Saturday, December 28, 2019

Inside Higher Ed, Has the Master’s Degree Bubble Burst?:

The explosion of new master’s degree programs in recent years hasn’t corresponded with a surge in students, analysis by the research and technology services company EAB suggests.

Megan Adams, managing director of research at EAB, said many colleges have overestimated the popularity of new degree programs. They may anticipate awarding hundreds of degrees per year, but the true number is often a single digit, she said. ...

“In 2014, what were bullish projections of over a million master’s degree conferrals annually by 2024 steadily dropped to a projected 840,000 master’s degree conferrals by 2029. That’s almost 200,000 fewer master’s degrees conferred,” wrote Adams in a recent blog post in which she argues that the master’s degree market is a bubble that has “already burst.”

At the program level, the picture becomes more complex. Up until 2011, nearly every major master’s degree field was growing. But in 2011, the market split. Degrees in computer science, engineering and the health professions grew, while most other fields declined.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/12/has-the-masters-degree-bubble-burst.html