The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off | Hacker News Reader

The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off

wsj.com

30 pointsyarapavan21 comments

A society doesn't just need productive, value adding jobs which fill 100% of the working generations time. A society also needs fine arts, theatre, film because its part of being human. If we were all corporate wage slaves the world would be a terrible place to exist. The system as we have it in Europe is the perfect balance of this, you pay nothing or very little for your higher education and in return you can explore different areas which interest you without having this lingering thought of bankruptcy or financial ruin always in your head. I don't understand the US system at all, it is 100% geared toward profit and leaves no room for the creative, is that really a nice system to live in?

US is the prime example of a capitalist ecosystem. I would argue that this is what made US the superpower it is today.

So to do away with it goes against everyone who enjoys the benefits of the system in US. Those who enjoy the benefits are also those in power.

The US gained its advantage during the 40s-70s, when the government sector was a much larger percentage of the economy. We've been coasting on the efforts of that period and are now losing ground to countries that have their act together.

>...The US gained its advantage during the 40s-70s, when the government sector was a much larger percentage of the economy.

The government sector is larger now than pretty much anytime since the end of WW II.

The US gained its advantage when it was the only industrialized country that wasn't devastated by WW II.

https://taxfoundation.org/short-history-government-taxing-an...

that's mostly due to financial bailouts.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=8fX

This is 100% my point of view, but nevertheless I must admit that the „creative output“ (movies, music, games, musicals etc) of the US seems so much better than that of the rest of the world…

I would humbly offer the UK as a counterpoint to all these creative fields and add TV output to the mix. Not to get into a US/UK pissing contest but to highlight the UK has very healthy culture output with a lot of talent.

I'd also suggest "better" and "more dominant" as 2 different things. The latter can be the case through marketing and commercial factors not merit.

The system you have in europe means creating a permanent underclass of young adults that have no prospects for jobs, until they are in their late 20s and they finally have to get off govt aid

By my late 20s i was already a midlevel executive in NYC. Thats the same age when the avg student is just finishing their uni studies.

Education in the EU is just a holding pen for young adults to do something, erasmus, whatever, while they are permanently unemployed. I was visiting friends, spending cash in restaurants, while they ate ramen in college dorms or small urban housing, well into their late 20's.

That sticky 12% unemployment is no coincidence

I received my MBA in IT from WGU and couldn't be happier. It cost me a total of $8,000 and was one of the best things I have ever done for my education. This MBA cost me a fraction of what my BS did.

I want to weep at the list of programs in the article:

- Journalism

- Fine Arts in Film, Theater and Media Studies

- Speech pathology

A masters degree can run 300k at these top institutions. We have laws against usury, lemon laws, price gouging, ponzi schemes, securities regulations.....etc. How can a society justify allowing young folks spending 300k of money they don't have to get a degree in fine arts?

It's fine we let them spend whatever they want. What's not fine is that when it is clear they aren't able to pay it off, we don't let a bankruptcy court discharge the debt like all other unsecured debt.

Let lenders take risk, and when that risk clearly goes bust... wipe it out.

> Let lenders take risk

This. Universities should be required to eat a certain percentage of any loan that defaults, so that they always have skin in the game. A similar rule could have prevented the subprime mortgage crisis. Sure, let lenders sell house loans to higher risk customers, but make lenders themselves responsible for some portion of any bad loan, and don't let them use shell companies or bankruptcy-in-name-only shenanigans to escape their responsibility, either.

Split the risk 50/50 between lenders and the university. Then every young adult can declare bankruptcy right after graduating and have a fresh clean start with no debt.

That may sound like an easy fix, but easing the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy court would necessarily require higher interest rates on new loans (sans increased subsidization of student loans). That may be a palatable tradeoff, but I suspect most students would prefer cheap borrowing.

What’s to stop broke university students from immediately declaring bankruptcy upon graduation? They don’t have any assets to forfeit which typically stop others from gaming the system.

Because people are well aware of what they are buying.

Doing a $300K Masters Degree in 'Fine Arts' at Colombia is straight up a Rich Kids Thing. And that's it.

What counts as an elite masters degree? Perhaps the descriptor should be those that offer immediate compensation benefits.

TFA seems to use "a degree from an elite university"

Elite university. I think education at that level is mostly to form connections and relations within the field. If you are just after education, there would be a lot of alternatives, especially today when the logistics of knowledge are comparably cheap.

There aren't really elite institutions in my country, but my masters was nearly free.

https://archive.is/4lQkO

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