“Not worth it.”

This was what most of my interviewees told me when I asked them about their experience and outcome of doing a master’s programme.

Local finance blogs—our canonical national literature—similarly caution against the folly of doing a master’s programme.

But these disheartening sentiments belie the reality in Singapore.

According to the Singapore Department of Statistics (DOS), the number of Singapore residents (defined as citizens and Permanent Residents) choosing to pursue a higher degree has been rising steadily across the decades. In 1993—the first year DOS started keeping track of statistics—there were only 4095 residents enrolled in higher degree programmes; 24 years later, the number exploded 5-fold to 20,670.

The proportion is more pronounced when considered as a percentage of the population instead of absolute numbers: in 1993, the masterful 4095 comprised 0.1% of Singapore residents; in 2017, the 20,670 made up 0.5%.

Moreover, these numbers only register residents enrolled in local higher education courses. While it’s difficult to gauge the hordes of people departing our shores to imbibe knowledge under ivy leaves, a quick estimate based on available post-graduate scholarships and an unscientific guess of how many Bukit Timah residents can afford to fund their overseas studies puts the total number of master’s students in that particular year around at least 25,000, or 0.6% of Singapore residents.

While these percentages may seem ridiculously miniscule, they are relatively high when compared to other developed countries. For instance, only 0.05% of the Japanese population obtained a master’s degree in 2014; in the same year the number was 0.2% in France.

In other words, Singapore’s increase in master’s students far outstripped growth in the general population; furthermore, the proportion of master’s students as part of our resident population (so we are not taking into account international students) is 3 times that of France, and a staggering 12 times of Japan.

This raises the question: why do so many Singaporeans choose to enrol in master’s programmes?