Master Grift: Report Says Master’s Degrees Are A Scam And Greed Of Universities

Master’s degrees and one-year certificate programs have a lot in common. Many of them are one-year work-oriented programs, marketed aggressively through online advertising and offering very specific economic activities in each field.

What makes master’s degrees a little different from the one-year certificate programs offered by night schools is that the former targets students who have just finished their bachelor’s degrees and the latter targets people who have just finished high school.

“Probably the biggest scam in higher education remains one-year certificates offered by shady for-profit colleges that cost like $25,000 and do not lead to a job” said Kevin Carey, director of the education policy program at public policy think tank New America, in a Slate interview.

“Master’s degrees are probably No. 2,” Carey added. “Certainly, within the confines of colleges that are not legally for-profit, they are the biggest scam thus far.”

Nonprofit universities ranging from small schools like Oregon’s Concordia University to major ones like Yale are increasingly turning to online program managers (OPMs) to build their online offerings. An educational technology company, 2U contracts with colleges and universities to offer online degree programs. It gives its client institutions a cloud-based software-as-a-service platform, coursework design, infrastructure support and capital.

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