High Cost Useless Master’s Degrees And Who’s Offering Them
Unable to discharge debts in bankruptcy, students with useless degrees, especially master’s degrees, are Financially Hobbled for Life.
Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000. Yet two years after earning their master’s degrees, half of the borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year.
The university is among the world’s most prestigious schools, and its $11.3 billion endowment ranks it the nation’s eighth wealthiest private school.
Lured by the aura of degrees from top-flight institutions, many master’s students at universities across the U.S. took on debt beyond what their pay would support, the Journal analysis of federal data on borrowers found. At Columbia, such students graduated from programs including history, social work and architecture.
Undergraduate students for years have faced ballooning loan balances. But now it is graduate students who are accruing the most onerous debt loads. Unlike undergraduate loans, the federal Grad Plus loan program has no fixed limit on how much grad students can borrow—money that can be used for tuition, fees and living expenses.
Panic Attack
“There’s always those 2 a.m. panic attacks where you’re thinking, ‘How the hell am I ever going to pay this off?’ ” said 29-year-old Zack Morrison, of New Jersey, who earned a Master of Fine Arts in film from Columbia in 2018 and praised the quality of the program. His graduate school loan balance now stands at nearly $300,000, including accrued interest. He has been earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year from work as a Hollywood assistant and such side gigs as commercial video production and photography.
“We were told by the establishment our whole lives this was the way to jump social classes,” said Matt Black of an Ivy League education. Instead, he said he feels such goals as marriage, children and owning a home are out of reach.
Grant Bromley, 28, accumulated $115,000 in federal loans while getting his Master of Arts in film and media studies at Columbia. Mr. Bromley earns around $16 an hour and can’t afford to pay down his loan balance, which is $156,000, including undergraduate debt and interest. “It’s a number so large that it doesn’t necessarily feel real,” he said.
Highly selective universities have benefited from free-flowing federal loan money, and with demand for spots far exceeding supply, the schools have been able to raise tuition largely unchecked. The power of legacy branding lets prestigious universities say, in effect, that their degrees are worth whatever they charge.
Who’s Offering Useless Master’s Degrees?
The answer is the same as who’s offering useless degrees in general: They all do.
Where the heck is someone with a master’s degree in stagecraft, art, history, political science, photography, English, foreign language, culinary arts, etc., etc., etc., supposed to get a job that will pay the bills?
A few will get lucky, the rest will be financially hobbled for life.
Dear President Biden, You Need an Education, Starting With the Meaning of “Free”
I had no idea the above article was coming out today. Yet, I mentioned an aspect of it yesterday in Dear President Biden, You Need an Education, Starting With the Meaning of “Free”
George W. Bush signed the “Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005” making student debt uncancellable in bankruptcy. Guess what happend?
Biden’s solution of course is a “free” money student debt forgiveness program.
Student debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy so the cost of programs soared along with the willingness of universities to promote useless degrees for the masses.
Administrators and teachers who make more when enrolments rise piled on. And of course the unions piled on encouragements in need of money to support ridiculous pensions.
With the money pouring in, the salaries of football coaches and administrators soared.
Don’t forget mainstream media parroting the need for everyone to get a degree with no mention ever that most degrees are worthless.
Endowments
Columbia University compares its endowment program to that of other bigger schools. Donate, donate, donate is the mantral.
Don’t Donate a Penny!
Endowment money is not for students, it’s a slush fund for administrators, coaches, and their pension plans.
Solutions
- At the individual level, don’t go deep into debt for useless degrees.
- Study overseas where costs are much cheaper
- Free courses, some really are free, but you don’t get the college credit
- More competition
- Accredited online universities
- Free College Courses
- Pension reform
- Better use of endowments to help the students
- Alternative education programs
- Bankruptcy reform
- Require universities to go over typical graduating salaries and costs of their programs.
Biden’s Free Education Program
Instead of doing anything that makes any sense, Biden’s proposes “free education” as does Elizabeth Warren and Progressives in general.
The problem is “free” someone is paying for the building, the teachers, the coaches, the staff, the administrators, and the pension plans.
Make it “free” and there is no limit on any of the above.
“Free” is the typical proposal, but “free” is never the solution in practice.
See more here: zerohedge.com
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Alan
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The worst of it is that they are too stupid to work out these degrees are worthless. At least in the UK they don’t have to pay back the student loans if they don’t earn enough, and taxpayers cannot complain about picking up the bill.
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Michael A
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Just did a quick search for an English course at Bristol University which has a good reputation. It came in at £13,500 per year for overseas students. Oxford came in at between £27K and £34K
https://coursefees.uwe.ac.uk/?search=English&intakeType=New&academicyear=18&start=0&resultsPerPage=4&submitted=True
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Mervyn
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The degrees that have value are the ‘relevant degrees’. What is a ‘relevant degree? Simple. For example:-
you want to be a doctor – you do a medical degree
you want to be a lawyer – you do a law degree
you want to be an accountant – you do an accountancy or business degree
you wan to be an economist – you do an economics degree
you want to be a vet – you do a degree in veterinary science.
you want to be an engineer – you do an engineering degree.
These sorts of degrees relate directly to a profession or vocation. A person decides what he/she wants to be, and follows through studying the relevant degree to become a member of his/her desired profession.
Sadly, too many people waste money getting a degree without knowing what they want to do in life.That is simply a waste of money.
The whole system is wrong. School students should be taught to think what career they want to pursue in life, not what degree they’d like to study for.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Mervyn,
The propaganda is that everyone should go to college and college graduates make much more money during their careers. This use to be true when the universities were about educating students instead of making money. Most of the students who entered college did not finish because the system weeded out those who could not utilize what they learned. An employer would know that a person who had a degree was able to work and could learn and therefore could be trained to do a job. With the retention of even the most incompetent students, by shifting their field of studies to keep them in college, today’s diplomas are useless and have less meaning than a high school diploma from when I went to school. They universities are now about the institutions not the betterment of students and most of those attending would be better off doing apprenticeships or on the job trying getting practical experience rather than about the theoretical. The school system has been destroyed because the universities have made the College of Education the dumping ground for bad students.
Herb
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Mark Tapley
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The big universities are mainly investment companies with an educational facade. Harvard has a 40 billion dollar endowment. They could offer free tuition for over a hundred years. The problem really started (like every thing else) when the government got involved in guaranteeing student loans. Colleges took advantage of this to keep raising prices to the moon and offering all kinds of junk curriculums to get any kid that could write their name into their institution.
This problem was made worse by lowering academic standards and pursuing the minority quotas that brought in large numbers of students that were not qualified for placement in what used to be top tier schools. Years ago someone sho was qualified could get a high quality education in the U.S. at a reasonable cost. Today the ones that finish are so loaded with debt that they are often at a serious financial disadvantage to those who just went out and got a job.
When my daughter was a student at Baylor, she worked part time for one of the instructors. One day the professor told her ” I Hate to get those athletes in my classes, lots of them can’t read.” They had a system where the professors rotated around passing the ball players through.
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