The best-value masters degrees in terms of employability and salary level following graduation are in engineering, computer science, health sciences and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, as well as business administration, according to professionals overseeing graduate departments at regional universities.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) backs up the observations of university officials interviewed by the Business Journal who work at California State University (CSU) Long Beach, CSU Dominguez Hills, University of Southern California and University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Bryan Rodriguez is the director of the Graduate Resource Center at California State University, Long Beach. He said that some of the best value masters degrees in terms of employability and wage earnings following graduation include engineering, health sciences, computer science and accounting. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)
In 2015, the BLS published data outlining career fields in which masters degree holders earned higher pay. The data, which was from 2013, showed that business, STEM and health sciences were the top fields in which masters degrees resulted in increased pay. Education, which university officials told the Business Journal is one of the most popular masters degree programs, was another such career field.
In general, holding a masters degree makes you more likely to earn more. According to BLS, in 2013, the median annual wage for full-time workers 25 years of age and older was $56,000 for those with bachelors degrees. It was $12,000 more for those with masters degrees.
In 2015, 9% of the United States’ population held a masters degree – an increase of 4% in a decade, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. By comparison, 36% of the population held a bachelors degree or higher in 2015. Data from the Council of Graduate Schools’ annual report in 2015 noted that between fall 2013 and fall 2014, enrollment in graduate programs increased by 3.5% – the highest rate since 2009.
Degrees that saw the largest spike in enrollment from 2013 to 2014 line up with those identified by regional university officials and the BLS as best for finding relevant employment and achieving higher wage earnings. According to the Council of Graduate Schools, the biggest increases in graduate school applications were for mathematics and computer science, which experienced a 22% increase, and engineering, which had a 10.5% increase in applications.
“The degrees that tend to have the highest employment rates are the usual suspects: health sciences . . . computer science, engineering [and] accounting,” Dr. Bryan Rodriguez, director of CSU Long Beach’s Graduate Resource Center, said. On the other hand, psychology, history, architecture and fine arts degrees “tend to have the higher unemployment rates,” he noted.
“A lot of that has to do with the amount of growth in the jobs prospects related to those fields,” Rodriguez continued. Degrees that have historically had a high rate of return on investment include engineering, computer science, health sciences, and business and accounting, he said. “When we say that the graduate enrollment rate has generally declined in recent years for particular areas of study – for example the arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences – a lot of that has to do with the number of jobs that are available to those students,” he explained.
Dorota Huizinga, dean of CSU Dominguez Hills’ Graduate Studies and Research Department, said masters degrees in engineering, computer science and health care fields tend to be the most employable directly following graduation because they involve more practical, applicable job skills. As an example, the school’s masters program in occupational therapy, which is one of its best-known graduate programs, has a particularly high rate of employment following graduation, she said.
Sally “Sarah” Pratt, vice provost for graduate programs at the University of Southern California (USC), said a “strong argument” could be made that those who earn engineering and health sciences degrees have the highest rates of employment following graduation. Engineering has the highest enrollment among the university’s graduate programs, she noted.
About 60% to 70% of graduates of the University of California, Irvine’s (UCI) full-time Master in Business Administration (MBA) program are typically employed at graduation, according to Chris Kovitz, senior associate director of employer relations within the university’s MBA Graduate Career Center. Three months following graduation, about 90% are employed, he added. In 2015, 25% of UCI’s graduating full-time MBA class went into consulting work, while 23% went into the field of technology, he noted. The remainder pursued careers in financial services, health care, the nonprofit sector and other fields.
Business, financial and sales occupations accounted for some of the highest wage premiums for workers holding a masters degree in 2013, according to BLS. Within these categories, masters degree holders working in securities, commodities and financial services sales had the highest wage premium, earning 89% more than those with bachelors degrees – $170,000 annually compared to $90,000.
“For the class of 2015, the median starting salary was $90,000, and the median sign-on bonus was $20,000,” Kovitz said of UCI’s full-time MBA grads.
Tony Hansford, UCI’s senior assistant dean of masters programs for professional managers and executives, pointed out that some masters degree students, including those in UCI’s MBA program, attend part time and already have careers. For these students, it is often necessary to obtain an MBA to advance to a higher level in their field, he explained.
Masters degree holders in business administration, computer science, technology and engineering traditionally make higher salaries, Huizinga said. “In the CSU [system], I wanted to emphasize that a lot of students already work at the time when they enter the masters programs. So either they are entering because they think they would improve their skills and therefore chances for promotion, or they truly want to change their career pathway,” she said.
Rodriguez cited the same degrees as equating to higher salaries, but also added health science and accounting degrees to the mix. “On the other end of the spectrum, the rate of return is generally less for degrees in hospitality, social work, criminal justice, early childhood education and oftentimes drama and the theater arts,” he said.
For those seeking a masters degree, and particularly for those already in a career, it’s important to assess the value the degree will bring, according to USC’s Pratt. “For those who are already employed – and what we have a hard time assessing is – what is the advantage? Does this give you a salary bump? Does this give you a promotion?” Pratt said.
USC has some of the highest tuitions of any university, private or public – a fact Pratt said the university certainly does not deny. “I can’t, I will not, pretend that a USC degree is cheap. I mean, I would be lying through my teeth, but I prefer not to do that,” she said. The value of a masters degree at USC is that they typically only take two years, required classes are almost never unavailable, and a degree makes you a part of the “Trojan family” – a network of alumni, many of whom are well-connected, she explained.
CSU Long Beach and Dominguez Hills have both been recognized for being affordable in comparison to other higher education institutions. “The Washington Monthly consistently ranks Cal State Long Beach in its top ten list of best bang for your buck colleges,” Rodriguez said. “And that really just looks at student loan default rates, graduation rates and graduation rate performance.”
Huizinga noted, “We always had a reputation for being very affordable. I would say that’s one of our strengths – that the tuition is very accessible and affordable to the students.”
UCI’s MBA tuition is competitive with that of others in the UC system, including UC San Diego, UCLA and Berkeley, according to Hansford. “The other thing we like to measure is return on investment,” he said. “We feel that among our competitors, we do a really good job in that area in terms of delivering value in the short term when they graduate, as well as long term over their career.”
It’s not just money that drives masters degree students, Hansford pointed out. “There is this intrinsic reward – improvement of oneself, personal and intellectual growth, advancement of a network, lifelong friendships [and] insights about their leadership ability,” he reflected. “These are things that are kind of overlooked when someone is just looking at the numbers.”