Thinking about getting a master's degree from a posh private college? Don't do it, buddy!

 Are you one of those poor schmucks who borrowed a lot of money to get a college degree that didn't pay off? 

Perhaps you attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where only 57 percent of students earned more than a high school graduate six years after enrolling.  Or maybe you attended Grambling State University, an HBCU in North Louisiana, where only 43 percent of students earned more than a high school graduate six years after they enrolled.

How will you pay off those student loans if your college degree didn't increase your income? 

Perhaps you think that a master's degree from a posh private school will get you out of the financial hole you dug for yourself when you took out student loans to earn a bachelor's degree.

So you apply to one of those private universities and are surprised and flattered when you get an admission letter. Will a master's degree from a private college get you into a higher income bracket?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Jason Delisle and Jason Cohn, researchers at the Urban Institute, published a report last month that examined master's programs where students acquired high debt levels but made low salaries.  The schools with the highest debt-to-earnings (DTE) ratio had average student-loan debt of $77,000 and an average income of only $43,000 two years after graduating.

Delisle and Cohn found that private nonprofit colleges are most likely to have high-debt-to-earning ratios. Here is what they reported:

Programs in the high-DTE group are heavily concentrated at private nonprofit universities. Although these institutions offer 44 percent of all master's degree programs, they account for 75 percent of high-DTE programs. 

Delisle and Cohn also found that master's degree programs in the high DTE category were often in the social-sciences field:

By looking at specific program types, we see that three types of master's degrees account for a large share of borrowers in the high-DTE category: social work (17 percent); clinical, counseling, and applied psychology degrees (15 percent); and mental and social services (12 percent). 

The Urban Institute's research did not focus on MBA degrees or graduate degrees in fields outside the social sciences.  Nevertheless, other soft-sciences master's programs are also too expensive based on the salaries of their graduates. 

A one-year master's degree in journalism at Columbia University cost an average of $147,000 five years ago when the starting salary for journalists was only $40,000. And as the Wall Street Journal reported last year, a graduate degree from Columbia in film costs an average of $181,000, and graduates had average salaries of $30,000 two years after graduating. 

So, here are three takeaways:

First, as Jason Delise and Jason Cohn pointed out, graduate degrees in social sciences are much cheaper at public institutions. If you are thinking about getting a master's degree in social work or counseling, you will get better value if you attend your state university rather than a private college.

Second, private colleges have promoted graduate-degree programs to generate revenue.  Under the Grad PLUS program, graduate students can take out federal loans to finance their studies up to the cost of attendance--no matter how expensive a program is. Thus, we can thank the federal government's Grad PLUS program for the inflated price of graduate studies and the mindless proliferation of graduate programs.

Finally, many master's degree programs are simply not worth the cost, and this is true not only for the social sciences but MBA programs and graduate degrees in education.

The bottom line is this: If you are already burdened by student loans to get your bachelor's degree, you could wind up deeper in debt by obtaining a master's degree from a private college without getting a job that pays enough to service your student debt. 

Did Cool Hand Luke get his master's degree from Columbia University?

"Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?" Overproduction of graduate degrees may lead to political instability

 Peter Turchin wrote an essay for Nature magazine, in which he predicted growing instability for the United States and Europe. 

Why? Turchin thinks western society has produced too many graduates with advanced degrees. This "overproduction of elites" has created a large class of unhappy people--many of whom are drifting into radical politics.

According to Turchin's thesis (summarized in The Economist), the various would-be elites struggle against each other for wealth and prestige. The conflict becomes particularly intense during a time of growing inequality. 

"The rewards for being at the top are then especially lucrative, both in terms of earning power and political influence, and those who miss out feel the loss more keenly."

Without question, American universities have produced too many people with advanced degrees--degrees that often do not bring enhanced status or wealth. The schools have turned out too many lawyers, too many MBA graduates, too many people with advanced soft-skill degrees in ethnic studies, gender studies, and diversity.

Most people who get these advanced degrees take out student loans to finance their studies--often loans in six figures. As the Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago, a high percentage of people with master's degrees from such elite institutions as Harvard and Columbia don't find jobs that pay enough for them to service their student loan debt.

As our universities create more and more would-be elites, their graduates become angrier and angrier. "Articulate, educated people rebel, producing a scramble for political and economic power."

I think Professor Turchin has analyzed our present malaise quite perceptively. Millions of Americans are living in a condition of barely contained rage.

But, in my view, these would-be elites have not yet focused their anger in the right direction. All those millions of people who took out massive student loans in the hope of improving their social and economic status should be angry at the universities that fleeced them and the politicians that refuse to reform the federal student loan program.

Unfortunately, our colleges have not given their graduates the problem-solving and analytical skills they need to figure out who screwed them over. Nevertheless, I think the rubes will eventually figure it out; when they do, there will be hell to pay.

Yucking it up at Harvard: Such fun to fleece the rubes!