Some Master’s Degrees Are the Second Biggest Scam in Higher Education

[wildebeest]

I'm currently pursuing a master's in a program where all courses were designed and are led by the professors themselves. That said, I think OPMs are less of an issue than the one revealed by cost-benefit analysis, also alluded to in the link. My degree will cost a little over $13,000. The number one ranked MPA in the nation is Indiana University Bloomington's, which will cost you $31,741 in tuition plus whatever fees and book costs are. Northwestern's will cost you about $50,000, plus fees and books. 

In the world where MPAs matter, the Indiana University MPA is a better investment, in my view, but some people want to pay to have gone to Northwestern. They want that brand on their resume. At $50,000 it's probably worth it, and it would still be worth it if the program were designed by an OPM (that isn't the case here). The average salary for an MPA is about $60,000, according to ZipRecuiter, probably not accurate but close enough, and while that's not great -- the average salary for an MBA is $83,000, according to the same source -- there's a career trajectory there, particularly if you specialize. But Trinity College's $308,000 Master of Public Policy and Law? Sarah Lawrence's $402,000 Master of Arts in History and Law? What even is the point of these degrees? There is no standard career path through which you'll recover those funds, and adding law school debt to that will only exacerbate the issue, not relieve it.

In short, if someone wants to pay extra for a university's brand name, even if their program was designed and implemented by an OPM, I see no issue with that. People willingly pay extra for brand names all the time, and sometimes those brands are manufactured in the same plants as generic products. But there should really be some cost-benefit analysis, and universities that receive federal funds should probably not be able to offer degrees whose expense is so great there is no normal path on which repayment will be possible. (I also think anybody smart enough to get a master's degree should be able to look at a $402,000 M.A. in History and Law and simply balk, but that's another story.)

I think degrees in fields in which there is no standard career path should absolutely exist, arts and culture matter, but their cost should reflect the fact that, chances are, the person doing the degree will end up in a bog-standard job and not sell a screenplay for $5 million or whatever. MFA in Screenwriting? Calculate its cost like the person is gonna be a barista or an adjunct instructor, not James Cameron. That is, calculate off real-world salaries, not crossed-finger dreams.