Is your master's degree useless?

New data shows a shockingly high proportion of courses are a waste of money.

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In the coming months, millions of people across the Northern Hemisphere will apply to do postgraduate study. Most will top up an undergraduate qualification with a one- or two-year master's degree, in the hope that this will set them apart in a job market crowded with bachelor's degrees.

"The No. 1 reason people get these degrees is insecurity," reckons Mr Bob Shireman of The Century Foundation, a left-leaning think-tank in New York. "They worry that in order to get a job or keep their own jobs they need a master's degree."

Yet, on average, these provide a much smaller bump to wages than an undergraduate degree does. And a new body of data and analysis suggest that a shockingly high share of master's courses leave graduates worse off.

In America, close to 40 per cent of workers with a bachelor's also boast a postgraduate credential of some sort. In the decade to 2021, the number of postgraduate students there increased by 9 per cent even as the number of undergraduates fell by 15 per cent.

PhDs required by academics and long professional degrees of the sort needed by doctors and lawyers are becoming more popular. But master's courses still account for most of the growth.

They are an even bigger business for universities in Britain, which hand out four postgraduate degrees for every five undergraduate ones. This has much to do with a boom in master's students from places such as India and Nigeria.

Britons have been getting in on the action, too. The annual number enrolling in taught master's courses has increased by about 60 per cent over 15 years.

In part this has been driven by employers demanding higher qualifications as jobs in science and technology, in particular, grow more complex. But universities are also keen. In Britain, undergraduate fees are capped by the government and have barely increased in a decade.