Pragmatist-in-chief Donald Trump Could Halt Consumption of High-Cost Low ROI Graduate Degrees

 Again, The Economist is at it: Presenting the data that those expensive Master's degrees typically have, as the headline reads, "Diminishing returns." 

For years that publication has had the mission of trying to wise up potential consumers of advanced degrees to not make the purchase: The BA/BS is plenty and should be a terminal degree. 

The Wall Street Journal has also launched crusades against Ivies billing plenty for degrees such as the MFA from Columbia which have a lousy ROI when it comes to salaries. BTW, good luck even being hired. 

Finally something might get done about this tragic reality.

A minor disruption could happen if institutions of higher learning are mandated to issue disclaimers for degrees which inflict big student loan debt and doom the consumer to low compensation. The Economist discusses that. 

But the big bang could blast through the higher education system if Donald Trump focuses his attention on finally ending America's blind faith in academic degrees. That kicked off with the GI bill. We Boomers, the first generation to attend college en masse, had the meme: The more education the better.  

Trump can open his battle cry for reform with the fact that the Puritans established Harvard in 1636 with a pragmatic objective: to train ministers. It was not to develop thought leaders. 

The reform can extend to all hardened orthodoxies in higher education. Let's ask if the Ivy League produces a unique product or should the educational system be cranking out so many lawyers, business people and software engineers? Come on, there's a glut.

That means that even the degrees which supposedly pay off would be subject to scrutiny. 

The critical question Trump can pose is: Do those golden degrees really pay off? 

Take the JD, which has become magic. The highly visible movers and shakers during Election 2024, for both parties, were primarily lawyers. Those range from JD Vance and RFK Jr. (GOP) to Tony West and Brad Karp (Democrat). Ambitious youth watched them. Read about them. Talked about them. We probably know what their educational plan became. 

Okay, some lawyers will make millions or billions. They include the ones who wind up on Wall Street. Others will land those jobs in Big Law. Yes, those associate positions are prestigious. But, for years before they burn out, those associates really could be earning only about $71 an hour. 

I bill more than that with my sideline in mystical tarot readings. 

How did the $71 figure come about? 

Well, on Reddit Big Law Adam Yohanan did a calculation. Okay, associates on the average bill 2,000 hours a year but they also put in probably another 1,000 for recruiting and other administrative tasks. That's how Yohanan comes up with the $71 number. 

Meanwhile, the projected debt by Law Hub (computed on the basis of the sticker price with no discounts) for those who began law school in 2024 is a stunner. For Stanford it is $467,621. For Harvard (which I had attended in the 1980s) it is $423,981.

And how about the top law firms which concentrate on recruiting from the Ivy League? Trump could do a DEI and motivate screening a broader base of applicants. That might yield a nice breed of lawyer. For myriad lawyers the beef is the alleged meanness of opposing counsel.

Meanwhile, as it is well known, there is increasingly less demand for those with Knowledge Worker skills. EY will be cutting 150 consulting positions. Weak demand for advisory services. Fishbowl Consulting chronicles the terror among management consultants about losing their jobs since it is so slow or if they already have been axed never finding a comparable one. 

The takeaway is that we are herd creatures. A Boomer, I picked up two advanced degrees, plus did the 1L at Harvard. Currently the herd could turn against graduate and professional education. 

So, we might be wise to delete some of the degrees from our resumes. In career coaching those over-55 we have often made that kind of modification. Employers frequently assume they are expected to pay a premium for those degrees. 

Post 9/11, my industry collapsed. I needed a survival job. I knocked the resume down to the BA. On the spot they hired me. And on the spot I got it that the labor market hires people aka presentation abilities - not academic credentials.

Be successful in your work, on your own terms. Jane Genova is a results-driven confidential intuitive coach, tarot reader and content-creator related to careers. Complimentary consultation (please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com)