There is a strong implication that a Master's Degree in media studies is a worthless degree. My suspicion is that it ranks right up there with hydraulic socionomology on the worthless scale. Here is the statement with that implication, from an article, "Is College Worth the Cost, Part 2" by Anya Kamenetz on Yahoo.
The grad students I meet generally have high aspirations and a desire for meaningful careers. Yet it's still quite possible to become a novelist without an MFA, a journalist without a journalism degree, and just about anything without a master's in media studies.I burst out laughing as I read that last phrase.
Overall, the article was interesting. It didn't talk only about the major successes of people who borrow to finance MBAs, nor about the financial losses of those who borrow for their M.Ed. Also there was no discussion about online masters degree programs. But it did point out some of the different financial payoffs (I know, there are other non-pecuniary payoffs from education) from earning a Master's degree in various areas. For example,
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the payoff from social science and liberal arts master's degrees is actually negative — the average liberal arts MA earns less than the average of all BAs. [EE: but what about compared with the average of all social science and liberal arts BAs?]At the same time, though, many Masters students are willing to cough up mega-bucks to attend programmes like those at The University of Chicago, where the financial success of the graduates seems much more likely. See this [h/t to Brian Ferguson].
And according to an in-depth study conducted back in 1999, those with Ph.D.s in the humanities had the highest debt and lowest income of all students in all disciplines.
Moreover, universities are increasingly relying on part-timers rather than tenured professors. That means the number of well-paying, secure jobs in academia is going down.
Again from Kamenetz,
In general, master's degree students come out with an average of about $32,000 in debt, while for Ph.D.s it's around $53,000. Those with master's degrees earn about 18 percent more than those with bachelor's degrees on average, and Ph.D.s earn about 50 percent more.In discussing this piece, several of us agreed with its opening,
Technical fields have a bigger payoff. Graduates with master's degrees in computer science, engineering, or math earn about 50 percent more than those with bachelor's degrees.
Education, one of the most common master's degrees, has a comparatively small but positive payoff.
"Isn't a master's degree the new bachelor's?" I hear this all the time when I visit college campuses.If BAs are so common and easy to obtain, perhaps the value of an MA is that it distinguishes someone from other people by offering some further credentialization.
In some ways, the answer is yes. The number of master's degrees conferred is expected to rise 30 percent over the next 10 years, and 40 percent of college graduates will enroll in a graduate program within a decade after college.