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.
Late 40s, highly skilled, trans, unemployed for 2+ years.
I’ve been down to the final candidate selection a few times now and still haven’t been selected yet.
I’ve hired plenty of people. In general, final candidates are usually all fully capable of doing the job they’re applying for. In the end, the hiring manager just gets to pick the one they want to work with most.
I feel like when hiring managers look at me, all they see are problems and risks. Time consuming HR meetings, extra effort making sure people use the right pronouns, judgements from executive leaders who might see a middle manager not doing a good job at leaning into where the winds are headed.
I wonder, even if I spend 3 more years on a secondary degree, whether I’ll find myself right back in same situation (talented and surrounded by cowards unwilling to hire me), but now with $200k in new student loan debt.
Oi! Not trans, but queer, also unemployed for over 2 years now.
I used to be an econometrician, so I can tell you:
You, me?
We’re not unemployed.
We are ‘Not in the Labor Force’.
… we do not count towards the offical unemployment numbers.
… we do not count towards the offical unemployment numbers.
Wait…
unemployed for over 2 years now.
If you’re still actively seeking jobs you’d still be counted in the official unemployment category of U-3 unemployment. Even if you weren’t applying to jobs but still wanted to work you’d be counted in the (potentially more accurate) U-6 unemployment, right?
Normally, in a more sane and functioning world, you’d simply be correct.
I was a bit overzealous, I myself have given up looking because of the massive shadow jobs problem, the interview processes are ridiculous, etc etc, I erroneously transposed that onto them as well.
However, because Trump fired the head of the BLS, and Elon/DOGE cut back their workforce a good deal…
https://www.nisa.com/perspectives/heavily-distorted-cpi-print-reveals-little-useful-information/
https://www.markets.com/analysis/cpi-estimation-methodology-concerns-us-1010-en
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/imputation.htm
For most of this year, they haven’t even had enough staff to actually directly measure about a third of what goes into CPI… they just take the old data, run a model on it, predict it forward, and pretend thats real data.
They call this ‘carry forward price imputation’ or something like that.
So they’re just using some esoteric price model(s) to estimate, instead of actually gather, a bunch of data that is then treated as if it is real data, for the next stages of actually calculating the various cpi segments.
If they’re that fucked at doing cpi, they’re almost certainly also fucked at actually doing the Household Survey properly.
Granted, I can’t strictly prove this, because I do not have a team of forensic accountants auditing their data…
… But, having worked as varying kinds of data analyst, I can say with high confidence that the BLS methodology itself is flawed, and their ability to actually undertake that methodology is severely hamstrung for this whole year.
You don’t end up realizing that you overcounted job growth by a fucking million jobs… if you have a sound methodology.
… So thats a very long way of saying ‘well technically, if you wanna get technical, actually, this is all horseshit at this point, thus the person I’m replying to probably isn’t actually being counted, via problems that go outside/beyond the simple stated BLS methodology.’
You make a very good point. I’ve stopped using CDC for any realistic data or health guidance and instead defer to Health Canada or the NHS.
I should have also assumed economic data from the trump administration was equally suspect now.
$200k in new student loan debt.
Jesus. I’m looking at getting some additional masters degree in Spain and it’s 10-14 months and 1.5-4k Euros.
That’s like the cost of a college meal plan for a 4 year degree in the US. Not including housing in the dorms, just the food.
managers that do the hiing like to play games and gauge response, to see if you play ball with the company, being outside the standard applicant, does have risk.
i also have considering going back as a post-bacc but because my previous degree had some setback academic wise, makes me somewhat inelgible for partial grad school.(for a niche ceritification), unsure if taking postbacc will offsett the setback. also because post-bacc is more expensive than regular undergrad class as well.
e
what kind of work are you looking for?
Technical program management work ideally; it’s been a good dozen years since I developed software so those skills are rusty, but TPM work the the need for balancing risk management with pragmatism (strong alignment with control room ownership, command presence and incident stewardship) are good fits.
Got any openings for me?
I’m fucking stuck in this economic pit.
better grow roots and learn photosynthesis, then
That would require sunlight and I’m living through dark times.
Oregon Trail Sub-Generation. Always the God Damned Guinea Pigs.
I’m tired, Boss.
I used to say health care was solid but there have been layoffs across the country all year. Every time the touch Medicare or Medicaid hospitals will lose income and cost cut. In addition, less insurance means less patients means less income and more layoffs.
You have died of dysentery takes on new meaning.
The massive cuts to Medicaid that were in the Big Beautiful Bill passed by Trump and the GOP aren’t supposed to go into effect until after the 2026 midterms IIRC. When that does happen I think finding a job in the healthcare sector will be very difficult if not impossible.
nursing is still pretty solid, there is probably options other than a physical hospital, like traveling nursing. non-nursing,mD related health is out there but its more niche and some is more difficult to get into.
Units have been dissolved and nurses have been laid off. New grad programs/hires put on hold. Nurses may be less in the line of fire, but they’re not immune.
Absolutely the fuck not. The Oregon Trail ended you with land and a house for free.
The Oregon Trail ended
you with land and a house for free.with you stealing land from Native Americans and risking your life to be a subsistence farmer in a one-room shed you lived in until you died at the age of 38.
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
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.
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!
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
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)
I’m not as educated as a lot of y’all in these comments, but I can’t even get hired for retail positions let alone level 1 tech support jobs.
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.
The graph I showed was from a recalibration of the W3 model, done in 2023, primary difference being that instead of using a bunch of complex metrics to capture all kinds of pollution… they just went with CO2… but the whole thing has more or less been reworked as a python lib, which has been getting tweaked over the last ~15 years.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jiec.13442
You may notice that energy production itself is not a primary variable on display in the graph I originally posted.
I hear what you’re saying that renewable energy is … renewable… but, there are tons and tons of natural resources that are not renewable, that are still needed for all kinds of economic processes, which we’ve already extracted all the stuff that is easy to extract, thus costs rise if you want to keep extracting the stuff that’s harder to get to.
Its not just the energy sources. Its … everything non renewable, every input material resource. Probably the biggest one is industrialized agriculture.
Sure, we could go back to not using the soil as a sponge + nitrate fixing fertilizers, and go back to crop rotation that fixes those nutrients naturally.
… and then 4 billion people can’t afford food, and starve to death.
No amount of cheap solar energy solves the problem of agricultural input costs going up and up, and more and more arable land becoming nonarable due to climate change and increasing amounts of increasingly severe adverse weather events and climate driven disasters.
According to Jim Hansen and Paul Beckworth, we’re looking at +1.7C by 2027, +2.0C by 2030-32.
We’re now in the stage of the climate crisis where half the IPCC identified tipping points start tipping each other and compounding, within roughly the next 5 to 10 years.
We already blew past 1.5C, and the world is now more geopolitically unstable than it was 10 or 20 years ago, not less.
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.
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.
just out of curiosity: have you considered applying in agriculture?
No I haven’t. I just did a quick search on indeed for my area and “agricultural” brings up similar warehouse or sales jobs instead of what I’m assuming your implication was.
yeah i’ve done two summers of fieldwork and while it might sound boring, it was actually pretty cool :D we were working in the field all day long and it’s not boring because you keep moving, chatting, adapting to each specific fruit, it’s fun. you should try it.
I have 7 years of oncological research experience with teaching/consulting. 2 years as the sole animal manager at a nonprofit with therapy animals. I can’t find a fucking job. It’s insane. Either I’m overqualified, or I’m lacking some niche experience.
It sounds like all your experience it’s niche. But I’m an outsider.
But I should be able to do anything involving teaching, management, biological science bench work, or animal related. That’s a lot of leeway imho.
I have a pretty dissimilar resume but have perhaps had somewhat similar challenges.
I too have distinct specialties that should, in theory, be desirable in many different roles. But to get any attention at all from employers, I had to take a lot of things off my resume to make it look less ”complicated”. This included removing things that I considered relevant experience for the position, but not explicitly asked for. It also involved scrapping half of my education background for a lot of positions.
Shit fucking sucks and are unfair. But I was just recently able to get a job that I’m happy with and so will you too, soon.
I changed my university course because I found out half way through my first year that I would end up overqualified for anything in my field. Before I started I got an offer for an admin role at a wildcat conservation center but I’d be doing the same work with the degree too.
If a potential employer is telling you you’re overqualified, could you potentially be putting too much knowledge and experience on your resume (for that specific role)?
We don’t need any more MBAs.
We actively need fewer, a lot fewer
MBA programs are highly profitable for most universities. they are big money makers.
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
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.
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.
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 🥲
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.
Sounds like a good way to still not be able to find a job but also have a whole bunch of extra debt
Really depends on the college and the program. During the '08 crash, my wife left her job in insurance sales to pursue a law degree, effectively doubling her salary over three years and getting into a career she actually enjoyed.
I’ve seen people chase certifications that genuinely transformed their careers. EPIC certification for health care IT is a popular one right now and in high demand. Microsoft Certs have never hurt anyone career wise.
They’re difficult to pursue when you’re employed because they can be time consuming and mentally exhausting. So a downturn is the perfect opportunity to retrain.
And there’s often big hiring waves that follow downturns, as businesses try to catch back up to normal staffing levels. We’ve been in a historically very low unemployment period precisely because of the sloppy COVID era layoffs revealing how critical skilled staff can be for a company’s core functions
Honestly, if you are underqualified or looking to change careers, going back to college is a really good idea. I went back to college during the pandemic and I’ve almost tripled my pre-college income while only taking on about $8k in student loans. My older classmates were able to land some really good mid-late career jobs immediately after graduation leaning on both their new qualifications as well as their earlier unrelated career experience. I was able to jump to mid-level thanks to some callcenter experience and the tight job market making the business willing to take a risk on someone less qualified.
In a normal job market, someone with 20 years of experience in one field applying with a fresh degree in another field is going to have a heck of a leg up over a 25 year old applicant with the same degree.
i did at 38, lost wages and savings for a while, starting now with 2.2x salary, should get all back and more as long as I don’t die before age 50
resorting to going to school instead of looking for work
I think they looked for work before considering more debt.
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Countless stories like this are why I tell every partner that I absolutely will not get legally married, nor have children. Best of luck to you.
Watch out for common-law marriage statutes. A friend of mine got bitten by those - even worse actually because there was no prenup - it just “happened” because of how long they were together.
I absolutely will not get legally married, nor have children
I know a couple like this. They’ve been living together for nearly twenty years, but the husband insists his wife pay him rent to live together. She makes more than him, so he nickle and dime’s her constantly, insisting she pay for vacations, for eating out, whatever.
It’s really worn her down, but she’s terrified of being alone in her forties, so she just puts up with it. Really bleak.
I don’t envy anyone in this kind of long term relationship.
That guy is a dirtbag. People can coexist without one or both of them being treated like shit. Do not lump me in with abusers just because we may agree on two things.
I mean your ex wife did a bunch of shit to get hot to land a guy and you did a bunch of shit to get a good job so you could land a hot wife. Hot girls who get divorced don’t have access to money the same way that you do and since kids are involved the court seeks equity.
It’s not the “weakness” of women it’s just that home making isn’t financially rewarded. If she had pursued a career and not having children then she could have the same access to money that you have because you don’t have to physically carry the child. And being a homemaker isn’t a choice you made for yourself, and let’s be honest isn’t really possible except for very few men. I’m sure it sucks from your point of view. But she spent her beauty and youth capital on you and won’t be able to find a guy as good as you now that she’s older and has kids.
Also you’re probably taking care of yourself so you can wholly start over with a hot young wife and you will continue to make more money in your career. But your ex wife is just gonna keep on doing the best she can. It hurts now but it will hurt less as time goes on so try not to begrudge her too much.
This article seems to be exclusively about masters degrees or people going back to school for a second degree in a new field, but what I’m curious about is if there’s been a similar spike in people going for their first degree. I’m trying to figure out how much of this is people trying to land a job in a recession and how much of it is people trying to make themselves appealing from an immigration perspective. There’s definitely a lot of people who feel like getting out of the country is a nonstarter simply because countries only want the kind of labor that comes from obtaining a degree in a field.
I’m in that boat. Joined the IT world before the first .com crash, dropped out of school for it and never got a degree. I’m very stuck right now and I hate the career I’m stuck in. Trying to find a way to go back to get a degree, maybe open a door or two…
I’m doing similar from the same field. IT burned me tf out. And then lit the ashes. Already have a degree but I’m trying to change fields now. Don’t want to even look at a server
I have run teams, and I’m an adult leader in my kids troop, so I’m hoping to get into IT leadership, also been an architect, but I just can’t get much response to my resumes for leadership without any education on there. I’ve been shut out several times during to lack of degree, so hoping it might open a door or two. I don’t think I can get away from IT yet, but maybe can change my role in it.
My main issue became (beyond burnout) that despite my expertise, no one wanted to pay what that experience was worth. They would rather get a noob to do their stuff. They also don’t like it when you have work life boundaries. At least here and for what I do.
That’s neat you did architecture, Architecting was mind numbing for me or i could have rode that into the sunset. I thought I wanted to do it, did for awhile and was good at it but I didn’t enjoy it.
Hopefully leadership works for you though. It’s possible to move up without a degree, but it’s damn hard. I have a friend that has managed it, but he’s the only one I know. I can lead a team but I don’t like managing people because I’m not able to be cutthroat when someone needs to be laid off.
i dont this applies to undergraduates. people with degrees cant find jobs in whatever field, because the job market is so poor, even before covid.
as an undergrad you would be eligible for grants, scholarships,etc with no cost to your own, depending if you are going to a state school, community college pipeline. going to a expensive college that isnt paid for in full would be pretty foolish, if your an older than the average college student.
it’s the fact nobody will hire you for anything unless you have multiple degrees
Discovering new paths and education is good. We should not look down at this, but encourage reschooling at 30, 40, 50 or any age. Most skills are out of date within 5 years of leaving school. Having said that, you can reup or relearn stuff in a year or two, or even six months.
Most skills are out of date within 5 years of leaving school.
Then they weren’t skills, they were trivia.
unless one is in the USA, where higher education is mostly a giant scam and massive ripoff.
most skills are out of date within 5 years of leaving school
What kind of “skills” are you talking about and what kind of job are you doing if you require re-education after five years?? I honestly can’t imagine an education/job where you can’t remain up to date throughout your career, not to mention grow in your role.
