My question is:
How can earning +/-15% more per year over a 30 year career make a graduate degree “useless”?
Even assuming only a $12,000 per year average difference puts the graduate degree holder $360,000 up in life-time earnings.
That might be nothing to a sports star or a billionaire software company owner, but to a “regular person” it’s quite a lot of money.
I guess you have to figure in the money lost from getting your master’s degree instead of working and spent on tuition.
Because the article assumes that the person seeking the graduate degree is deferring employment for two years while paying the cost of the graduate program. If we look at chemical engineering, for example, the staring salary with a BS degree is $104K and the starting salary with a MS degree is $118k. In order to earn the additional $14k, the person seeking the MS degree gives up ~$215k in income and incurs educational expenses ranging from $30k to $100k or more depending upon the MS program. By the time he earns his MS, he is already $300k behind where he would be if he had gone directly into the workforce with a BS, and the guy with the BS now has two years' experience and is making the same as the starting salary for the guy with MS.