The elite Masters degrees that are not worth it

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The people who paid for these degrees are not happy with the ROI
‘Financially hobbled for life’: The elite master’s degrees that don’t pay off | Fox Business

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The people who paid for these degrees are not happy with the ROI
‘Financially hobbled for life’: The elite master’s degrees that don’t pay off | Fox Business

Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000.


How? Why? Why would anyone spend that kind of money a film degree? There's 1 Steven Spielberg. The chances of anyone else having a career like that are pretty much zilch.

[bjcheung77]

Yeah, It's sad and not the ROI people are really looking for, Dustin also posted this on the sister board: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?thr...off.58810/

[newdegree]

People want elite degrees in fields where the job market is small or starting pay is so low. Do not get me wrong the education from elite programs such as ivy is great but there are always cheaper options and state universities where you can get the same degree for a fraction of the cost. In an industry like film, it's all about networking and experience in the field. I personally think if you want to go for a degree in film look where you can get connected the most to get that dream job. I would say go to school where the filming industry is such as Hollywood California maybe or try to get connections with a big network such as CBS, FOX, or NBC. It's hard because they only need so many people in the field but it's possible... I had a friend that worked in the audio engineer field and he worked for the Nassau Coliseum which hosts the Islanders hockey team / Long Island Nets basketball team and numerous concerts. He got the job with experience and a great interview...

[dfrecore]

The biggest thing with these is that they are not fields where you need a degree at all! No bachelor's degree is needed, let alone a master's degree. If you want to be a poet, write some freaking poetry. You don't need ANYTHING to do that except a firm grasp of the language you're writing in. Children can write poetry. To be a filmmaker, get yourself a camera and some software and get going. Again, I know kids in middle school who have created movies. The best filmmakers of all time didn't have master's degrees from Columbia to become those. It's all just completely ridiculuous.

The other thing here is that these are NOT 17yo's making these ridiculously stupid decisions - they have graduated from college and are in their 20's and 30's. Someday, all of us as taxpayers will be on the hook for these stupid degrees.

The government should NOT be in the business of guaranteeing student loans for ANY master's degrees, ever. It's all just so damn stupid.

[sanantone]

While it sucks for those individuals, in the grand scheme of things, they are not costing taxpayers nearly as much as other sectors of higher education with high student loan default rates. NYU is a traditional university that accounts for a disproportionate amount of the student loan debt in this country, and it's because of their graduate and first professional degree programs. Other colleges that account for a disproportionate amount of debt are schools like Capella and Walden that have high tuition rates, a lot of graduate students, and low graduation rates. Capella and Walden do not offer arts degrees. For-profit colleges have 10% of American college students and account for half of student loan defaults. This year, the U.S. Department of Education has canceled $3 billion in student loan debt so far, and much of it is because of for-profit colleges that defrauded students. The interesting thing is that for-profit colleges mostly offer business, IT, education, and mental health licensing programs. They're not offering a bunch of humanities programs, and their graduates still don't do well in comparison to other types of colleges.

If you look at the numbers for how many people are graduating with humanities degrees each year, you'll see that they are among the least popular majors. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of business management and business administration majors graduate each year, and that field has a high underemployment rate due to an overabundance of those degrees. Once again, while it's stupid to take out six figures of student loans so that you can attend a residential master's program in the arts, these people don't even come close to being the majority who leave taxpayers paying for bad college choices. Honestly, I find it interesting how some of the people who are complaining about expensive Columbia degrees are the same ones who defend the for-profit colleges that are overrepresented in fraud cases and student loan defaults. We could save a lot of money if taxpayers only funded public institutions. Prestigious private schools could survive without public funding, but small, non-profit colleges and most for-profit colleges couldn't survive.

[sacredrain]

There are students spending insane amounts of money at non elite and non Ivy League schools as well. Often at my full time place of work, we are coming across students who have maxed out financial aid grants and loans, without even completing a degree. This goes for students who have attended both for profit and non profit institutions.

As for certain degrees, I think as a society we are telling some students the wrong things when it comes to choosing a career based on skills or a choosing a career based on a hobby. For example my daughter wanted to go to art school, shes very talented, can draw really well and has won several awards. My husband and I were flat out against it and even spoke to her about career opportunities etc...

However, we after working with her and having her speak with several different career counselors, she decided to get a degree in graphic arts with a minor in computer science. She also has earned a certification in UX design and the result is that she is working for Epic Games here in NC and making almost 100k per year as a UX designer. So see we were able to take her love of art and transfer it into a career that actually pays well.

I agree with what the poster above me said about business degrees, in fact there are some community colleges who are either revising their business administration degrees or just specializing them, as a business degree is so common, it is being seen as a (generalist college high school diploma) in some aspects. One community college, where we are working on an articulation agreement with, stated they are going to do away with general business administration and offer Business Financial Management and Business Insurance Management instead as they have spoken to employers in the area who want the business degrees to be specialized.

The issue with student loans is that students are never denied a loan and if a student is having financial hard ship they often turn to attending university to get extra money. If we only allowed students to be funded for tuition purposes only and not factor in cost of living, this would help with the financial aid issue with students owing so much debt.