http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edlife/edl-24masters-t.htmlThe Master�s as the New Bachelor�s
By LAURA PAPPANO
New York Times
July 22, 2011
William Klein�a story may sound familiar to his fellow graduates. After earning his bachelor�s in history from the College at Brockport, he found himself living in his parents� Buffalo home, working the same $7.25-an-hour waiter job he had in high school.
It wasn�t that there weren�t other jobs out there. It�s that they all seemed to want more education. Even tutoring at a for-profit learning center or leading tours at a historic site required a master�s. �It�s pretty apparent that with the degree I have right now, there are not too many jobs I would want to commit to,� Mr. Klein says.
So this fall, he will sharpen his marketability at Rutgers� new master�s program in Jewish studies (think teaching, museums and fund-raising in the Jewish community). Jewish studies may not be the first thing that comes to mind as being the road to career advancement, and Mr. Klein is not sure exactly where the degree will lead him (he�d like to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East). But he is sure of this: he needs a master�s. Browse professional job listings and it�s �bachelor�s required, master�s preferred.�
Call it credentials inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master�s is now the fastest-growing degree. The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years, says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master�s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor�s or higher in 1960.
...
So what�s going on here? Have jobs, as Dr. Stewart puts it, �skilled up�? Or have we lost the ability to figure things out without a syllabus? Or perhaps all this amped-up degree-getting just represents job market �signaling� � the economist A. Michael Spence�s Nobel-worthy notion that degrees are less valuable for what you learn than for broadcasting your go-get-�em qualities.
�There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,� says Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution, and that gives the master�s extra signaling power. �We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,� making a bachelor�s no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers.
Colleges are turning out more graduates than the market can bear, and a master�s is essential for job seekers to stand out � that, or a diploma from an elite undergraduate college, says Richard K. Vedder, professor of economics at Ohio University and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
Not only are we developing �the overeducated American,� he says, but the cost is borne by the students getting those degrees. �The beneficiaries are the colleges and the employers,� he says. Employers get employees with more training (that they don�t pay for), and universities fill seats. In his own department, he says, a master�s in financial economics can be a �cash cow� because it draws on existing faculty (�we give them a little extra money to do an overload�) and they charge higher tuition than for undergraduate work. �We have incentives to want to do this,� he says. He calls the proliferation of master�s degrees evidence of �credentialing gone amok.� He says, �In 20 years, you�ll need a Ph.D. to be a janitor.�
<end of excerpt>
This is a frightening trend. The U.S. educational system is already too slow and expensive.
