A master’s degree isn’t the job guarantee it used to be

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Going back to grad school has long been the Plan B of young professionals who aspire to climb higher in their careers or struggle to get promoted in a tough job market. New data show that getting a master’s degree isn’t the guarantee it used to be.The unemployment rate for workers under 35 with a master’s degree has rarely been higher in the past 20 years, according to the Burning Glass Institute, a labor-market think tank focused on the future of work, which analyzed data collected by the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics going back to 2003.At the same time, the unemployment rate for workers under 35 with a Ph.D., law degree or medical degree has rarely been lower.“For most of the past two decades, these lines moved together—not anymore,” said Gad Levanon, chief economist of Burning Glass.Levanon has a theory about why the payoffs for advanced degrees have uncoupled: “More degrees chasing fewer of the positions those degrees were meant to unlock.”Master’s degree programs have proliferated over the past two decades, increasing 69% to more than 33,500 programs between 2005 and 2021, according to a report published by the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center. Even more programs have launched in the past five years, many with a focus on artificial intelligence reskilling.Alongside traditional master’s in business administration, for instance, there are now online M.B.A.s and special one-year business degrees in data science and healthcare management, among other specialties.