How necessary is a post-grad degree these days?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Do you have a college degree, or anticipate soon having one?

I’m curious because I’ve recently read that only 27% of adult Americans have a Bachelor’s degree. Obviously, then, the percentage of the population that have post-graduate degrees is smaller.

During my time in college, it was rare to pursue a post-graduate degree, unless one was going for medicine or law. But the MBA did rear its head during that time.

Now I see that all we’ll consider for my subordinates are those with Masters, although I have just a Bachelors.

I personally think there are many careers you can successfully pursue without the big paper. What do y’all think?

2

Important for what?

I have yet to get my bachelor’s and have held a job paying around 32,000 a year.

I have other friends who are in similar situations.

I know many who just have BA/BS degrees and do just fine, and others who have higher degrees and do just fine.

I don’t think one can say it’s necessary as a general rule, though in more technical fields it might be more necessary.

Experience and knowledge are going to be more important than the piece of paper, though the degree won’t hurt at all.

3

I have a bachelor’s degree, and in my field (technical writing) a four-year degree is a must. I’ve just started grad school, but not for career reasons; having a master’s degree might help me if I ever change careers, but otherwise it’s mostly a “can’t hurt” thing (I’m getting it because I’ve always wanted to, not because of how it might look on a resume).

The cost of living must be much lower in Vermont . . . around here, $32K is barely enough to live on. Is that considered a good salary up there? (I can’t think of a way to ask this question without sounding like a snot or a bitch – a snotty bitch? – but I swear that I don’t mean anything by it; I’m just curious.)

4

The Masters in Library Science is the entry-level degree for librarianship. Nearly every professional position requires it.

Not that it’s helped me get a job, no, but I couldn’t even interview for them if I didn’t have the degree.

5

Roughly 5% of americans have graduate degrees. And even though only 27% of americans have bachelors I think 50-60% of americans have some higher education. Meaning either they tried college and dropped out or they have a certificate or associates degree.

I don’t know for sure how necessary a degree is for a good job. I have heard the majority of graduates don’t even use their degrees.

6

It depends on what you mean by “necessary.” I have an MBA and it’s true that I use very little of what I learned in grad school. What I do use, I could have picked up on my own. However, while the degree isn’t necessary to do the job, it is necessary to get the job. Beyond a very entry-level position, you need an MBA to be hired. There are a couple people who have risen through the ranks, but they’re very few and they’re all pursuing their MBAs through night school.

I don’t know why that is. I think part of it is CYA. If you hire or promote someone without an MBA and they don’t work out, people are going to ask why you took that risk. If they have the required degree and don’t work out, you get fewer questions. Plus, for new hires, people tend to think if they could manage to slog through grad school they have to possess some skills.

7

As already pointed out, it depends on your field and your aspirations. Sure, you will find entry-level positions paying in the $40K to $70K range depending on your field. From these jobs, you can work hard, get lucky, and advance to better positions. With a graduate degree, there is a higher chance that you will be able to leapfrog those who came in without a graduate degree. In 25 years, you may all end up at the same place in the career ladder, but the path to get there will differ. BTW, I always recommend people finish as much of their education as they can before embarking on a career. Once a career is launched, it’s awfully hard to give up a regular paycheck and go back to studying full-time. Also, minor details like raising a family can get in the way of additional education. :smiley:

8

Yup, then your company could change their policy and you could be demoted. That happened to someone I work with - with a new company head came the new policy is that supervisors must have four year degrees, so someone who’d been a supervisor for at least a couple of years no longer is :frowning:

9

I’d say it’s pretty important today, and that if you have a chance, you should definitely get a degree.

With that said, I’ll point out (as I have in other threads before this) that when it comes to art-related stuff, a degree proves almost nothing about someone’s abilities, and sometimes is absolutely not required at all.

For instance, none of my arty friends nor I have ever been asked if we have a degree when we have approached an art gallery. The gallery wants to see examples of our work, they don’t seem to give a damn whether we have a degree, or even if we’ve graduated high school. If our work is good and they think they can sell it, they want it.

Same goes for juried shows and art shows. If your work is good, they want you. And in my experiences and what I’ve heard in regards to selling freelance commercial work, same thing. Can you do the job? Do you have something they want to use? Then they will use your work.

With regular 9-5 art-related jobs, however, the degree thing often becomes an issue. But even then, they’ll usually want to see samples of your work.

The ironic thing about art degrees is that some of the people who have them display very little artistic ability. Or at least, they just aren’t very good. The college art program failed them by slacking off and not teaching them some of the nuts-and-bolts basics of art. (This is a troubling trend right now.) So, sadly, many art degree programs are producing artists that are definitely not-ready-for-prime-time. Oh well.

10

I think it depends on your field. I have a four year nursing degree, and I can pretty much find work anywhere I go. A graduate degree would open up a few areas for me (clinical administration, for example, which I’m seriously considering), but it’s not necessary to my career.

11

I am a page designer at a mid-sized newspaper. I don’t have a degree. I am the only full-time employee in the newsroom without one.

I started at a small weekly newspaper when I was 19 and learned to do just about anything. I am 28 now and have worked for three different papers. I have seen many graduates from journalism schools that don’t know shit about newspapers or have any “news sense.”

I have to work my ass off to compensate for not having a degree and that makes me a better journalist.

12

I am in graduate school in medical research. I can tell you that in science (chemistry, biology, microbiology, molecular sciences, etc) a post-graduate degree is important if you wish to work in acedemia. You can get a research technician position in a laboratory with a BA, but it will be hourly and probably amount to $30,000 a year to start if you’re lucky. A masters will allow you to get paid on salary starting at $35k or so. Both a BA and a masters will allow you to progress through acedemia to the position of laboratory manager which pays up to $75k a year from what I hear, but over many years. I’m not sure of job opportunities in industry with a BA but the field usually pays ~35% more than academia. A Ph.D. will allow you to move up in academia and industry more quickly and get paid more, and you can eventually run your own lab or department.

In other science fields like engineering, I have several friends with a BA or Masters and they are doing very well, making what a Ph.D. would for sure and moving up fine in their companies.

13

In my field (biomed engineering) a post-grad degree seems to be getting more and more required by employers. In trying to find a job, the only ones that didn’t require a master’s, required several years experience. There seems to be no such thing as an ‘entry-level’ job in biomedical engineering, to which I am thoroughy pissed. :mad:

This also seems to be the case for engineering in general. Since it’s a fairly broad field (even within a given area, say biomedical or electrical) there are still several specialties, so a company might not want to hire a random guy with a BS in EE to work in fiber optics, because there’s a good chance he learned very little about it in getting a BS. But somewith with an MS or ME in EE, who’s work was IN fiber optics, or something similar, will be guarenteed to have the knowledge needed for the job.

14

Interesting thoughts, folks. I’m pondering this from dual perspectives.

One is that of one prepping the launching pad, so to speak; i.e., the perspective of one wanting to start a career with the Saturn booster strapped to their ass set on 11, as opposed to one contemplating where they might get to after ten or twenty years through alternate routes.

The other is that of different generations. As I said in the OP, when I went to school (1970s), it was get your Bachelors and GO!; very few thought of pursuing post-grad degrees outside of the traditional paths (law and medicine). MBAs started to appear then, and very soon after, many people did start getting Masters’, I think to a large degree to aid them competitively in starting off in a downturn.

Nowadays, we only interview college grads with, or near, a Masters. We’re not likely to bother with a Ph.D. OTOH, when they hired me (~5 years ago), nobody asked me if I’d even gone to college.

But that’s a different thing. They hired me based on industry reputation, and that only comes after some serious time in the trenches, with scalps to show for it. That route is, I believe, still possible, and will remain so.

I did have to satisfy the state board’s educational criteria to get licensed, but they were willing to evaluate my eclectic college curriculum rather than basing licensing solely on degrees recieved.

This makes me think of my father, who, with one year of undergraduate education behind him before he abandoned college as unaffordable, was the business adminstrator for a hospital in the late 1930s. Presently I’d guess you’d need something like a Masters in Public Health to even approach such a position.

15

Financial journalist here in complete agreement. We spend a lot of time grappling with company earnings statements and other corporate announcements, which can get quite complex, and new starters have to learn a lot on the job, so I think employers want to see evidence that applicants have some kind of education.

However, I think I’m correct in saying that a bachelor’s degree of some kind is pretty universally viewed as sufficient proof and that the importance attached to a j-school degree depends on whether the person reading the applicant’s resume is a j-school graduate. I’ve been doing this for more than a decade now and have changed employers a couple of times, most recently five years ago, and no one has ever remarked on the fact that I don’t have a graduate degree.

16

No worries, no offense taken.

32,000 as a starting salary is definitely more than enough for a single guy and then some.

To give you an idea, a pricy 1 bedroom in the more expensive locations would probably run about $800 a month. Right now I’m sharing a 3 bedroom with friends, each paying about $400.

I wouldn’t want to raise a family on $32,000 a year, but it’s not shabby, no.

17

I’m on staff at a community college. I probably won’t advance very far before I get a masters. The vast majority of the highest-level staffers have PhDs. By “staff” I mean folks who aren’t professors.

18

I know people in the technical field who have no college degree at all and who are into the 6-digit salary range.

I also know a person whom I think eventually got his high-school equivalency, who owned and ran a successful business that did very, very well. Although he is now retired, so that probably doesn’t fit with “these days.” However, I would imagine that many people in the building trades and related contracting fields can do extremely well if they have a good head for business and people skills as well as their trade. In fact, a lot of what makes for success in business cannot be taught, it can only be learned.

As others have said, it depends on what the meaning of “necessary” is.

19

I work in pharmaceutical clinical research. Most of the people who do what I do (data management) have some sort of public health or statistics masters degree, although you just need a bachelors and experience to get the job.

A masters shaves years off of requirements for promotion (i.e. 10 years industry experience or 5 years if you have a masters degree). The SAS programmers need a masters degree in statistics to be considered. I’m doing fine with my bachelors, although occasionally I feel a little boxed in.