An Overeducated Populace

Recently, The New York Times devoted a special issue to graduate school. Among the advice columns and opinion pieces, an article titled “The Master’s as the New Bachelor’s” takes a look at credential inflation and the difficult task facing new university graduates of marketing their degree to potential, often disinterested employers. According to Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, a master’s level education is quickly becoming the entry degree in many professions. Partly responsible for this trend is the fact that increasing numbers of graduates are returning to school at the graduate level, a common reason for this was the recent economic downturn. The high numbers of job applicants with multiple degrees is leaving employers with little choice but to use education as a way of sorting through applications, and those with graduate degrees come out on top. Rising in popularity in the U.S. is the professional science mater’s degree, which combines job specific training with business skills, and demonstrates a shifting focus towards professionalizing degrees and “learning for the real world”. This trend is spreading beyond the master’s degree to the Ph.D. level, and humanities departments are being urged to get on board. People are frequently heard joking that soon one will need a Ph.D. for the most mundane of jobs, but at what point will universities and society at large determine that enough is enough?