer,
| of taking an additional year or more to graduate people with
| technical degrees is, in the aggregate, massive in scale.
|
| Someone might say: A well rounded education is important!
|
| Absolutely agreed! Just not as a graduation requirement that
| adds tens of thousands of dollars to the already abusive cost
| of education and, in most cases, over a year of time to
| obtaining a degree.
|
| This is where secondary education should shine. We should
| demand that young adults emerge from that system with both a
| well-rounded education and marketable skills.
|
| Society would benefit immensely if we were better at the
| business of education, from K through university.
|
| EDIT:
|
| As one of many personal examples. Many years ago I hired an EE
| out of Intel. He spent around five years there designing
| switching power supplies. That's what I hired him for. He
| worked for my company for several years doing exactly that,
| designing switching power supplies. The fact that his US degree
| required him to take a bunch of irrelevant courses added
| exactly zero value to what he could do for anyone who might
| hire him, myself included. This means this person wasted a
| year+ of his life in school taking courses nobody cares about
| (and nobody will pay him for). A year later I hired yet another
| EE to do the same work. His degree was from Europe. He had
| nearly zero non-STEM coursework. He performed just as well, and
| in some aspects better, than the US-graduated EE.
|
| I don't understand why we allow the education system to do
| things that are demonstrably detrimental from nearly every
| angle. If someone does want to study philosophy or history
| while obtaining a degree, no problem at all. It should be THEIR
| decision. And, if they think it might have future value to
| employers, they would get to highlight the fact that they took
| and passed such coursework. They could even opt to go for a
| minor in a certain area of study. Again, this should be the
| decision of the student and it should self-select based on the
| ultimate value assigned to such studies by society, not imposed
| upon every single student by a system with already ridiculous
| cost structures.
| gspr wrote:
| Indeed. I was shocked when I learned how much American
| university students are treated as children (forced to take
| off-topic courses, living under high school-like rules).
| wffurr wrote:
| My 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The article is poorly titled - it's mostly about non-tech
| degrees or online programs.
|
| In engineering, an MS in CS has the least value to employers.
| However, in other areas of engineering, it has a pretty high
| value. Many big companies will not let you do EE design work
| with just a BS, for example.
| depressedpanda wrote:
| 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 working on real
| problems.
| peteretep wrote:
| I spent the first ten years of my programming career without
| a degree, like you. I got a SoftEng MSc at 30. It was worth
| it. Sometimes we just don't know what we don't know.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I think formal cs education would make me a better engineer
| than I am now, but at the same time I have never seen an
| instance where education has mattered more than
| intelligence.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| 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.
| matsemann wrote:
| Who got more accurate information in that case.. ;)
|
| It might be because education is free in my country, but I
| loved my Uni years and am glad I got 5 of them no matter
| the use for my career.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| I spent 6 years in undergrad (3 for MechE, 3 for Econ). I
| think it was a waste in terms of my career (which is SWE).
| I enjoyed college from a social perspective, but there were
| way cooler things I could've done with $15,000/yr
| bootlooped wrote:
| 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.
| youareelitist wrote:
| 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.
| trumpoline wrote:
| Instead those around you, with a degree, suffered. Having to
| deal with bricklayers that reinvent the wheel simply because
| they cant grasp cs topics is annoying.
| EthanHeilman wrote:
| I think this really depends on your undergrad, the value of
| masters degree seems to diminish with the following factors:
|
| - A well taught undergrad degree in CS (Masters fill gaps
| caused by bad classes or different fields)
|
| - Graduated with undergrad degree recently (getting a Masters
| degree after being out of school for 10 years can be a good
| refresher and update on how the field has evolved/changed)
|
| - Masters degree classes in an area of CS you are familiar with
| (Masters degree is a great opportunity to take classes in areas
| that you care about but don't know well, if you are a great
| Rails webdev with 7 years experience, then taking a Masters
| degree class in Rail WebDev is just wasting your time.)
| sgustard wrote:
| My CS masters was also no cost to me. Working as a half-time
| teaching and research assistant covered my tuition. I finished
| in twice the usual time with no debt and valuable work
| experience.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's also worth considering the opportunity cost. Usually for
| more junior candidates, time in school is treated
| equivalently to work experience. You just get paid more for
| working those years.
| lordnacho wrote:
| CS is pretty special:
|
| - It's not a legally qualifying degree like studying medicine
|
| - It's academic in the sense that you can use it to gain
| entrance to a phd, and has academic content that isn't just
| "how to code".
|
| - And yet you learn a fair bit about how to code. You'll in all
| likelihood come across actual tools, not toys, that real coders
| use, eg Git. You might also do some specialist stuff that is
| directly applicable to an employer, rather than just
| demonstrating interest. Eg if you do a systems programming
| course, you might actually understand systems in a way that's
| useful from the start.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I've read universally it's very hit or miss unless you
| specialize in some specific field.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| What was your undergraduate degree in?
| wffurr wrote:
| Also Computer Science but from a much less prestigious state
| school.
|
| It was also in a region with a much smaller tech sector.
|
| It's actually hard to say how much of the career boost was
| from moving to Boston and how much from the degree. I did
| make some very useful connections during the degree as well
| as actually learning quite a lot in some of the classes.
| ncfausti wrote:
| Similar experience here. I did a BA in 'Information
| Technology'. It wasn't until after I graduated that I taught
| myself to program through Stanford lectures on YT. The MSE in
| CS was incredibly beneficial for me.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably generally true of engineering degrees. While
| there's obviously an opportunity cost, there's usually not a
| big out of pocket expense other than living expenses. In my
| case, it wasn't so much that I really used a lot of specific
| things I learned getting the Master's but I still think it was
| a useful supplement to what I learned undergrad--the thesis in
| particular.
|
| The same applies to some degree of the sciences in general but,
| there, you probably have to get to a PhD for the opportunities
| to be significantly elevated relative to a BS.
|
| In any case, this meme about Master's degree scams is mostly
| directed at high-cost degrees in journalism and the like where
| the career opportunities aren't great with or without the
| degree.
| peter303 wrote:
| 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.
| cwbrandsma wrote:
| 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.
| rvz wrote:
| I guess they are paying $300k for the connections and access to
| the elites who go to these universities but whats the point of
| paying if the 'elite university experience' is not only virtual,
| but anyone can go and get a MS degree online for cheap access?
| (Obviously for some courses)
|
| Still the pandemic has made it glaringly obvious that depending
| on the course you study, in this case, history, media, drama and
| film studies, a Masters Degree in either of those fields is a
| complete scam if the probabilities in getting a high earning job
| is that small as I have said before. [0]
|
| As for a PhD in especially in either of those fields. Well...
| Just don't take my word for it and just look at the responses
| right here and you can make your own decision to see if it is
| worth it. [1]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27620695
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27580605
| xenihn wrote:
| >I guess they are paying $300k for the connections and access
| to the elites who go to these universities
|
| Can you expand on what you mean by "access to elites"
| rvz wrote:
| Let's just say it's not about what you know, but it is about
| _who_ you know. This applies better at the top universities
| in the world.
|
| Why not ask Paul Graham (pg) and Patrick Collison (pc)?
|
| Maybe you can ask Peter Thiel and the Thiel fellowship
| recipients?
| ghaff wrote:
| In the case of J-School, mentioned in the article, even back
| when journalism was not such a beleaguered profession, a _lot_
| of people were pretty skeptical that it was a better option
| than, you know, being a journalist.
|
| I know a lot of working journalists and very few of them went
| to J-School. (Many worked on undergrad newspapers and some
| colleges have undergrad elective classes.)
| superqd wrote:
| This likely depends on the degree and the purpose for which you
| tried to obtain it.
|
| Some online Masters degree programs are just scams preying on
| people's desire to improve their careers. They are successful
| because so many employer's won't pay or promote to certain
| positions without advanced degrees. So there is a real demand for
| degrees like MBAs.
|
| For some degrees, the real value is the additional education you
| receive because of the increased complexity of the subject. Not
| everyone goes after these degrees for the same reason. For me, I
| went to grad school in physics not because I thought it would
| help my career, but because I wanted to learn more physics. I
| don't think this is the typical reason for which advanced degrees
| are sought anymore, but at least in some cases, like mine,
| master's degrees aren't scams, but a necessary part of deeper
| education into a specific area.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Outside of engineering, probably.
|
| It's a simple ROI problem.
| wirthjason wrote:
| 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 different from adults.
|
| As an adult, who considers myself a life long learner, I see the
| differences. The education system hasn't adapted to adult
| learning. Most masters classes are simply just repackaged
| versions of undergraduate classes, maybe with a little more
| depth.
|
| The schedules haven't changed either. As the article points out
| almost all the bad practices are online classes. It's hard for
| adults to juggle family, kids, and work while being a student.
| People feel it's necessary to further their schooling but don't
| have many options. They can't just take off two days of the week
| to attend a class. Few schools offer nights and weekend classes.
| Online becomes the only option.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andragogy
| lordnacho wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_high_school
|
| In Denmark and some neighboring countries there's this concept
| of a school you can go to just to learn stuff later in life, as
| an ongoing thing. There's a whole bunch of themes (sports,
| history, etc), and often you can book yourself in for whatever
| amount of time makes sense for you.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| We have community colleges in America that serve the exact
| same function. My parents love taking the astronomy courses
| because they come with an observatory. They have also some
| some criminal justice classes and a lot of art classes like
| pottery. They are very old. You also don't get a degree for
| taking these courses but they are much cheaper than the
| classes are for degree track students.
| lizknope wrote:
| I have a bachelors in computer engineering but I've taken
| drawing and painting classes at my local community college.
| It was a fun and we met once a week at night for 3 months.
| I think it was $120 for the entire 3 months but we did have
| to buy our own supplies.
|
| I have a programmer friend that took welding and car repair
| classes at the community college. He just wanted to learn.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In Denmark and some neighboring countries there's this
| concept of a school you can go to just to learn stuff later
| in life, as an ongoing thing
|
| We have those in the US; we don't have a general collective
| name for them, but there are both private for-profit ones
| with a variety of (mostly narrow) specialities, either
| standalone or as adjuncts to other related businesses
| (selling, e.g., products in the field that it teaches people
| to act in), plus community colleges, public libraries, public
| parks and rec departments, and museums tend to also have
| programs that serve this function, despite it not being their
| sole or primary function.
| techsupporter wrote:
| My whole life, I've heard of those places as either "FunEd"
| or "The Learning Annex" and I didn't realize until well
| into adulthood that those were proper nouns, not the
| generic name for "classes you take as a grownup just for
| interest."
| User23 wrote:
| Many if not most universities in the USA have extension
| schools that serve this purpose.
| beebmam wrote:
| I'd like to point out that Extension schools also allow
| minors to take full credit college courses. I basically had
| my math bachelor's degree complete by the time I was
| officially accepted to my university.
|
| If you are a parent, let your children know about these
| extension college courses if they are interested!
| amelius wrote:
| Do you get an academic degree?
| potato_juice wrote:
| Generally no
| agumonkey wrote:
| Is that recognized socially ? As in opening a business
| after passes these classes.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > As in opening a business after passes these classes.
|
| Where do you need a degree to open a business?
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| Lots of professions and trades require a qualification or
| license to practice.
|
| So getting these qualifications are required for
| reskilling.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| 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.
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| Yes, because tons of people have the capital to open
| business and hire employees.
|
| Reality is most people wanting to retrain are going to do
| it as a single person business as a plumber, hair dresser
| or similar.
| kingofpandora wrote:
| Going and getting a degree isn't a good way of raising
| capital.
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| I never said it was. It's potentially good way of getting
| a well paid job though.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Dentist, vet clinic, lawyer are three.
|
| Daycare center, hairstyling and financial advisor are
| others that require qualifications / lic
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Dentist, vet clinic, lawyer are three.
|
| People aren't learning these professions at folk high
| school are they?
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| That's the point. Most people want adult education so
| they have comfortable lives. Learning about history is a
| luxury pursuit really for people who are already
| comfortable and have spare time.
|
| So you really need education that leads to recognised
| qualifications.
| lordnacho wrote:
| You don't need a degree to open a business. And mostly
| it's for learning things for your own satisfaction, which
| I sense is what you mean?
| amelius wrote:
| Depends. If it's in a medical field, you might need a
| degree.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You don't need a degree to open a medical business. You
| need a degree to practice medicine.
| CaptainMarvel wrote:
| This certainly depends on local rules. For example, in
| the UK I believe dental businesses can only be opened by
| a qualified dentist. I was surprised when I learnt this
| earlier this year.
|
| This source [0] says "non-dentists cannot set up or buy
| dental practices as an individual or partnership but they
| are permitted to be shareholders of a limited company
| which owns the practice" and "the majority of directors
| of that limited company cannot be non-dentists".
|
| [0]: https://www.plutopartners.co.uk/post/who-can-own-a-
| dental-bu...
| ghaff wrote:
| I believe this is the case with law firms, and probably
| some other professional firms, in the US as well. AFAIK a
| law firm is a partnership of lawyers.
|
| That said, this isn't what most people are talking about
| when they are talking about starting a business.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Depends on the trade, you can't make electrical work
| without some form of recognition I believe. And beyond
| that I mostly asked regarding customers, you want
| something to back your claims and prices.
| irq11 wrote:
| Those are called "trade schools" in the US, and most
| community colleges have programs for trades. For example,
| a lot of community colleges have programs in auto repair
| and heating/cooling.
|
| It gets more complicated in the US because of unions. In
| many places, you can't become a plumber or electrician
| without an apprenticeship, which is controlled by the
| trade unions. Therefore, community colleges might offer
| classes on plumbing or electrical, but there's no
| equivalent to a certification program, because it's not
| possible to become a professional just by going to
| school.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Interesting I never linked the name 'trade school' with
| adult learning. I thought it was some parallel track for
| teenagers to jump into a field.
| henrikeh wrote:
| My impression, knowing very few who has attended
| hojskole, is that people do it for their own personal
| fulfillment and enjoyment.
|
| Socially, I'd say that it is respected and regarded as a
| sign of dedication to ones interests.
| agumonkey wrote:
| which is pretty cool, I think it's a vital need for
| humans to keep learning new stuff if you don't have
| enough stimulation
| pacman2 wrote:
| ROTFL. This is called "Volkshochschule" in Germany.
| Hochschule can be translated to University. One guy from
| former Yugoslavia took an accounting course there, got a
| certificate and had this translated (to Serbian, Croatian or
| whatever). The translater did indeed translate
| Volkshochschule to Peoples University and the guy managed to
| secure a Professor position with it at a University. Of cause
| later this caused a scandal...
| bekantan wrote:
| Strange, they must have also "translated" the certificate
| to a PhD in that case :)
| k__ wrote:
| Is there also Gynagogy?
| Peritract wrote:
| There isn't.
|
| 'Andragogy' is not a great name for a theory which tries to
| describe how all adults, not just men, learn. However, it is
| a really telling name about the kinds of assumptions baked
| into the theory [1].
|
| I work in adult education; I don't use the word 'andragogy'
| to describe what I do, and it's a bit of a warning sign if
| someone else does.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0260691
| 793...
| sys_64738 wrote:
| > Most masters classes are simply just repackaged versions of
| undergraduate classes, maybe with a little more depth.
|
| Depends on the country. Masters degrees can be research which
| are the first year of a Ph.D. or they can be taught degrees. In
| the latter they are usually called "conversion" courses where
| there's intensive focus on filling in gaps in education for
| somebody moving to the field. E.g. moving from an Economics
| B.Sc. to a Computer Science degree.
|
| Where I was educated the Computing Science undergraduate degree
| is the equivalent of any Masters degree in the same subject.
| There is nothing in the subject matter that would be of value
| as another degree as it isn't advancement. It would be merely
| repackaged undergraduate courses like you suggest.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In the latter they are usually called "conversion" courses
| where there's intensive focus on filling in gaps in education
| for somebody moving to the field.
|
| Well, or they are first professional degrees (e.g., the MBA,
| MFA, etc.)
| CalChris wrote:
| In the US, those gaps are usually noted and you fill them
| with upper division courses and if necessary, lower division.
| Actual graduate courses are quite different from
| undergraduate even covering the same subject matter.
| Lower division is problem sets. Upper division is
| problem sets + project. Graduate is project + research
| paper.
| thegginthesky wrote:
| I understand GP's point, education can vary widely
| depending on the country.
|
| For example, in my home country an undergraduate degree in
| engineering is normally 5 years where
|
| - first 2 years are very standard undergraduate courses
| (your lower division)
|
| - last 3rd and 4th years are the upper division you
| describe
|
| - 5th year is a graduation project that can be 50 to 100
| pages long (almost a thesis) + upper division courses and
| maybe a research paper (depends if you had a scholarship of
| sorts)
|
| So when a person goes to do a master in this country, the
| experience is almost one of a PhD, while the PhD experience
| is very intense.
| maccard wrote:
| I did a hybrid masters in CS - half the year was taught and
| half the year was research. Of the 6 classes I was taught 2
| of them were undergrad level (and they were 3rd/final year
| level at that), and the rest were definitely a level above
| undergrad. Most were actively learning about the state of the
| art in their areas, or very close to it. Of the 15 or so
| students, 5 of us had our names on papers from the research
| we did for the second period. My experience may be atypical,
| but I definitely believe there is a range available, and it's
| unfortunately up to a student to try to discern the two.
| ghaff wrote:
| And ones that are solely or mostly classroom courses can
| even be taken by people who majored in the field undergrad.
| I know someone who did one years ago at a top school. Which
| surprised me a bit at the time because, although I did have
| classes in my Master's program, the real value was in my
| thesis, some additional related research, and an unrelated
| project.
| [deleted]
| elric wrote:
| I'm a life long learner myself. I have to agree that the
| traditional education system is lacking and is very poorly set
| up at catering for people like us. If you want to take classes
| as a working adult, you're pretty much limited to night school.
| Which, for reasons I will never understand, seems to be mostly
| limited to languages (and oddly specific things like TIG
| welding). Although some universities seem to be offering
| philosophy courses on an evening schedule as well.
|
| I get that you need a big enough audience in order to set up
| any class, and supply/demand is definitely an issue. But I
| think the demand is much higher than what the supply side seems
| to cater for.
|
| Things like Khan Academy are great, but they've begun to scale
| down their offering in favour of university prep. The Open
| University has some truly great content, but it's prohibitively
| expensive. MOOCs seem very hit or miss, and often lack a good
| mechanism for feedback. And quite frankly, I enjoy being in a
| classroom full of motivated people.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| People in the US place extremely high values on education. What
| is lacking is people's ability to pay for it.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Very interesting to know there was a term for that already.
|
| Slight anecdote, I gave a few geometry lessons to a teen. And
| witnessing his brain operate was quite staggering. Teen operate
| at high frequency low depth it seems. He didn't want to grasp
| the rule or symmetry but ran in many intuitions very rapidly
| (honestly my brain froze at his pace of change, so vibrant)
| only to feel defeated or confused. Made me think adult and kids
| really need different approaches. Our emotions facing a new
| topic are so different.
| rytor718 wrote:
| Love this story because this has been my experience as well
| when teaching youth. Children in a classroom scarcely need a
| teacher explaining things to them. Give them the materials
| and leave the room for an hour. I guarantee you they'll know
| what to do and how to to do it when you return. However, they
| won't have any particular _depth_ of knowledge of the topic.
| And thats because they usually move onto their own ideas of
| how to use the new knowledge. They 're not interested in how
| _I_ use that knowledge. So different approaches for youth vs
| adults has always been something I needed to train either.
| One approach doesn 't really work for the other.
| biofox wrote:
| As an adult with ADHD, these descriptions sound very
| similar to how I study and learn too, and perhaps explain
| the difficulties I've had.
| azinman2 wrote:
| 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.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| 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 say this as a mid 20s return college student. My experience
| going back to college without the "stars in my eyes" so to
| speak, has really left me embittered by the system altogether.
| Schools act like autocratic bureaucracies that when they make a
| mistake all you get is an "oops sorry. Now deal with it lol."
| Also student employment is not only predatory (cause the pay is
| just garbage), but it's like they don't even train students
| either. If you want any answers, you have to wait to talk to
| one of the few people who has actually been hired on as an
| employee.
|
| Higher education is structured for students going from high
| school to their institutions. They also assume students don't
| have full time employment or a family. So basically if you have
| either of those, the school doesn't care at all about your
| plight. They know your gonna pay off your loans and complete
| your degree. They prefer younger impressionable kids who are
| gonna waste a lot of time and money there instead.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.)
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| 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]. So like a
| physical disability, if you only make stairs because "99%
| of people can walk" but cannot accommodate for someone in a
| wheelchair, you would be in violation of the Americans with
| Disabilities Act. Same thing with making a website
| accessible to the blind. By making your courses only
| available during business hours, you essentially are
| telling working adults "we are preventing you from
| participating in mandatory courses because you cannot be at
| work during the class." Work, mind you, that will pay their
| bills, support their family, and keep them out of absurd
| debt bondage upon graduation.
|
| When you make class at 8AM for 1.5 hours, Monday-Wednesday-
| Friday, you are discriminating against working adults. It
| doesn't matter if the discrimination is intentional. Your
| very allowance of not offering a course wholly online
| without a mandatory attended lecture or just a night class
| is pure evidence that you do not want non-traditional
| students. How can an college believe that someone who works
| full time can make that work? Night classes are at least an
| accommodation and can work.
|
| What I've found is technical colleges, since they're
| catered toward people going back to school, they do a much
| better job all around. Also since they are city funded and
| not a state run university through tax payers, they can
| hire real employees. So when I ask an administrative
| question that is very important, I don't get "uh I'm not
| sure, let me ask a staff member since I'm only a student
| employee! Can you hold for 10 minutes?"
|
| https://www2.ed.gov/policy/rights/guid/ocr/ageoverview.html
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| 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.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| If you intentionally create an environment that is
| hostile toward people of differing ages, you are
| discriminating. My college required me upon sign up to
| put in for my housing "My parent/guardians contact
| information." Universally everyone is an adult when they
| enter college (the people who don't are so rare I'm
| ignoring them). I could not leave the page unless I
| entered any data so I just put my name and contact info.
| Guess what else? All the events are catered toward young
| students and target them specifically that way. If
| someone really wanted to, they could easily have an age
| discrimination case against almost every school.
| Culturally however, people don't because they don't want
| to associate with lesser experienced and more incredibly
| arrogant individuals.
| shinjitsu wrote:
| >Higher education is structured for students going from high
| school to their institutions. They also assume students don't
| have full time employment or a family. So basically if you
| have either of
|
| In the US, Depending on your state this might not be true.
| Many of the 'Elite' schools are absolutely as you describe,
| but many of the state schools do cater to adult learners.
| This is particularly true in states which separate their
| Research Universities from their more teaching oriented
| Universities. Most of the latter do have night classes and
| other offerings aimed at adult learners. But the private
| universities with dreams of grandeur are looking mostly for
| the "traditional college student"
| youareelitist wrote:
| I am not going to pay off my loans
| ghaff wrote:
| I guess I don't really see it.
|
| As an adult, I don't really have much interest in a complete
| degree with a certification. (With the exception of very
| bounded industry-specific things.) So in that respect adult
| education certainly is different.
|
| I have known people who got PhDs as adults and I think they
| mostly didn't care for the experience. I know I have zero
| interest in getting another degree. Even a couple of decades
| ago, it would have zero value for my professional development
| and would, in fact, have been mostly a distraction.
|
| However, there are a ton of educational opportunities often
| oriented to working adults. Community colleges, extension
| programs, online learning of all sorts...
| maccard wrote:
| Most of the people I know with PhD's did them because they
| wsnted to do a PhD, not because it would increase their
| earning potential.
| [deleted]
| jmpman wrote:
| 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.
| muststopmyths wrote:
| it's been a long, long time for me, but graduate school (for
| Master's) was where I actually learnt a lot. I was too swamped
| under a load of undergraduate coursework to deeply absorb
| anything. Lighter coursework and deeper dives into subjects were
| so much better for my brain during my Master's.
|
| It might have helped that I was too young and stupid to have any
| well-considered career goals and enjoyed learning for the sake of
| it.
|
| This was engineering/CS though, and the article seems to be about
| MFAs.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Unless hugely motivated, I would not considering getting a Master
| degree. Masters and Docs are mostly for research.
|
| There are course-based Masters and I consider them as a
| convenient solution to get around the unnecessary electives in
| Undergraduate studies. I recently transferred to a graduate
| diploma which serves the same purpose.
| ldiracdelta wrote:
| The two factors are:
|
| Credentialism the worship of credentials throughout many
| industries when other cheaper metrics are available, but may be
| illegal (like testing for IQ in USA)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism_and_educational_...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
|
| and inability to declare bankruptcy so as to include student
| loans. Bankruptcy says that the _lender_ has responsibility to
| not enslave people with debt -- or rather the _lender_ may only
| enslave a borrower for a limited amount of time, after which it
| is ultimately the lenders problem that they gave that person too
| much money and that they should have known that the borrower
| would have never been able to repay. Debt is a useful tool, but
| the ability to enslave people with debt should be limited by the
| law.
| sombremesa wrote:
| If testing for IQ works for your purposes, then why not use
| GMAT, GRE, SAT scores?
|
| I'm not sure any of this helps, though, since it would only
| prove you're good at the test.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| Standardized tests are highly predictive of IQ.
| https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/what-do-sat-and-iq-
| test... Here's a layman read. Here's a little more depth :
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/
| parsecs wrote:
| Just wondering, as someone currently preparing for SAT -
| why is it so easy to drastically improve one's performance
| on standardized tests if they predict IQ? My score was
| pretty mediocre (due to a year of slacking off during
| COVID) but after some practice I improved it significantly
| - does that mean my IQ is greatly increasing as well?
|
| I know of some very, very clever people who do not perform
| well, and the opposite too.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > why is it so easy to drastically improve one's
| performance on standardized tests
|
| I'm going to guess you're gains plateau or you get to a
| near-perfect score pretty quickly. The gains you're
| seeing are just familiarity with the test.
| netr0ute wrote:
| How can some people keep improving year after year on
| these tests, though? They don't fit into your possible
| options.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Do you mean the same person gets better year over year?
| They learned and matured as a student.
| beefok wrote:
| My college mentor always said, "do not pay for a Master's degree,
| find a company who will pay for it."
|
| Best damn advice I've ever gotten!
| zsmi wrote:
| Is that possible?
|
| Every company I've every worked for offered money for education
| but usually it only covered slightly over 1/3 of the total
| expense when everything was said and done. (And this was early
| 2000s when University was cheaper)
|
| Also, two companies required at least a B for reimbursement
| which is not always that easy in a competitive STEM class. I
| found I could do work, or school, well. But not work and school
| and subsequently dropped out of my Graduate program. It worked
| out in the end. :)
| hedgehawk wrote:
| I'm not sure how to take this article considering that I am
| trying to switch into tech with a Biology undergrad with some CS
| coursework.
|
| I'm already been admitted to OMSCS but I've been thinking of
| applying to on-campus masters programs at Cornell, USC, and
| Stanford but the >$50k price tag is making me resist.
|
| Are these on-campus programs at prestigious universities worth it
| to get access to high-growth startups and big tech companies as
| well as more face-to-face time with instructors and other
| classmates as opposed to a part-time online masters?
| titanomachy wrote:
| I think the easiest path into tech is through internships.
| Being a student at a well-known university can help get you in
| the door for good internships, but it doesn't have to be an
| expensive private college. Some schools also have a "second
| bachelor's" program in CS which might get you into the kind of
| internships you want.
|
| I was in a similar situation as you. I did a 3-month "boot
| camp" and then worked at an unknown startup until FAANG
| recruiters started to email me, but obviously YMMV.
| hedgehawk wrote:
| Yeah the main thing with OMSCS is that it's part-time and
| apparently some companies require you to be a full-time
| student in order to intern. I'm scared I'd be limited if I do
| OMSCS.
|
| In terms of the bootcamp pathway, I feel like I have the
| foundation to teach myself the skills I need but it seems
| like the one positive thing that can come out of the bootcamp
| for me are the potential connections and job placement I
| would be able to get.
|
| Let me know if I am wrong about it though!
| xenihn wrote:
| One of the most valuable things you get from a degree in the US
| is access to internships.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| STEM masters degrees are a necessary hoop to jump through to get
| promotions in many industries. Humanities masters are just
| students paying to enjoy their passions, fine if you're rich but
| too pricy for most.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > STEM masters degrees are a necessary hoop to jump through to
| get promotions in many industries. Humanities masters
|
| Are also hoops people in certain fields need to jump through
| for jobs (e.g., community college faculty, lecturer at some
| other institutions), advancement or pay incentives, etc.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I can't comment on the American education system (which this
| article is about) but here and in other parts of Europe, the
| bachelors vs masters distinction is a quite recent addition
| (30-40 years ago, I think?) Before then, higher education took at
| least five, maybe six years versus the 4+2 or 3+2 system that has
| replaced it. An artifical split was added after three or four
| years (depending on the level of education) to align with the
| foreign bachelor/master system and make our degrees easier to use
| in foreign countries.
|
| Nowadays, people consider the bachelor enough of an education to
| join the workforce. And power to them, if they can get their jobs
| done with only their bachelors', they have no need for more
| education.
|
| However, it does imply that less knowledge has been transferred
| to those students than to the students who followed the old
| system. The vocational education has also shaped itself more to
| that form, at least here, which is detrimental for the quality of
| education those people receive.
| phsource wrote:
| 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, work for
| them for a year, and request a transfer (highly competitive)
|
| - Find a job for a company in the US while abroad, ask them to
| sponsor you for a H-1B, and hope you win the visa lottery
| (unlikely, since companies don't like their chances on the
| lottery)
|
| - Get a Masters degree. Sure, it's $50,000, but you're guaranteed
| a 3-year work visa (OPT with STEM extension) during which you can
| apply for the H-1B multiple times (it's a winner!)
|
| This is actually completely rational, and benefits both the
| students, the school, and arguably the US since it gets some
| highly skilled workers who did not take out loans.
|
| Are Masters degrees outside of STEM (and online ones, like the
| OPM-managed ones this article mentions) that cater to local
| Americans in low wage sectors a scam? Maybe!
|
| Are Masters degrees in STEM (which definitely are cash cows) a
| scam? Almost definitely not; in fact, they're a great workaround
| until the US reforms its immigration system
| kccqzy wrote:
| The gist is right, but details are wrong. Undergraduates can
| also get a 3-year work visa via OPT with STEM extension during
| which you can enter into the H-1B lottery multiple times (as
| many as four times if you time it well). It's just masters have
| higher chances in that lottery.
| [deleted]
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Assuming you're actually smart and skilled - wouldn't it be
| better to just start your own consulting business, or if you're
| really ambitious, eventually an agency?
|
| Aren't H1-B visa workers mostly in extremely HCOL areas and
| significantly underpaid / taken advantage of?
|
| I imagine if you're from India and you really want to get out
| of India - this sounds like a good deal (although wouldn't $50k
| for tuition be hard to get?) But, I'm assuming most people just
| want to have more money / a better life?
|
| Wouldn't the first option be better? And then you could stay
| closer to friends and family.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| "Smart and skilled" are only loosely correlated to success as
| consultant and small business.
|
| This is not meant to be sarcasm. There are many other
| characteristics necessary and better indicators. I am smart
| skilled and successful. But I made a lousy consultant when I
| tried it too early in life - (self)salesmanship, business
| skills, tenacity and courage, people skills, and a specific
| view on risk acceptance are far more important. Relationships
| and a full Rolodex and branding / reputation don't hurt
| either.
|
| (A specific view on integrity and ethics too. I'm not saying
| no integrity or no ethics. But the salespersons / deal
| closers in my area are all honourable truthful people whose
| job I couldn't do because my view of truth wouldn't
| necessarily correspond to theirs)
|
| Finally, if we grant your last statement that most people
| want renumeration and happy life, for many smart and skilled
| people, stress and risk that comes with consultancy business
| does not contribute to happiness.
| vericiab wrote:
| 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
| relocate than anything we could offer US citizens.
|
| The office was near Mastercard's global operations
| headquarters and it seemed like they also employed a lot of
| visa holders. So I don't think we were particularly unique in
| our willingness to offer visa sponsorship in a LCOL area.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| >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.
| kaitai wrote:
| 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.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| I'd love to see any midwest company paying those numbers,
| for a non C-level role. Hell, even trying to get above
| 100k/annum in the midwest is nearly impossible. Remote
| work options have made this a bit better; if the company
| then doesn't offer you "local market rates" bullshit.
| break_the_bank wrote:
| 1. I think you are mixing smart with courageous, starting a
| business requires some courage.
|
| 2. Nope. At least those working for FANGs aren't. You can see
| so many cases of folks were for low paying consultancies in
| India getting masters and then getting a job at FANG.
|
| 3. Getting an education loan for STEM is really easy and
| people are willing to put their parents house up for
| collateral.
|
| I think with a FANG or good tech job you can be done with
| your loan in an year or two. Some people go to state schools
| and don't get into any debt, or pay it off via internships.
| The US in most Indian people's head comes with a better
| quality of life, a lot more money and better infrastructure.
| Perhaps some status too.
| fnord77 wrote:
| > Assuming you're actually smart and skilled
|
| as an interviewer, I see many w/ masters degrees who are
| neither.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Right - I think a lot of people hope that by being more
| educated they'll get "smarter". That's not really how it
| works. You just get more educated.
|
| In software, you DO need a lot of skills. But I think more
| important than that is having the ability to learn new
| things/skills quickly (being smart). The industry is always
| changing and evolving.
|
| College is only going to get you the skills - maybe, a lot
| of times they teach you things that aren't that useful in
| the job market and don't teach you the things that are.
| 3nf wrote:
| Nobody gets paid if you're an autodidact.
| thrav wrote:
| Consulting straight out of school is a really tough sell.
| Consultants are most often considered valuable by their
| employers because of their experience in a given industry.
|
| I would not want to try to pitch myself as a consultant as a
| foreigner with little to no American work experience. If
| you're doing it yourself, sales will be a challenge.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| To speak more strongly, it's going to be impossible unless
| you're a rock star.
| memyselfi wrote:
| I am no rock star but my first three gigs after my MS
| were consulting gigs. 1 software and 2 network consulting
| jobs, including a high speed metro area network.
|
| It is fun and flexible but not as nice as a steady job.
| Plus, I have no people skills. :)
| arcturus17 wrote:
| But not necessarily a technical rock star... If you're
| really good at sales and you can somehow procure the
| technical talent elsewhere, you might be able to pull it
| off.
| dboreham wrote:
| That H1-B workers are "taken advantage of" is a myth. Yes
| some of them are but it isn't the case that if you hold such
| a visa you are being underpaid. Source: was an H1-B holder.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Depends on the industry and profession. A lot of
| professional healthcare workers are hired well below
| competitive market rates.
|
| Source: partner was one, doubled salary after, is friends
| with dozens more who went through the same exploitation now
| making significantly more.
| slumdev wrote:
| No, they're also abused in MCOL and LCOL areas. And they
| might be smart and skilled, but most of the ones I
| interviewed are lousy software engineers.
|
| If we were talking about people with master's degrees from
| MIT or Stanford, it'd be a different ball game.
|
| But I can't tell you how many candidates I've seen with
| something like a "Master of Science in Information Systems
| from the University of South Central Appalachia".
| mavelikara wrote:
| > are huge moneymakers as a ticket to working in the US.
|
| Beyond that, the international Masters students are really
| subsidizing the education of other students. Every time there
| is some friction added to the student visa process, all but the
| top schools with huge endowment funds feel the financial
| pressure.
|
| Most narratives I read about this situation paints the picture
| of the students buying their way into US residency via Masters
| program. But it works the other way too - many US citizens are
| able to get educated at an affordable price because of the
| money these Masters students bring in to the school.
| marto1 wrote:
| > are huge moneymakers as a ticket to working in the US.
|
| Not just the US. Most countries in Europe offer international
| master degrees in english that serve the exact same purpose.
| digianarchist wrote:
| You forgot another option. Immigrate to Canada and then move to
| the US on a TN.
| nly wrote:
| Or...find and marry an American?
| torginus wrote:
| Well, even then framing a $50k degree as a workaround for US
| immigration woes, and not as an $50k worth of added value in
| terms of skills and education makes it sound like a racket,
| even if the numbers work out in the students' favour.
| dboreham wrote:
| The USA essentially runs on rackets. E.g higher education,
| changing engine oil at 5000 miles, Citizens United...
| fnord77 wrote:
| we've had foreign job candidates with masters degrees in CS
| from top 50 schools who couldn't pass a simple programming test
| or who couldn't answer some basic CS questions on O(n) or
| whatnot.
|
| I'm not talking sadistic google interview questions, these were
| things that anyone with a BS should be able to answer.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| That has happened to me so many times that my last company
| shreds resumes from foreign students with a prestigious
| American masters where the undergrad is not similarly
| prestigious (eg IIT and Tsinghua are good, but not many other
| schools).
| mavelikara wrote:
| India has a population of well over a billion people. IITs
| admit only about 5000 students per academic year, from
| about 100K students applying, across all disciplines. If
| you find all other students from India not qualified, maybe
| there is something seriously wrong with your candidate
| outreach, or you hire from a very exclusive pool even
| stateside.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| We did only hire from about 20 schools in the US. The
| unfortunate thing is that the masters programs did not
| filter nearly as exclusively as the undergrad programs.
| mavelikara wrote:
| Ok, so you were "shredding resumes" of students of all
| but 20 schools in US, IITs and Tsinghua. That's an
| extremely high hiring bar.
|
| I don't think this experience can be used to draw general
| conclusions on the quality of education across Masters
| programs in US.
| samatman wrote:
| I would characterize working over talented foreigners in this
| way as a grift, rather than a scam.
|
| They pay the high sticker price because it's rationally their
| best choice, but the value they're purchasing isn't in the
| degree, but rather the favorable status they earn in the
| immigration labyrinth.
|
| This isn't good for them, except in comparison to other
| options. It certainly isn't good for native-born Americans, who
| are (for the most part) stuck paying the same high sticker
| prices, without getting the features which justify the high
| cost of the product.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| It should also be viewed as potentially disadvantaging people
| already in the US. If these programs are catering to wealthy
| foreigners looking to immigrate, then we're not serving
| whatever need may be inside the country already.
| whatshisface wrote:
| In some fields, there is no need for masters degrees at
| all. For example in physics you can get a bachelors and
| career out, or get a PhD and be a physicist (industrial or
| academic), but there are no jobs I can think of that a
| masters would qualify you for that a bachelors wouldn't.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > but there are no jobs I can think of that a masters
| would qualify you for that a bachelors wouldn't.
|
| Typically, community college faculty (and sometimes
| university lecturers) require a minimum of a master's in
| the field, and at least the first is as true of physics
| as it is generally.
| daxfohl wrote:
| I'm considering a masters in physics because I'm
| interested in possibly pursuing a Ph.D. there, but never
| got beyond 200-level in undergrad. The local university
| offers a physics MS that's basically a rebranding of
| their undergrad core, but at night to cater to working
| adults. It'd be cheaper to just take the undergrad
| classes, but that just doesn't fit into life, so I'm
| willing to pay for the privilege of being able to take
| them at night. (A Ph.D. program may never fit into real
| life either, but that's a different problem for a
| different day).
| [deleted]
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Some employers pay for higher education, but there is
| little ability for people to actually get that education.
| Many people in this thread do not value a masters
| specifically because they are not a good investment just
| looking at the price.
|
| If the education system was different, more people would
| want them, and they would be more useful. See commenter
| below who notes that CS masters are usually quite useful
| but also are not employment gating and have many reasons
| to stay competitive with other programs.
| liketochill wrote:
| In government it makes a difference in promotions and
| salary bands.
|
| I have seen in electrical engineering some jobs advertise
| that they want someone with a masters, but really what
| they want is someone who understood and can use at least
| something from their undergrad and can be relied upon to
| exercise theory as opposed to someone who just passed.
| david38 wrote:
| A master's in physics is usually a sort of consolation
| prize to people who do not finish their PhD. Like you
| said, you either need a BS or PhD.
| apgobuf wrote:
| Masters at Buffalo in computer science costs about 26k in
| tuition.
| webmobdev wrote:
| I came to post the same thing - sometimes Americans forget that
| they are a country of immigrants. And one of the routes for
| potential immigrants is college education.
|
| But with a typically enterprising capitalist mindset, the
| American system also wants to ensure that talented individual
| don't go back to their country (or elsewhere) immediately after
| getting a degree. This is where the high cost of a US college
| degree comes into the picture - the burden of paying for it
| acts like an _anchor_ for most students who come from
| developing countries or econonomically weak background. Even if
| they get some kind of scholarship and / or do part-time work,
| they still have to take a huge loans to live in the US to
| complete their education. And often the fastest way to repay
| these loans is to work in the US or other developed nations.
| This may take another few years. The American system hopes that
| by then the potential immigrant would be sufficiently exposed
| to the American culture and lifestyle and consider staying
| here.
|
| (The high cost also ensures quality of education is high in the
| US, thus attracting talents from around the world. And the
| money is also pumped into a lot of R&D in the college allowing
| US to maintain a big tech lead. It's a neat system that seems
| to work so far.)
|
| The other aspect of ensuring that higher education remains
| costly in the US is to also ensure that a blue-collar workforce
| continues to exist, and wage is suppressed among the white-
| collars. Perhaps the law makers also feel that it acts like an
| incentive to work more diligently, out of anxiety and worry -
| after all, people with more qualification, experience and
| higher stable income often tend to jump around more (which the
| big tech try to thwart by entering into illegal agreements to
| not hire each others employee).
| fallingknife wrote:
| When are we going to learn that encouraging everyone to get more
| education is a waste of resources? All it leads to is lowered
| standards and devalued degrees. Your credential is only worth
| something because someone else doesn't have it.
| ajuc wrote:
| > Your credential is only worth something because someone else
| doesn't have it.
|
| That would be true only if all the jobs requiring these
| credentials were already filled and none were to be created in
| the future.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think it's never a waste to get more education. But getting
| an advanced degree from a mediocre school for the sake of
| career advancement probably doesn't worth it.
|
| A few exceptions:
|
| 1) You want to learn something but doesn't want to go through
| the 90-credit undergraduate. In my university they give you
| access to a CS graduate diploma that consists of 10 core CS
| courses under the requirement that you already have an
| undergraduate degree (non-CS) and pass the entry CS course
| about programming (usually a Java 101 course). IMO it's a LOT
| better than a 90-credit second undergraduate degree on CS.
|
| The other exception is that you want to do the research but I'd
| argue it still doesn't worth it unless it's a prestigious
| school like top 20 in North America (MIT, Stanford, CMU,
| Waterloo, those top schools).
| BurningFrog wrote:
| One way to think of this is that the "ruling class", for lack
| of a better term, in the US is college educated professionals.
|
| To them, "college is good" is an unquestionable truth, and the
| systems they build will always give more resources to colleges.
| [deleted]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > Your credential is only worth something because someone else
| doesn't have it.
|
| This is an unbelievably cynical take on the world. Society and
| the economy are not zero-sum, and having better education and
| better skills make someone better off without taking away an
| equal amount of opportunity from others.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Better skills are not zero sum, but credentials are. Having a
| doctorate is only impressive if everybody else doesn't also
| have one.then you would have to have two doctorates.
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| What? Doctorate implies you've learned some skills.
|
| If everyone suddenly everyone got better at maths and
| critical thinking. Overall the economy would be more
| productive, and everyone would be better off.
|
| There isn't a fixed amount wealth, to be divided up between
| people. If you increase skill levels, total level of wealth
| can increase.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| You're assuming that getting the doctorate _actually_
| increased people's skills that are economically useful -
| this book suggests otherwise:
|
| https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/05/30/book-
| rev...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Educatio
| n
| analognoise wrote:
| Only if the people hired with those degrees are capable of
| doing the work.
|
| There's an ongoing weakening of the signal for people with
| degrees who can actually do design engineering.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| One would hope that one's salary would depend on one's expected
| productivity, which an education should increase.
|
| Lowered standards and devalued degrees is probably a thing
| though.
| zsmi wrote:
| I would say this depends strongly on the field. In the field
| I'm most experienced in, electrical engineering, I tell
| people considering a Master's is that it's a possible short
| cut to the pay of someone with 3 years of experience. So if
| you can get it fast enough, and the math works out, then do
| it. Otherwise skip it.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| It's a qualification arms race.
|
| When very few people had college degrees, they were of high
| value because the programs were more likely to be rigorous.
|
| As US society said "higher education is the _best_ path to
| success ", it drove up demand where people who never would have
| considered college otherwise were pushed that way by teachers,
| guidance counselors, and parents. The high school system
| adjusted to launch more students in better ways.
|
| Along the way, that morphed into "higher education is the
| _only_ path to success " and suddenly anyone who didn't go was
| considered a failure and the entire high school system dumbed
| down to the point where more and more otherwise normal courses
| were deemed "college prep."
|
| Unfortunately, it put students who would be below college
| standards or even just borderline a generation ago in a bad
| spot where they were underprepared. But colleges get massive
| cashflow so they introduced more remedial courses in the first
| year and the average student is graduating in 5 or 6 years.
| They've steadily devalued themselves and are looking more and
| more like high school 2.0 but longer with a massive price tag.
|
| (Background: Have a college age kid just going through this
| personally and watching his friends struggle as some hit these
| walls. It's sad and ugly and didn't have to be this way.)
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| As a mid 20s returning college student, its definitely high
| school 2.0. I've talked to and tried to hit on many girls
| only to come to actually stop because their priorities are
| just way out of wack. Guys seem more mellow than in high
| school at least. But for the most part I encounter the "know
| it all" arrogance more from men. A lot of them just never
| failed hard in their lives before so they often think they
| can beat the system or what have you.
| eralps wrote:
| I'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 forgot the rest of my classes. I
| wrote a thesis but it was nowhere near a PhD level research.
|
| Additionally higher entry level areas such as ML and AI often
| require PhD so getting a master's is not getting your foot in the
| door.
| genewitch wrote:
| 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.
| lumost wrote:
| 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.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| I can't agree. My masters degree inspired my first
| entrepreneurship, not to mention over half of the cost was paid
| by my company.
|
| I also took a marketing class that changed my life. If you buy
| products from Nintendo, Apple, or Jeep, a marketing class will
| make you disgusted/woke.
| mastrsushi wrote:
| Many students fail to look into prospects and hopelessly enroll
| in post-grad thinking they're entitled to them.
|
| Do your homework when you choose to sign up for a degree, stop
| playing victim.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| It skips the part that masters degrees are _required_ for some
| jobs, like teaching higher education. (Odd it picked on film
| writing and arts.) This in itself is part of the racket. Want to
| teach in any college, public, community, private? You need a
| masters, no matter how uninformative the content really is. It 's
| a big circle.
| lizknope wrote:
| At least 75% of the people I know with masters degrees didn't pay
| a thing and in fact got free tuition AND a stipend.
|
| I have a lot of relatives from India that came to the US to get
| their masters in various engineering disciplines. None of them
| paid a dime.
|
| They had to work a lot of weekends for professors doing research
| but it was just 2 years and then they had published research
| papers and industry connections to get a job.
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