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Comment by beej71 | Hacker News Reader

Some 30% of Americans have a Bachelor's Degree or higher.

According to the Census, the median income for people with a Master's Degree is $54K (for ages 25-64), while those with only a High School diploma get $22K.

We need to improve our education situation 15 years ago, IMHO.

Edit: I'm going to edit this because people seem to think I'm suggesting a causal relationship here. I'm not. People with Master's Degrees tend to be highly trained in their field. It's not particularly surprising they tend to earn more.

If you invest the time to make yourself less replaceable, you will earn more money.

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<sarcasm> Clearly they all need to apply to Phoenix University, get a $60K loan from Uncle Sam so they too can get that sweet $54K job </sarcasm>

Not saying that education is not lacking but rather that there is a already a predatory system set up to get this people deeper in dept without necessarily providing a better chance at getting job.

The problem is that those degrees don't mean anything in most professions. They are used by those with the degree to get more money and used by the employers to pay less to those that don't have them. I know in my profession I have worked to MIT grads that are just a stupid as those with no degree.

Statistics like this just encourage people to spend lots of money on useless degrees that will take a long time to pay off. (I know some of these people.) I doubt a philosophy degree will get you more money anywhere other than as a philosophy professor.

If they were educated properly, they'd know better before they got to college. Again, IMHO.

It's not in the education system's best interests to tell you not to get a higher degree. Anyway, many of the teachers you'd ask probably get hired because of their degree, so even if they give you an honest answer, they're incredible biased.

So if everybody in the country had a masters degree people would all earn 2.5x as much?

Obviously an increase in PhD programs in french-fry frying would raise incomes even further.

The point is not to make money. The point is not to get a PhD. The point isn't even to get a degree.

The point, if you want a job, is to be competitive in a cutting edge field.

I'll start worrying about what happens when everyone has a Master's Degree when 20% of the population has a Master's Degree.

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