Thursday, August 30, 2007

Pay back for a part time degree

Hi Mr. Tan,

I am 25 years old. I graduated from a local polytechnic 5 years ago. I am now considering to take a part time business degree. For the time, effort and money that I will be putting in, is it worth it?

REPLY:

I am not familiar with this matter. I can only give you two conflicting views.

1. My friend, who did some research of many part time degrees, told me that many Singaporeans pursue these part time degrees (including business MBA) at great expense. On completion, they are not able to earn a higher salary that justify their investment.

2. There was a report that for each year of education, the salary increases by a significant percentage (maybe 10% or more). This suggests that the education effort has a payback.

I guess that the answer depends on the quality of the university education. If it is from a good university, you may have its payback. If not, you will probably not get the payback.

I suggest that you talk to a few friends or other people who have taken the same route before. They may be able to give you some useful views as well.

You can look at this website to check the quality of the degree that you intend to pursue.

All the best in your decision.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Tan,

I fully agree with your view about the payback on a university education depends on the quality of it.

If one is thinking of getting higher pay by becoming a graduate, this is more likely to occur if one continues pursuing the same field of study from the diploma course.

I graduated from a local polytechnic and went on to pursue a part-time degree for a different field.

Speaking from personal experience, it is not easy to 'use' a part-time degree for a switch of career.

This is especially so if the degree is obtained from distance-learning.

Employers out there still prefers candidates from full-time degrees and preferably those from our local universities if not the top names from overseas.

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