Recent college graduates face rough times in today’s marketplace and are constantly on the lookout for something to set them apart from their classmates. The latest trend suggests that the master’s degree is the fastest-growing option.

A master’s degree is considered the new bachelor’s degree in many fields and is often what tips the scale in favor of degree-bearing job hunters. From 1990 to 2009, the number of people in the United States with a master’s degree has more than doubled, according to the latest data from an article published July 24 in The New York Times.

The degree study, much like military enrollment, increases during times of recession, said Dean Ben Ware of the Graduate School at Syracuse University.

‘If people don’t get jobs, they think it’s time to get a better credential,’ Ware said.

The bachelor’s degree has not been utterly devalued despite the trend. Advanced degrees do not affect all majors, Ware said. In accounting and social work, a master’s is essential. In other fields, new graduates can still go into a professional practice immediately with a bachelor’s still seen as advantageous.

Applications are increasing in most schools and colleges. The graduate school at SU has seen an increase over the past five years, particularly in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, at 26 percent for fall 2011. At Whitman alone, accounting applicants increased by 362 percent and finance applicants jumped 695 percent, Ware said.

Following Whitman, Ware has seen more prospective graduate students in the School of Architecture followed by the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Don Yeung, a senior pre-med student majoring in biology and psychology, switched his plans of attending medical school to getting his master’s because of the economy. He believes specializing in a specific area would provide him with better job security.

‘A bachelor’s degree is no longer enough,’ Yeung said. ‘We as a society have to constantly prove that we are better and smarter than the next guy. With today’s economy, companies want to hire the smartest people around to represent and work for their corporations.’

The increase in popularity brings a cause for concern for some students who wonder what they can do with a bachelor’s degree. As far as professional fields go, a bachelor’s degree may not do as much as it once could, said Melissa Welshans, president of the Graduate Student Organization at SU.

Welshans attributes the emphasis on necessitating a master’s to the campus culture in many American undergraduate institutions.

‘It may be that cultures on campus foster an experience of un-rigorous academics,’ Welshans said. ‘In some institutions, it’s probably true we’re not giving students some of the tools they might need if they just wanted a bachelor’s degree.’

However, Welshans said, it is also dependent on the type of labor people want to engage in. Welshans is a doctorate student in English. Her husband, who is a land surveyor, received his Bachelor of Science with a specialized degree.

‘He would never need a master’s to do well in something that doesn’t need academic training,’ she said. ‘For me, though, I always wanted to be a college professor, and I took a Ph.D. program knowing the career I wanted necessitated it.’

Michael Elliott, a graduate student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, decided to get his master’s after failing to get a journalism job with a bachelor’s.

‘By taking another stab at it, I hope to refresh my resume and add a few more skills,’ Elliott said. ‘I don’t think journalists take much account of M.A. degrees and as the saying goes, its effect won’t kick in until years after you pay your entry-level dues. Ask me in three years.’

cabaut01@syr.edu

Published on August 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm