College debt begins with undergraduate work, but for many, college does not end there. I have written about getting the U.S. Military to pay for Medical School, one alternative to an MBA or other graduate business school degree, and I have some more to say about graduate school, so here goes.
I am sometimes surprised that people I work with, many of whom finished college fairly recently and are in the coveted foot-in-the-door entry level job with a very good chance of continued opportunity, feel they need to go back to college for more degrees, which by the way are not needed if they just stay put and do a good job. Some of them have what seem to one Someday Wise, to be impractical ideas about why they need more degrees.
In one case it was more of a plan of a graduate degree. This person was a college intern, only with us for a short time, hoping to become a kindergarten teacher, which (apparently) required a master’s degree. At the point of the conversation, this person was working on an associate’s degree, with plans to transfer and complete a bachelor’s and master’s.
Someday Wise, being currently foolish, could not resist butting into their business by asking what on earth made them think that you need a master’s degree in order to be a kindergarten teacher? I don’t remember the reply exactly, but it was along the lines of the master’s not always being strictly required, but it was highly preferred, to the point that most candidates would be overlooked without it.
This news was all very troubling to one Someday Wise. The student in question was preparing, after (wisely) finishing up at the local community college, to take on loads of debt to transfer off to a state college far enough away to incur requisite living expenses for bachelor’s and master’s degrees. But the troubling part here was not just the college debt. It was the future career plan as a ratio to the potential debt. In short, I wondered about this person’s chances of landing in their desired career, and whether it would pay enough to justify their investment.
This was troubling because I have a fear of bad math, and I was seeing some here.
First, did this person really know that they wanted to be a kindergarten teacher? It’s not an easy job, and unfortunately teachers are notoriously underpaid. I have seen kindergarten teachers burn out right in front of my face (when my own child was in kindergarten, one of the other K teachers seemed to be struggling through a year that turned out to be the last before a total career change).
What if this person went through all those years of college, about six of them if going full time, with their associated opportunity costs, and amassing significant debt in the process, only to find they did not want that job?
Since this person was already at community college, I wondered about the possibility of a slightly different path. The local place has an AAS in Paraprofessional / Teacher’s Aide, and an AA in Elementary Education, intended for transfer. How about getting the aide degree first, then doing that for a year or two as a test run?
Meanwhile you would earn – and save – some full-time income, put some relevant experience on your resume, and establish a relationship with at least one school district that may, because you prove your greatness as an aide, want you once you become a certified teacher. You’d still be able to work on the transfer associate’s, at the discount price of community college, while working, if desired.
I have also heard and seen various stories over recent years about teacher shortages. Apparently, they are not so much in areas like elementary and early childhood education. There may even be too many of those teachers. So I just had to stick my nosy nose in further and suggest that this person would be more marketable getting certified as a secondary Biology teacher, since the internet told me we need those. I could not help but continue to point out that such a degree would also qualify as a biology degree, a ready backup for all sorts of alternative job paths, in case the whole teaching thing fell apart. I won’t elaborate on what this person did with this advice, but it was not pretty.
I see other people talking about needing master’s degrees to go into fields that may not be worth it. Social work is not easy, does not pay great, has a high burn out factor, and yet I see people getting master’s degrees in counseling to do it.
Library Science has always baffled me. The Dewey Decimal system is very easy for any book lover to figure out, the internet is now full of more free information than anyone could ever need just by typing a few words into a search bar, and yet librarians can’t get a job unless they have a Master’s degree. Why? How can you justify the middling pay of a librarian after all that investment? And what are you going to do with a Master of Library Science degree if you change your mind, or can’t find a job?
I once came into contact with someone going to graduate school for flute. Yes, there are advanced degrees in flute, and apparently a pretty solid potential job path at the end of it all. And sometimes people just tell me they are leaving their entry level job to go back for a master’s, with no real apparent justification. They just want to. Sometimes they seem to feel they are entitled to higher level work than we gave them (they are not), and once they get the right advanced degree, we will all agree. People with that tired attitude are a dime a dozen, easy to spot, and rarely get hired back.
The experience in the company, and networking, building an excellent reputation, and establishing your proficiency, is probably more relevant to getting promoted to the better job. Very few of our jobs specify the need for advanced degrees. All they need to do is look at our job postings and ask a mentor and they could find this out. If they are not getting promoted, it probably is not because of the lack of a master’s degree.
I realize work is not just about a paycheck. People want to develop a life of the mind, and one day do work that is meaningful, fulfilling, and a good match for their natural talents and passions. Of course they do. But sometimes the work does not come anyway, after all of that education. Sometimes it does, but turns out not to be quite the dream once imagined.
Sometimes those people end up in careers that are not related to, and do not require, those advanced degrees at all – perhaps don’t require any degree whatsoever. Sometimes they invest all that time and money and realize they need to change gears and get yet another, more practical degree in order to secure lucrative employment. The stereotype of struggling, talented actors in Los Angeles and New York, often with plenty of expensive education behind them, is well known. What do we picture these struggling actors doing for a living? Waiting tables. That’s a job anyone can do without any degree.
“Oh, come on now, Someday,” you may be thinking, “surely vocations such as teacher, social worker, librarian, and flutist are more practical than actor.” Go ahead and think that, and perhaps you are accurate. You see, I’m not here to tell anyone what to think. Get all the education you want. Get it wherever you want, mindless of the cash investment, and by the way, spend as much time as you want in college, racking up opportunity costs every day.
It’s hard and painful to think of pursuing your dream, and having it end up in failure and poverty. It’s hard to overstate the misery and burden of crippling debt, of any kind. Credit card debt, mortgage debt, medical debt, auto debt, college debt, you name it. Getting expensive stuff is fun. Paying for it, not so much. Life is risky, but some decisions are firmly in your control. We live in an era where free information is practically dumped right on top of our heads, and yet people seem to blissfully ignore a lot of it.
Wow. This post is a tough one, isn’t it? Dark and gloomy, like the spectre of a lifetime of debt. Halloween is coming, and with it, the notion of scary things. A good time to think long and hard about those that you can choose to control. Don’t choose a path that you will regret. Don’t foolishly wander in to the beckoning waters of graduate school without fully knowing the potential dangers that lurk beneath.
On that note, have a nice day!
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Someday Wise 