Master’s degrees are as common now as bachelor’s degrees were in the ’60s



Libby Nelson:

It’s graduation time, an occasion for commencement speakers, academic regalia, and celebrating achievement. One achievement has become a lot more common over the past few decades: the master’s degree, the fastest-growing college credential in the US.

More than 16 million people in the US — about 8 percent of the population — now have a master’s, a 43 percent increase since 2002.

And as master’s degrees have grown, so has the debt that comes with them. The typical total debt for a borrower with an undergraduate and graduate degree is now more than $57,000, up from $40,200 in 2004. (This includes medical and law degrees.)