MAs are becoming the new BAs

Lyndsie Bourgon, CUP Features Bureau Chief

HALIFAX (CUP) — Enrolment in masters and graduate programs is increasing across the country, leaving many to wonder if their meagre undergraduate degree will be enough to land them the perfect job.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2001 over 31,000 students earned their masters degree, up nine per cent from 2000. It was the seventh year in a row that the number had risen.

Andrea Warren earned her bachelor of music from Mount Allison University and is now studying for her masters in ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto.

“It’s just ridiculous — the number of people who get their undergrad,” said Warren.

In 2001, 168,700 students were awarded an undergraduate degree, meaning that nearly one in five undergraduate students are now going on to a masters degree.

There was a time when earning your undergrad put you ahead of those with just a high school diploma. With the rise of those who graduate with an undergrad, many students see the masters as a way of making themselves more employable upon graduation.

“There was no great yearning for me,” said Warren of her decision to go to grad school. “It was more of a ‘Well, what am I going to do now?’”

Warren said that she doesn’t have a clear vision of what she wants to do with her life, but she knows that to go further in the realm of music she’ll need a masters degree.

Dale Kirby, a professor of post-secondary education from Memorial University of Newfoundland, said that he’s seen the increase in MA enrolment and so has the academic community.

“It’s great, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” said Kirby. “I don’t think everybody should complete graduate level education, I think it’s unnecessary. But I don’t think the growth is a bad thing.”

Staying in the comfort zone

Over the course of four years most of us have become accustomed to being a student, and for the vast majority it’s a comfortable existence.

Warren thinks many students attend graduate school not only for a love of learning, but to maintain the student lifestyle.

“There are a lot of perks to being a student,” said Warren. “You get discounts and advantages, our culture just throws them at us for being students. I think that’s keeping kids in school longer.”

“Thirty is the new 20,” said Christine Moore, a career counsellor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She added that there’s no pressure for young people to settle down with a job while in their 20s. “Grad school is the new phenomenon.”

“I don’t see it as people want to be more educated,” said Warren. “I think it’s a sweet deal to be a student.”

Moore felt the need to distinguish, though, between those students who continue to a masters immediately and mature students who work professionally before heading back to school. “They’re different creatures,” she said. Moore thinks that it’s a good idea to work before heading back to earn a masters degree.

‘Credential creep’

“Credential creep” is the phenomenon that puts the MA in the same position the undergrad was in the 1980s. It also means that one day the PhD might turn into the undergrad degree and MA of today.

“It’s a good thing for society, the bar is being raised,” said Warren. “But whether that translates into more jobs or just gives people more degrees, I don’t know.”

Warren said that she already sees the MA degree becoming meaningless and that credential creep means the PhD is increasingly the must-have credential in her field of music.

Moore said that it all depends on what the student puts into it. “You have to connect the dots between the value of the degree and your future,” said Moore, noting that undergraduate students learn skills in their undergrad, like research and organization, that are transferable and that make them employable.

The almighty job

Getting a job after graduation is easier said than done. Many employers need to weed out the good applicants from the dozens of students that all apply for the same job. Distinguishing by degree is a quick and simple way of doing that.

Robert Waghorn, a communications manager at Monster.ca, is privy to the credentials that employers look for. He says that, in the end, experience trumps credentials for most employers.

“Often it comes to a seniority level, when it comes to certain years of experience, and they start to look out rightly for a graduate degree,” said Waghorn.

Of course, there are those jobs that require a masters degree. Teaching, medicine, and law all have multiple post-secondary degrees built into their job requirements.

It’s those jobs that don’t necessarily have requirements that breed degree competition.

Glen Jones, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, said that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that jobs in the private sector are looking for candidates with an MA and PhD when hiring.

“Our expectations of employees are changing and a whole bunch of highly paid service jobs that require little education are disappearing,” said Jones. “The nature of our economy is changing and one of the offshoots of that is that we’re looking for employees to have higher levels of education.”

Jones suggested that the problem lies not in mass education, but in the rate of return that Canada gives its graduates.

“While we may have expectations in our economy about these credentials, either the costs are increasing or the economy isn’t rewarding the credentials,” said Jones. “In terms of the BA and MA in Canada . . . the rate of return is lower.”

Waghorn said that many students who graduate with an MA experience the other side of the coin: being “over-qualified” for jobs and not being considered.

“I think it’s frustrating for students out there that work so hard and spent that extra time in school,” said Waghorn. “We’ve had people say they took off their graduate degree from their resume just as an experiment to see.”

Waghorn said that successful candidates have experience. “They wanted to [earn a masters degree] and they took it on despite the idea of being over-qualified.”

Kirby said that students who choose to earn an MA instead of finding a job are missing out on the job security we have now.

“This current crop of post-secondary grads are facing the most promising job market that we’ve had in generations,” said Kirby. “There’s no need to hide in university, there’s a healthy job market out there. I say go get it, it’s there.”