The prevalence of so many strapped borrowers is why I recommend students borrow no more for their educations, in total, than they expect to make the first year out of school.
This rule of thumb won’t work for everyone — heaven knows, you may be the rare literature M.A. who writes a best-selling novel and pays off her debt with one check — but it’s a good starting point for anyone considering strapping herself to more education bills.
Also, I should note that if your undergrad degree was in a non-technical field, a technical master's will be quite worth the price. My undergrad was in music, and without my master's in CS I think I would have had a difficult time entering the field. Sure, I hear it's possible to become a programmer without any formal training, but the degree opened doors that allowed me to start in a much higher position.
I think the original poster was saying that he didn't have a B.S. in a technical field. So getting the Masters gave him the credentials he needed to go after jobs he was intrested in. I do not believe he was saying that he had a B.S. in Computer Science and needed a M.S. in Computer Science to compete.
I think its a good example of one of the points made in the linked articles. That if you have an undergrad degree that's not really what your interested in a Masters lets you correct that.
Yes, that's correct. Not only was my undergrad degree in music, I had virtually no computer/technology experience of any kind (this was back in the 80's and I was still using typewriters to type up papers.) So it would have been pretty difficult for me to enter the profession directly.
As an aside, my master's program probably wasn't the best overall preparation for a career as a software developer, actually. It was highly theoretical/mathy, and I think undergrad CS students probably got more and more relevant programming experience. It was mostly about having the credentials, I think.
Was it difficult getting admitted to a master's program in CS without a technical bachelor's degree? My impression is that technical grad schools only want applicants with top-notch technical skills.
Well, don't think the CS program was that highly ranked, but I did have to take a lot of undergrad deficiencies (including about 15hrs math). IIRC, there were leveling classes (like grad level intro to CS classes) that you could take, but they didn't have a very good reputation and I opted to take a core of undergrad classes with better instructors instead.
Mostly it just took time and persistence to get through the deficiencies. My case was probably extreme because my undergrad music program required no math/science whatsoever, so i had a lot to make up for.
This is certainly true. But it all depends on where you live as well. If you take out $80,000 in loans it makes no sense to live in an area where the average salary is $35,000. Then of course, even in higher paying locations you have to juggle the high cost of living.
The prevalence of so many strapped borrowers is why I recommend students borrow no more for their educations, in total, than they expect to make the first year out of school.
This rule of thumb won’t work for everyone — heaven knows, you may be the rare literature M.A. who writes a best-selling novel and pays off her debt with one check — but it’s a good starting point for anyone considering strapping herself to more education bills.
Also, I should note that if your undergrad degree was in a non-technical field, a technical master's will be quite worth the price. My undergrad was in music, and without my master's in CS I think I would have had a difficult time entering the field. Sure, I hear it's possible to become a programmer without any formal training, but the degree opened doors that allowed me to start in a much higher position.