This year’s job market has been bleak, to say the least. Layoffs hit the highest level in 14 years; job openings are barely budging; and quits figures are plummeting. It’s no wonder people feel stuck and discouraged—especially as many candidates have been on the job hunt for a year.
But some mid-career professionals are working with the cards they’ve been dealt by going back to school. Many are turning to data analytics, cybersecurity, AI-focused courses, health care, MBA programs, or trade certifications for an “immediate impact on their careers,” Metaintro CEO Lacey Kaelani told Fortune.
But while grad school can certainly offer the opportunity to level-up your career once you’ve completed a program, it comes with financial and personal sacrifices, like time. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, one year of grad school, on average, costs about $43,000 in tuition. That’s nearly 70% of the average salary in the U.S.
resorting to going to school instead of looking for work
I think they looked for work before considering more debt.
I was in the midst of a career change that I instigated myself with the blessing and support of my wife. I was substitute teaching while trying to break into the tech field and found that I actually loved subbing! So much so that I am more than halfway done with a Master’s program for Elementary Education.
There is a teacher shortage and I’m male, which is an underrepresented statistic in Elementary Ed, so I’m pretty confident I’ll land something. I’m taking a pay cut, but I enjoy the teaching and the positives it brings to children’s lives to have a good role model and someone that cares about them while being excited to explore new information.
i had aformer co-worker that did the reverse, she already had a masters in ED, but she couldnt land a good job with it, so she went into entry level tech/ or data during the pandemic.
her reasons is public districts, are shit pay and terrible contracts, and no choice of district to teach.
I totally get that.
Public districts around here pay more than private and charter. As I live in the Chicago area, I have a wealth of districts I can go to beyond CPS (Chicago Public Schools) because the burbs are so close.
Yes, pay is not great for all the things that teachers have to do and are responsible for, but I don’t care. My wife brings in the bacon these days anyway as she’s a tenured professor. I’ve dealt with corporate life for over 20 years, been through layoffs multiple times, tired of the stupid corporate lingo and being in marketing where I was basically a propagandist for brands, and I like having the same time off that my kid has.
Getting a degree? But that’s what started the problem in the first place!
the worth of a degree is highly correlated to the field of study and the institution of study.
a lot of people get bogus degrees from bogus fields of study and are shocked they can’t get productive high-paying employment…
The job market is in the shitter and you are blaming the people trying to find jobs and assuming they can’t because they got a “bogus degree”… That’s a very boomer response of you.
job market for what exactly? what jobs are they trying to find exactly?
job market is great for some professions, shit for others. yeah for entry level tech it’s shit because they massive overhired during the pandemic and are still oversupplied with too many shitty coders because there is a massive oversupply now as everyone chased computer science for quick and easy money. for nursing you can make a killing if you are willing to travel nurse or get yourself into certain specialties. but nursing is hard work and a lot of people don’t want to do it.
the devil is in the details. there is no generalized job market where average joe can just get a 100K job with a English/psych degree from a state college. all those jobs requires specialized degrees, experience, and connections, years of effort to get your foot in the door.
industries come and go and oftentimes you have to move with the times and the geography. my brother has been unemployed for 5 years… but it’s because he’s a stupid ass who refuses to move or take a job he thinks he is ‘below’ him. and every employer can see that attitude he has and his inflexible arrogance and why would they want such a person on their team? many people are their own worst enemy when it comes to employment.
having interviewed people over the years… 90% of candidates are eliminated they suck and fuck up the interview process, or are applying for a job they know nothing about.
This is all corporate tech stuff anyhow. Inflating an already inflated market destined to be whittled down by AI is probably one of the most short term goals iv ever heard
Apprenticeships or career tech certificates can help.
I’m a journey level worker and I’m back in school. Construction has been recession level for at least a couple years in my area and it’s getting worse fast. They’re purging anyone female or brown from the unions in my area because that’s DEI. We’ve had incidents of union officers threatening to lynch black apprentices and hanging nooses, I’ve seen female apprentices complain about SA and getting blackballed. It’s back to the good ol boy system full force in construction right now. I’d say 90% of these high paid white nepo baby construction guys are rabid Trump supporters. It’s full FBI friends, brothers and in-laws only and your tax dollars pay for these apprenticeships and a lot of projects these guys pull six figures on so telling people to go into an apprenticeship is just a racist dog whistle unless they’re related to someone
I mean we’re seeing the same thing in Canada only it’s every racial/religious enclave doing it. Indians are redrawing the caste lines, Jews are pushing out gentiles, Chinese are holding condo board meetings in Mandarin and then using them to force out other people…
This is what happens when people let themselves be divided; they’re going to carve up the pittance left to us while leaving the rest of the pie to the sickeningly wealthy.
Well… thanks for the racist dog whistle accusation. I’m a light bringer — I’m trying to be encouraging. Career tech certificates in medical are making hundreds of thousands of people of all races and genders eligible for careers starting 60k, 70k, up to 110k. Radiology tech is just one of many.
Onward.
Grad school wreeeecked my finances. I went into it knowing that if it didn’t pass my boards I’d be ruined. And in the US all that takes is one medical issue practically. I just paid everything off at 38. Still renting 🥲
level-up your career
Cursed turn of phase
Everyone: Learn how to code!
Corporate Masters: Who needs coders? We have AI.
I did this. I gave up looking for a job in tech after a year. Luckily, I have a job so I’m not desperate. I just don’t like my job.
I can only speak for my employer …. The ai mandate has actually led to some nice new features for our product. However using it on a daily basis has resulted in a lot of made up metrics and increased tech debt. Everywhere it’s saved us a bit of time, it’s wasted our time elsewhere.
I actually do believe ai can be a useful coding tool, can help coders be more efficient, but it’s not ready to create final products and may never be. It’s just another tool but you have to know what you’re doing, recognize when it needs guidance, and understand that you are the one responsible for doing a good job
I’ve done that too many times already.
when facing unemployment, the LAST thing I want to do is burn a shitload of money on the absolute fucking racket that is higher education in the USA.
Unless it’s for something like HVAC or plumbing or nursing where there’s never not a constant need, anyways
It’s a stop gap, hoping for better times in the future. I did it when I had a physical disability no one could explain, so I couldn’t get disability coverage much less any treatment. I ate some loans instead of living on the street or with abusive family. It sucked, but that’s the US for you - if you’re not making someone money, you’re welcome to just go die.
Just when I thought I had read thee most dystopian shit. Here you go staving off homelessness with an unforgivable loan to an educational institution masquerading as a homeless shelter/bank. A shocking and appalling, yet all to common tale. Im hoping you have a positive outcome.
Thank you so much! This was over two decades ago. Everything turned out pretty a great. The abusive parent is dead, I have a wonderful partner, and we’re parents to a big family of furry children. I do still have a six figure student loan, but it’s pretty close to magically going away. Feels good!
P.s. I can’t believe I can say “over two decades ago” and for that time to be when I was an adult. Fuck, I got old!
nursing you would still have to burn alot of money, but the demand is there for nursing, if you can tolerate PEOPLE and bodily wastes. you can make bank depending on what you do. if one has a degree, schools will consider it as post-bacc, so the classes are MUCH MORE expensive than if you were taken as a undergrad(they upcharge it for graduates and post baccs). one should not get a 2nd degree, since schools may allow you to do that, they called “academic incest”. i had former co-worker in retail, he was already in the tech field, he was delusional into trying to get another degree to do with AI(and getting a ms eventually), i told them you should just find a job in tech(beginning of pandemic)
HVAC, and every other trade, is only really good money if you own the business doing it. Just theres no big HVAC monopoly so you can actually dream of doing that.
Had warranty work done on an HVAC system that blew up shortly after installation which covered parts, but not labor (what a ripoff, by the way). Paid about $1400 for about 3 hours of work by one guy. Asked him what he got paid, about $20-25 same as everyone else who gets their hands dirty without a degree or hazard pay.
Reclamation costs, EPA certs, having to buy full tanks rather than what i need and the cost of insurance all got me out of my own HVAC business. I do miss the early spring days of 200 dollar house calls to just rinse the leaves down and out of a unit though lol
I wish we could just go back to schools being for people who want to learn about things, and putting employers back in charge of training their work force. Subsidizing a fucking intermediary to provide the basic ticket into the work force…who the fuck came up with that idea?
the problem is employers dont train employees anymore, so they look at “2+years experience required as a first start”
I gotta say, part of that is work visa programs. A very common path I’ve seen is someone getting their college degree in their country, do a couple years work to get sponsored by one of the outsourcing companies, then take a masters degree in the us, so they can enter the country on a student visa and have a head start looking for a job. Now they are looking for a starting job but have a couple years experience and a masters degree.
I can’t fault anyone who takes that path: it seems very successful. But it causes imbalances that don’t work for the rest of us
yea citizens are pretty screwed, as thier job listings almost always is framed in a way to only select from h1-b visa applicants, im betting they are willing to accept one that is lower in the skill setting than what the job listing is claiming they require if they sought visa holders. I think its just to show non-discriminatory praticies.
I think the best evidence of this, and an accurate predictor of economic recession, is the number of people taking the LSAT.
According to LSAC, the number of test takers is up 19% this year, and applications are up 44.5% over the 4-year average.
The number of legal jobs only increases by ~1% each year.
That post law school glut ain’t getting any better is it
people still considered having a law degree to be prestigious. even if it isn’t economically smart, it’s a big status symbol still that impresses people.
my nephew just got into college last month and his parents already want him to go to law school just so they can say he did. they don’t care if he becomes a lawyer, they just want to have a son who has a law degree so they can brag about it to people.
who are these uneducated people it impresses because i haven’t met them
they are highly educated people who believe in meritocracy, such that any/all degrees are superior to those lacking degrees.
but currently degrees, have very poor job prospects, outside of things like health and not an Med school or vet school. so they are in a lose lose situation. bio not biotech, only bio with health is feasible.
This isn’t a news story, it’s an advertorial.
I like wondering and I just had the idea that I might enjoy welding because it seems like big soldering.
Would I like welding?
In my experience the biggest problem with physical labor is that it’s boring. If you’re used to finding creative solutions for complex engineering issues for work then you will not enjoy doing the same task 8 hours a day, day after day.
Lot’s of corporate drone positions are way more boring. At least your getting some exercise.
This depends a lot on the labor job. I worked construction/landscaping for a couple years, and pretty much no two days were the same. You were basically always trying to solve some small or large practical problem.
Having an education as an engineer, and working as a researcher now, I have to say that I really enjoyed my time doing manual labour.
Yes, I think if you can be the person making decisions it can be more interesting. Lots of entry level jobs and even fairly skilled labor is not creative at all though.
Oh.
Yeah solid point. That would drive me fucking insane.
One possible pro of working a labor job that I found is that you can pretty easily zone out for long stretches of time and think through complex things you’re doing outside of work. Depends on your interests and hobbies at home if you’re able to take advantage of it. Worked a boring factory job for a few years and would spend entire days daydreaming about whatever piece of media I was consuming at the time or prepping DnD in my head.
I’m an aircraft mechanic that specializes in sheet metal. There are routine things we do but pretty much everyday is different. I like it a lot. Lots of problem solving and troubleshootimg. If you’re into electronics we have Avionics. While I specialize in sheet metal I still do everything so it is never boring. Biggest problem is paying for your License. It is costly. I got into it later in life. I got my license at 36.
Huh.
I do like planes. And electronics. Though everything I know in that area is self taught and I don’t know a lot. I can finance the education to make a shift in my life. I am so burnt out on my career - good money but completely burnt out and never want to do it again.
Hmmm.
Something to consider. And what ever company you went to would have training for Avionics. Or you may find something else you like. I hated sheet metal in AP school. But I LOVE doing it now. AP school is kinda dumb but if you play the game you’ll be fine. At the end there are 6 Federal exams. 3 written tests and 3 oral/practicals. People freak out over those and many never do them. They are pretty simple if you study and apply yourself.
What is AP school?
Also I’m in Canada so I’d imagine the whole thing is kind of different.
Its Airframe and Powerplant. So, you guys are a bit different than the US. But I work with guys from Canada. Your licensing is a bit different. You guys have more. There is the S license for Structures, A for Avionics (I think its A), and a Powerplant one. You can get one or all of them. I have worked with a lot of guys that have the S. I can’t remember if you guys do type ratings for each plane you would be working on or not.
A lot of blue collar isn’t 8 hours of doing the same thing unless you’re in a factory or doing production.
Being in blue collar, while this can be true, especially of line welders, there are a lot of physical labor job that is not boring. Where every day is different. A lot like IT.
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I applied to like 60 places and the only places I got interviews at were McDonald’s and Waffle House at first. Considering what I’ve heard, I got lucky compared to a lot of people, good luck.
just out of curiosity: have you considered applying in agriculture?
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Zoomers and under are completely fucked.
… everyone who isn’t a a deca-millionaire, is fucked.
Entry level positions require 3 years experience, in every field now.
Entirely seriously: If you want a future beyond debt-slavery, you’ll have to figure out how to undertake an actual revolution.
Step 1:
Delete Tiktok and all corporate social media.
Step 2:
Organize with like minded individuals via other means, establish mutual aid and support groups.
Step 3:
???
Step 4:
Abolish Profit.
Entire generation: [looks at step 1] “… nah…”
surprisingly sane words
Entry level positions require 3 years experience, in every field now.
I think that is because they know they can’t actually hire everyone, so instead of making older people unemployed and risking them raising their voice about it, they’re making the younger people unemployed because they figure they can get away with it more easily.
younger people never know how it was like 20 years in the past. so they don’t have anything to compare and they can’t say “well, suddenly i’m out of a job” because they never had one in the first place, so it’s easier to sell the changing reality to them.
This is the bigger picture:
… we are not all going to survive the great unraveling, even if we had benevolent geniuses in charge.
With corpos and fascists in charge?
Gonna be even worse.
Oh yes i know the W3 model and the Club Of Rome (i think they made that diagram?) in the context of the paper Limits to Growth.
The thing is, it’s outdated. That study was done when renewable energy was inconceivable. Things have changed since then. The study was literally done in i think 1970 (first version) and then updates every couple years (significant update was done in 2004).
In fact, until very recently, people couldn’t imagine that renewable energy would actually become a big thing. Solar energy somehow became the cheapest source of (technically useful) energy (!) in human history (says the IEA), and they’re gonna know it since they’re literally an oil and gas analysis organization so if even they admit it, it’s not “green propaganda” but solid facts.
This changes the picture dramatically, because under capitalism companies continue to seek the cheapest power possible, and that’s simply solar energy today. This leads to an exponential increase in solar power production ever since 2020.
And that changes the picture. The end of the fucking world is off, we’re all saved, we have enough energy to sustain our way of life and there’s no “heavy culling” when the fossil fuels run out.
I got a job at Amazon driving a van lmao. They are hiring literally anyone with a license and not on hard drugs. They didn’t test for alcohol or weed.
We don’t need any more MBAs.
We actively need fewer, a lot fewer
I actually think we need more people who hate MBAs to go through the degree so we can tell whats bullshit and whats not.
It’s almost all bullshit.
The main point of an MBA program is to indoctrinate students into believing that maximizing profit is never predatory, but simply the most efficient means by which to run a business.
There’s also some “leadership” filler that is ultimately ignored in favor of profits, and some basic accounting that is essentially learning how to game the numbers to…maximize profits via application of debt and capital chicanery.
-courtesy of Boston U MBA program
Tldr; it’s all bullshit
So software engineer here. I went back to school in my 40s and got my Executive MBA and graduated in 2024. I knew nothing about how businesses truly worked going in. I learned the basics for accounting, finance, marketing, strategy, entrepreneurship, org behavior, and more.
I’m glad I did it, I learned a lot, but overall it’s like the sample platter of topics. I know enough to mostly understand the specialists when they speak, but I’m no expert in any of the topics above. I know enough to be dangerous if I was left to my own devices on any of the topics.
Let me save you all a lot of money. An MBA teaches you to view all business decisions through a finance lense. For non business people reading this, Finance projects forward in time, Accounting looks backward in time. The goal of a business is to maximize profit. You can maximize profit by increasing revenue and/or decreasing costs. If you list our all possible business projects, you pick a collection of projects you believe will maximize profit OVER TIME. Aka the time-value of money.
Now an executive MBA is basically the same as any other MBA program, but it’s for people with over a decade in professional experience. I could easily see someone with less real world experience falling into Dunning Kruger. What business people fuck up is their assumptions on their “business opportunities” models. In other words, they don’t account for some factor, grossly misunderstand a factor’s influence, or don’t give two shits because the timeline of a project will extend beyond their tenure. That last point is especially important to understand because on paper the finance might look great, but they won’t be at the firm by the time the accounting of a project fully wraps up.
So yeah, the system is ripe for exploitation and bullshit. An incompetent business leader can make decisions that maximize short term wins, and split to another company before the long term losses land.
MBA programs are mostly about joining the MBA cult. they aren’t much for education or learning.
the biggest benefit is the networking you get based on what MBA program you went to.
As somebody in that age class, having worked for about 20 years, I might go study if I got fired even if the job market was awesome. It’s just an attractive pivot.
Works if you have the money, got to go back to work if you don’t.
Exactly. Many 40+ year olds do have the money.
