Back to School: Masters mishaps

Explain It to Me

Vox Media Podcast Network

Education, Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2021

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Vox's Libby Nelson and Jerusalem Demsas for a conversation about the rising cost of master’s programs, their usefulness in today’s economy, and their role as federally subsidized job training. Matt, Libby, and Jerusalem reflect on their varied educational paths and discuss the effectiveness of student loan forgiveness for higher ed. This week’s white paper illuminates the downstream consequences of raising pollution standards for battery recycling in the United States. Resources: “‘Financially Hobbled for Life’: The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off” by Melissa Korn and Andrea Fuller (The Wall Street Journal; July 8, 2021) The Masters Trap, Part Two, Part Three by Anne Helen Peterson (Culture Studies; July 2021) “Graduate programs have become a cash cow for struggling colleges. What does that mean for students?” by Jon Marcus (PBS Newshour; September 18, 2017) “Master’s degree programs surge at nation’s colleges and universities” by Nick Anderson (The Washington Post; May 25, 2013) White Paper: “North-South Displacement Effects of Environmental Regulation: The Case of Battery Recycling” (NBER; August 2021) Hosts: Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias), Slowboring.com Libby Nelson (@libbyanelson), Deputy Policy Editor Jerusalem Demsas (@JerusalemDemsas), Policy Reporter, Vox Credits: Ness Smith-Savedoff, Producer & Engineer Erikk Geannikis, Producer, Talk Podcasts As the Biden administration gears up, we'll help you understand this unprecedented burst of policymaking. Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weeds-newsletter. The Weeds is a Vox Media Podcast Network production. Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts About Vox Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Follow Us: Vox.com Facebook group: The Weeds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey and welcome to another episode of weeds on the Boxpedium Highcast Network.
0:16.5	I'm Matthew Glacias here today with Libby Nelson and Jerusalem Demsus.
0:21.3	We are continuing with Education August.
0:24.0	Some friends of mine who work in education policy, they always find it very frustrating
0:28.5	because their take is that like everybody has gone to school so they think they are an
0:32.8	expert in education policy.
0:34.8	And so I'm excited to actually talk about a genre of school that we have not gone to,
0:40.2	which is graduate school and specifically master's degree programs, which have expanded considerably
0:46.7	in scope in recent years.
0:49.5	And I think a lot of people don't necessarily realize this because it is still a minority
0:54.5	thing.
0:55.5	And as majority people don't get master's degrees, but a number of people made the point
0:59.9	to me that when we look at student loan aggregates and other things like that, that a lot of
1:05.3	that debt is coming from master's degree programs.
1:08.2	And in particular, a lot of the sort of troublingly debt-burnt people are people coming
1:13.8	out of master's degree programs as opposed to, you know, you go to dental school, you have
1:18.1	a lot of loans, then you go become a dentist and it's kind of all fine.
1:22.1	And there was this really eye-opening story in the Wall Street Journal.
1:25.7	It was a couple of months ago now, I think.
1:28.2	But it got like me and Jerusalem would both slacking Libby right away.
1:32.0	It's like, this is fucked up.
1:34.6	And what is about basically is like fancy schools, fancy master's degree programs, like not
	...

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