Thousands of new college grads will enter the workforce this year, but with unemployment at 7.6% and underemployment near 18%, many will put off the taxing job search process and opt out of the weak job market to pursue graduate degrees.
With this in mind, Forbes set out to determine which master’s degrees would provide the best long-term opportunities, based on salary and employment outlook. To find the mid-career median pay for 35 popular degrees, we turned to Payscale.com, which lets users compare their salaries with those of other people in similar jobs by culling real-time salary data from its 40 million profiles. We then looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment projection data to see how fast employment was expected to increase between 2010 and 2020 in popular jobs held by people with each degree. Finally we averaged each degree’s pay rank and estimated growth rank to find the best and worst master’s degrees for jobs.
An information systems degree takes the top spot this year. The mid-career median pay for those with a master’s degree in information systems is $101,000 a year. Employment levels for common jobs associated with this degree are expected to grow by about 30% from 2010 to 2020.
“People with a master’s in information systems are generally trained to be managers for IT workers,” says Katie Bardaro, Payscale’s lead economist. “Therefore, when you combine management with a growing industry you experience top pay and employment prospects. We live in a technological world where our technology footprint will continue to grow. Therefore, job opportunities in this field are predicted to grow faster than average by the BLS. Additionally, high demand for tech workers combined with relatively low supply (relative to all other workers out there) drive up the pay for these positions.”
Mid-career median pay for these grads is $117,000; fourth best out of the 35 degrees in our survey. Employment opportunities for physics degree-holders are expected to expand about 22% between 2010 and 2020—making it the seventh fastest growing degree.
“Unlike many of the other physical sciences, physics is one that transitions nicely from a lab to a big data world,” Bardaro says. “The computations and technical tools utilized in a physics program are highly useful in the growing world of data science.”
As it turns out, though there are too few doctors in the U.S. and too few seats in medical schools, those shortages are good for one segment of the population: people who get degrees as physician assistants.
Physician assistants are medical professionals who provide diagnostic and preventative health care services under the supervision of doctors—and they’re in high demand.
“Similar to the IT sector, health care is another sector expected to see tremendous job growth,” Bardaro says. “As our population continues to age and as more people seek health care under the Affordable Care Act, more and more medical workers will be needed. Additionally, these are not jobs that can be outsourced. They will need to be filled by people right here, right now. As far as return on investment goes, a PA master’s degree is a real win. The time and money it costs to obtain this degree is far below that of an MD. However, with a PA one can earn a six-figure salary and still practice medicine in a manner similar to a physician, just under the direction of a physician.”
The mid-career median pay is a whopping $98,800. Another advantage of a physician assistant degree: Employment opportunities are expected to grow 30% by 2020 (from the 2010 employment numbers), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The growing demand for them and the promise of fat paychecks put physician assistant degrees in the No. 3 spot on Forbes’ third-annual look at the best master’s degrees for jobs.
Computer science, electrical engineering, and finance degrees also make the top 10, all with an average mid-career salary of more than $110,000 a year.
A master’s in business administration (M.B.A) can also earn you six figures mid-career—but because of the poor growth outlook for common jobs held by these degree-holders, it doesn’t make the top 10 list.
Not all master’s degree holders enjoy anywhere near such optimistic job prospects or extraordinary pay. Getting a master’s in library and information science, music, English or education can be extremely gratifying–but pricy. Mid-career median pay for all those degrees is under $68,000, and employment for them isn’t expected to grow significantly over the next few years.
Library and information science degree-holders bring in $58,500 mid-career, on average. Common jobs for them are school librarian, library director and reference librarian, and there are expected to be just 7% more of them by 2020. The low pay rank and estimated growth rank make library and information science the worst master’s degree for jobs right now.
“Library and information science is an interesting one,” Bardaro explains. “This is a degree that almost has a bimodal pay distribution. For those who major in this degree and go into library science in the traditional perspective, pay and job growth are fairly limited. However, for those who major in this degree and go into taxonomy work for big data companies and or companies who utilize a search algorithm, pay and job growth are both quite respectable.”
The issue with music and English master’s degrees is they do not open the door to a plethora of high-pay, high-growth job opportunities, she adds. “Common careers for these degrees include performance, teaching, and content management. Additionally, the extra pay bump you get from these degrees between a bachelor’s and a master’s is fairly limited – only about 5%.”
Biology, history, and political science degrees are also toward the bottom of the list—but that doesn’t mean they’re useless. If you’re passionate about these fields, the lower pay and slimmer job prospects shouldn’t deter you from pursuing a master’s. However, it’s important that you ask yourself a few questions before you make that decision.
Ask, “Is the program required to pursue a given career?” “What do the job opportunities look like?” and “Will the cost of the education outweigh the potential income?” If the answer to the last one is yes, then a master’s program is not the way to go, Bardaro says.
Another thing to keep in mind: Master’s degree-holders don’t necessarily earn more than other people in similar jobs—so don’t base your decision to pursue one on the idea that you’ll bring in bigger paychecks.
“We are all human after all and don’t always approach every decision with the level of thought necessary to make it a sound decision,” she says. “Too often people obtain a higher degree because they believe it will bring a windfall of cash. However, this depends on two things: one, actually being able to obtain the ever-elusive job offer, and two, the demand for your field in the labor market. Even if you are able to get a job after your degree, the additional income received might not even offset the cost you incurred. In order to justify the cost of a degree, there needs to be both job opportunities and high demand for your newly obtained skill set, which will lead to higher pay opportunities.”
Bardaro says there are three good reasons to obtain a master’s degree (not including those required for a given career path). One is the desire to increase your knowledge in a given field, which includes obtaining new skills not taught in many undergraduate educations; the second is to make valuable alumni connections that can prove useful in today’s tough job market; and third, to set yourself apart from those with only a bachelor’s degree. “However, more education can sometimes hinder you more than help you with certain job openings. In lean economic times, some companies may prefer the less educated cheaper employee than the more educated more expensive one.”
These may be the best and worst master’s degrees in terms of pay and employment opportunities, but it’s also important to think about work-life balance and employee satisfaction for the common jobs associated with these degrees. “You need to consider overall happiness,” Bardaro concludes. “If obtaining a master’s degree causes an imbalance due to time devoted to education and potentially more stress at work, then one will need to decide if these costs are worth it.”
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