The U.S. unemployment rate is currently
seven point nine percent, over 15
million Americans have filed for
unemployment insurance since the
pandemic began in March, and it is
still not clear when the economic
recession will end. During the 2008
financial crisis, many Americans went
back to school to ride out the
recession. But while the coronavirus
pandemic has not dramatically changed
what it costs to earn a degree, it has
dramatically changed what it means to
be a student. If you wanted to get a
graduate degree right now, it would
probably look something like this.
The question is, is this worth it?
The College Board estimates that
master's program cost about nineteen
thousand five hundred and seventy
dollars per year at public universities
and forty three thousand three hundred
eighty dollars per year at private
universities. Some schools, like
Georgetown University, charge over
80,000 dollars per year for a master's
program. Is an online master's degree
worth the money? One of the first
things you learn in Economics 101 are
two words: Opportunity cost.
The opportunity cost is what you have to
give up to acquire something.
So in the context of going to college,
the what you would have made on your
job if you'd been working and kept
going to school is is the opportunity
cost of college is the opportunities
that you would have given up in order
to to pursue a college degree or
master's degree. Historically, we see
people go to college in recessions
because in a time when there are few
jobs during the recession, the
opportunity cost of going to school is
quite low. In 2007, there were some 17
,956,000 colleges in the United States,
including three million five hundred
ninety one thousand graduate students.
By 2011, that figure increased roughly
14 percent to include over 20 million
total college students.
There are two countervailing forces.
One is, you know, the economy is this
bad? And so this is a good time to go
back to school that with pushed
generally push more people to go to
college. And the other hand, the
pandemic is really disrupted how we
provide schooling.
Early data suggests that these
countervailing forces are having an
impact on students.
Undergraduate college enrollment is
down 2.5 percent a semester, in part
because many low income students,
community college students and
international students have stopped
attending because of the pandemic.
But graduate school enrollment is
booming. Enrollment in master's
programs increased six percent and
enrollment in post baccalaureate
certificates has increased 24 percent
since 2019.
To be sure, every student has their own
reason for choosing to pursue a
master's degree. My name is Tarrant's.
I'm 22 years old and I'm earning a
master's degree in conflict resolution
at Georgetown University.
My name is Liz Saccoccia. I'm 28 and I
am studying a Masters of Analytics at
Georgia Tech Online.
My name is Taelor Malcolm.
I am 23 years old and I'm studying
urban planning at the Graduate School
of Design at Harvard University.
I actually came into the master program
straight after my undergraduate
program, which was international
business and economics.
I did international relations at the
University of Delaware. And as I was
applying for jobs, I realized, oh,
people are not going to know where to
put me. So I was like, I'm going to do
twofold. I'm going to go somewhere
where there aren't a lot of networking
opportunities and I'm going to earn a
degree that could kind of give me some
some direction. I have been working at
the World Resources Institute and have
really kind of understood that
additional skills and data analytics
are really important for doing research
in the environmental sector.
Research shows that workers with
graduate degrees often outearn those
without those with just a high school
diploma earn around seven hundred and
forty six dollars per week on average,
while college graduates earn closer to
one thousand two hundred forty eight
dollars per week on average.
And workers with master's degrees earn
nearly one thousand five hundred
dollars per week. And early research
shows that workers with advanced
degrees, such as masters and PhDs have
been significantly less impacted by the
economic fallout caused by the
pandemic. Pew Research Center found
that since the pandemic began, highly
educated workers are significantly less
likely to have lost health insurance or
to have struggled paying bills.
And Federal Reserve data indicates that
the unemployment rate is two times
higher for high school graduates than
it is for those with a master's degree.
The conflict facing students, however,
is that the experience of earning that
master's degree has changed
dramatically. But the cost of not most
recent estimates suggest that the
annual tuition for master's programs is
about eight thousand nine hundred
ninety dollars at public universities
and thirty one thousand one hundred and
forty dollars at private universities.
Add in fees and room and board, and
those totals increase to nineteen
thousand five hundred seventy dollars
and 43 thousand three hundred and
eighty dollars per year respectively.
Few schools have significantly reduced
costs for graduate students since the
pandemic began. They have no incentive
to enrollment is up, but current
students are wondering if they are
getting the same value for their money
spent. They are not the same value at
all. A lot of it is waiting, waiting,
waiting to be called, waiting to send
notice. This paper is a sign that
you're waiting to be told the next
thing to do, whereas in person it feels
like you're interacting in person was
very collaborative, not only with your
professors, but with other students.
If I had an issue with my Adobe suite, I
could just raise my hand and wave
somebody over. The online experience is
not really like that. You're not around
people as much. You have to schedule
things like pay for college.
You're paying for the facility usage as
well. You're paying for being in the
classroom when you're not using those.
I feel like you shouldn't have to pay
for it. It's not the education that
they were expecting. So they really
have to weigh the costs and benefits of
taking on the debt that I have accrued
thus far is about--
Almost $100,000.
However, universities and experts
emphasize that offering online
education is not necessarily cheaper to
provide. It turns out that online
instruction is not less expensive for
the colleges when strange research
college departments that have chosen to
move learning online over the past
several years, he found that schools
were not able to significantly cut
costs. He points out that building
software, developing online curriculum
and expanding tech support isn't cheap,
especially on a shortened timeline like
schools have faced during the pandemic.
It turns out it doesn't really save you
much money, if any money, to shift
online holding kind of constant the
quality of what you're doing.
This quality in online classes and
technical support and networking
opportunities appears to be key in
whether or not experts and students
believe in online master's is worth the
expensive price tag.
I honestly don't think I would suggest
going to get their masters in a
recession just to get their masters.
It could make them more viable once the
recession is over. But I don't know if
I don't know if it's always the best
choice. One big factor is how employers
view online advanced degrees.
Will they hold the same weight or will
an even cheaper option disrupt the
market completely.
If companies start to accept more of
that Coursera degrees or online or
certificates a bit more.
I'm actually kind of interested to see
if that will take the place of formal
education. Online providers like
Coursera, ADEX and Khan Academy offer
courses, certificates and credentials
for little or no cost.
Proponents of the models say that if
companies begin to value these
nontraditional online learning pathways
like they do traditional graduate
degrees, the whole system could be
turned upside down. Google has created
its own certification program where if
you get through that and it takes
months, not years at Amazon, once
again, they're trying to hire tens of
thousands of engineers every year.
They are creating assessments, computer
based assessments that if you can pass
this and write the code, you're in the
process, you're in the maybe even ahead
of many college graduates.
And if these types of employers start
saying a college degree is nice, we'll
take a look at that. But here's some
other paths. And by the way, they're
free. I think other people are going to
take notice and follow their lead.