Job Discussion Forums

[romanworld]

In another thread, there is discussion about how the falling birth rate in Taiwan will kill off many of its universities through lack of students. Another issue which will hasten this process is that the 'products' that universities (in Taiwan) sell - degrees - are losing their market value. This phenomenon has been going on for sometime now but has reached a crisis point of late. Recently a group of Taiwanese academics came out and told the MOE that they need to reduce the number of Ph.ds that were being produced by Taiwanese universities in order to avoid a glut and consequent devaluation of a prized product:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MI13Ad01.html

Now the China Post has published an article entitled, 'Master's degrees provide little aid in job search.' The article states:

A master's degree is no guarantee of an advantage in job market in Taiwan, according to a poll released yesterday by the 104 Job Bank and Global Views magazine.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2011/09/21/317302/Masters-degrees.htm

The article concludes rather depressingly:

The 104 Job Bank also revealed that it takes an average 2.66 months for holders of a bachelor's degree to find their first job and 2.3 months for those with a master's degree. In other words, while it takes at least an additional two years of study to obtain a master's degree, it saves job seekers only 10.8 days in terms of landing a job, the job bank said.

Is it really worth spending all that money on an MA, especially one done overseas, for a saving of 10.8 days?