Is graduate school worth it?

N918KT

N918KT

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After graduating college next summer getting a bachelors degree in aviation administration, I am most likely going to be finding an job in the aviation industry, hopefully in airport operations or management.

However, at times, I thought about going to Rutgers University someday after graduating college to get an MBA. But I don't know if I wanted to go to Rutgers for the wrong reasons. I guess its because I could use it as a fall back degree in case aviation goes south or in case if I want to start up my own business someday (aviation related or not). I have the mind of an entrepreneur. Or maybe I could use the MBA to rise up the ranks in airport management.

Are those good reasons to get an MBA or go to graduate school? If not, what would be a good reason or reasons to go to graduate school or get an MBA?
 
Is there a job you want that requires it?

Why not see how far you can get with your existing 4 year degree/debt??

Maybe after you get a job and learn the industry then make that decision.
 
I figure I would have come out ahead financially if I'd sent Margy to A&P school rather than to get here Masters in Education.
 
There are several ways to look at grad school.

From a purely business aspect look at time & $ invested with resultant average salaries. Data may be difficult to find for combinations of particular degrees and those data may be easily mis-interpreted. An MBA will give you an "in" with the money crowd. The "in" coupled with performance will likely result in a lucrative career. It may take a long time to get there.

Another way to look at grad school is further training and personal growth. In this evaluation $ & time are not considered and a person just says that they want to learn/experience the grad school process.

I pursued advanced degrees mostly because I could and had a strong desire for deep knowledge in my chosen field. So far it's worked out but there are no guarantees.
 
A graduate degree opens doors that might not otherwise be open.

My opinion (as an engineer with an MBA) is that my MBA was beneficial. Moreso because I had several years' experience before I started the MBA program, so the material had real world relevance for me.

So my suggestion is to find that first job, get some real world experience, then look to graduate school.
 
Depends on a lot. A masters in engineering is always useful, but a doctorate of the same is only useful if you want to go in to academics or have bragging rights to hot little geeky Korean chicks that will dump you anyway when you bring them back to the States.
 
It depends.

If you pick the right profession, a graduate degree is to employers what a bachelors degree used to be. For others, not so much.

It also depends on whether you're paying or an employer's paying. If you gotta borrow for it, think twice. You can always go back later.

I have always been happy that I got mine, it has made a difference in my circumstance. Your mileage may vary.
 
Get the highest level of education you have an interest in right now. You are in student mode, your life is setup to be a student, you are use to the process, go for it.

Life comes along and makes going back to school an impossible luxury for many. Those that do go back wish they didn't have two kids and an underwater mortgage to distract them from their studies and the other attractions of college life.
 
Go for an engineering masters degree. Everyone and there mom have an MBA. Those are easy.
 
Aren't most of the airports you are likely to work at govt owned? Many govt employers have tuition reimbursement programs.
 
Get the bachelors then work for a bit... Hopefully for a company that will pay for your MBA.
 
N918KT said:
After graduating college next summer getting a bachelors degree in aviation administration, I am most likely going to be finding an job in the aviation industry, hopefully in airport operations or management.

However, at times, I thought about going to Rutgers University someday after graduating college to get an MBA. But I don't know if I wanted to go to Rutgers for the wrong reasons. I guess its because I could use it as a fall back degree in case aviation goes south or in case if I want to start up my own business someday (aviation related or not). I have the mind of an entrepreneur. Or maybe I could use the MBA to rise up the ranks in airport management.

Are those good reasons to get an MBA or go to graduate school? If not, what would be a good reason or reasons to go to graduate school or get an MBA?
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I think it depends on where you look for a job. Port Authority of NY/NJ runs EWR, JFK, and LGA in our area, and might be big enough that you would find a good place to start with your bachelor's. My dad started as a courier, put himself through college and retired Chief Operations Supervisor after 47 years with them, in NYC, I think JFK (or maybe LGA...) and finished at EWR. My point is, Port Authority is big enough they can find a place for you. I have no idea how competitive things are in Ops/management, but it would make sense to me smaller operations, such as MMU might be a little tougher to find a good fit...after all MMU is not three huge international airports, bridges, tunnels, etc...
A very good point was made above as well, that if you are still in student mode and are so motivated, go for the higher degree. It doesn't necessarily mean you'd have a better starting position than you may now, but you could certainly end up in a better position/have more options later on in your career because of it. Best of luck to you!
 
Sac Arrow said:
Depends on a lot. A masters in engineering is always useful, but a doctorate of the same is only useful if you want to go in to academics or have bragging rights to hot little geeky Korean chicks that will dump you anyway when you bring them back to the States.
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From what I've been seeing at work lately, that Ph.D. might be the ticket to getting a job. At least where I work. Now, I just have a BSEE, but nearly 40 years of experience. About 20 years when they hired me. Things change, and it depends on where you want to work and what you want to do. If you want to be a college professor, a Ph.D. is the union card. Get it or forget it. Doesn't mean you know how to teach, but many universities seem to regard that as secondary, anyway.
 
It depends on your course of study, but the Bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. There's millions of them out there.The creme will rise to the top and the cattle will get in where they fit in. There's no guarantee there's more cream at the Master's level, but there's plenty of evidence that the herd continues to grow.
 
kyleb said:
A graduate degree opens doors that might not otherwise be open.

My opinion (as an engineer with an MBA) is that my MBA was beneficial. Moreso because I had several years' experience before I started the MBA program, so the material had real world relevance for me.

So my suggestion is to find that first job, get some real world experience, then look to graduate school.
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^^This^^
 
Speaking as someone who has hired and managed in both high-tech and low tech organizations:

As a previous poster said, a BS or BA is the new high school diploma, particularly if the degree is from a relatively unknown (no-prestige) institution.

An advanced degree is a credential that is easy to identify and use to sort applicants. If I have a big pile of applicants and many who appear qualified, the first ones that go into the reject pile are the ones without advanced degrees. Fair? Maybe not. But it's the real world.

For promotions and internal transfers the advanced degree is less important, but to promote a bachelor's degree guy as the supervisor of a group with mostly advanced degrees can be a tough sell even to the group itself. He better be good! Similarly up the chain, the jobs are filled primarily by guys with advanced degrees.

I did a masters plus the course work and prelims for a PhD, but never did the thesis. Wife, kids, mortgage, etc. -- the full catastrophe, as Zorba said. I never got any job credit for the post-master's work but from my first paycheck I made more than I would have with a BS.

A Rutgers graduate degree will be a career advantage in ways you may never know. It will be a hard slog if you are also working your first job (that's why I pooped out on the PhD.) but stick to it and make it happen! You might even learn some useful things while you're getting it.
 
When I was hiring (mostly engineers) I would rather look at the accomplishments and experience than the degree itself. A degree will only tell you what the individual is supposed to know but the accomplishments tells you what that individual can really do. Some history examples Right Brothers, Marconi, Einstein, Bill Gates and others with no college degree. Some with college degree: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and others. So you see a degree does not guarantee success.

Good Luck
 
Piloto said:
When I was hiring (mostly engineers) I would rather look at the accomplishments and experience than the degree itself. A degree will only tell you what the individual is supposed to know but the accomplishments tells you what that individual can really do. Some history examples Right Brothers, Marconi, Einstein, Bill Gates and others with no college degree. Some with college degree: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and others. So you see a degree does not guarantee success.

Good Luck
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One nit-assuming you are referring to Albert Einstein, he did have a PhD in 1905. He published some of his most important papers that year. The others had the good fortune to be in very early in the technology where there was very little knowledge of the subject.

Other than that, you have a point although as mentioned earlier, college is the new HS diploma. For the physical sciences, one almost needs a PhD to get the background required to be successful. There's enough work that has been done that the advanced degree teaches one what has already been discovered in a field.
 
In my opinion, the only good reasons to pursue any degree are: (1) because it is required for (or will substantially improve your chances of obtaining) employment in a particular field; or (2) because you have time and money to waste, and you figure that college is as good a place as any to do so.

Higher education is a racket that rivals La Cosa Nostra. The Bachelor's degree, by design, exists to force graduates to enroll in far more costly graduate programs. To this end, undergrads are forced to earn close to three-quarters of their credits in subjects that are completely and utterly irrelevant to their majors. This insures that they won't know enough about their majors to actually secure employment in those fields.

In order to actually get jobs, they'll have to enroll in graduate school, where they will take courses that in some cases are identical to undergrad courses in every way except the course numbers and the price per-credit. The former will be 5xx or higher rather than 1xx to 4xx The latter will be between two and four times as many dollars as what the undergrad students sitting in the same classroom are paying. Otherwise, the courses will be identical.

Did I mention that it's a racket?

If I had it all to do over again, I would skip the degrees. Seriously. All they do is take up space on my wall. Instead, I would enroll as a non-matriculated student. I would then be able to take only those courses I had an interest in or a need for, and would be allowed to skip all the useless courses that no one in their right mind would ever take were they not part of the "core curriculum."

By doing so, I would be able, in one year, to acquire the equivalent amount of specialized knowledge as someone with a four-year degree in that major, because as matriculated students, they would be forced to spend the equivalent of three years studying totally irrelevant bullshot.

That's my opinion. I believe that higher education is a racket and, at the undergrad level, an intentional waste of time designed solely to create business for the schools at the graduate level. Until you're reasonably sure that completing another degree will give you a career edge, I suggest that you save your money and your time.

I know that I'm in the minority, and I know that this is not the politically correct advice to give to a young person. So again, it's just my opinion, and nothing more. Take it for what it's worth.

-Rich
 
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RJM62 said:
In my opinion, the only good reasons to pursue any degree are: (1) because it is required for (or will substantially improve your chances of obtaining) employment in a particular field; or (2) because you have time and money to waste, and you figure that college is as good a place as any to do so.

Higher education is a racket that rivals La Cosa Nostra. The Bachelor's degree, by design, exists to force graduates to enroll in far more costly graduate programs. To this end, undergrads are forced to earn close to three-quarters of their credits in subjects that are completely and utterly irrelevant to their majors. This insures that they won't know enough about their majors to actually secure employment in those fields.

In order to actually get jobs, they'll have to enroll in graduate school, where they will take courses that in some cases are identical to undergrad courses in every way except the course numbers and the price per-credit. The former will be 5xx or higher rather than 1xx to 4xx The latter will be between two and four times as many dollars as what the undergrad students sitting in the same classroom are paying. Otherwise, the courses will be identical.

Did I mention that it's a racket?

If I had it all to do over again, I would skip the degrees. Seriously. All they do is take up space on my wall. Instead, I would enroll as a non-matriculated student. I would then be able to take only those courses I had an interest in or a need for, and would be allowed to skip all the useless courses that no one in their right mind would ever take were they not part of the "core curriculum."

By doing so, I would be able, in one year, to acquire the equivalent amount of specialized knowledge as someone with a four-year degree in that major, because as matriculated students, they would be forced to spend the equivalent of three years studying totally irrelevant bullshot.

That's my opinion. I believe that higher education is a racket and, at the undergrad level, an intentional waste of time designed solely to create business for the schools at the graduate level. Until you're reasonably sure that completing another degree will give you a career edge, I suggest that you save your money and your time.

I know that I'm in the minority, and I know that this is not the politically correct advice to give to a young person. So again, it's just my opinion, and nothing more. Take it for what it's worth.

-Rich
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Well you do have a point. In my aviation administration curriculum, I have to take at least one art/visual communications elective. I took intro to photography for this semester, and I did not know what other courses to take for the art/visual communications elective. I basically have almost no interest in photography and was just picking my poison on which art electives to take.
 
Depends on the circumstance:

1. If you are employed and the employer pays for it, Yes.
2. If you want a job in banking or investment banking, Yes.
3. If you want a job in a field requiring graduate training, yes.
4. If you are unemployed and will not lose a couple of years income anyway and have a way to pay for it without borrowing money, Yes.

Rutgurs is a good school but it is not going to make a major impact on your income in most cases.

5. If you have a good job and must quit to go to school, No.
6. If you have to pay tuition plus living expenses for 2 years using loans No.
7. The person who can recover two years lost wages, tuition, living expenses and effort to get a MBA are becoming extremely remote. It does not happen automatically or accidentally.
 
N918KT said:
Well you do have a point. In my aviation administration curriculum, I have to take at least one art/visual communications elective. I took intro to photography for this semester, and I did not know what other courses to take for the art/visual communications elective. I basically have almost no interest in photography and was just picking my poison on which art electives to take.
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I suggest that you finish your Bachelor's, get a job, and start feeling out the advancement opportunities. Many airports are publicly-owned, and some bureaucracies favor the Master of Public Administration degree over the M.B.A. Or you may get involved in some niche of airport work in which a specialized degree would be more helpful than an M.B.A. Or maybe your B.A. will do just fine and you won't need grad school at all.

My point is that unless you have the time and money to invest in esoterica, it's in your interest to wait until you can determine whether a degree will be of any help to your career, and if so, which degree would be most advantageous for you. Otherwise, you're putting more money into the racket just to get another piece of paper that you don't even know you'll need, but which the racket will be more than happy to sell you.

-Rich
 
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Look at the people in the jobs you want, what degree do they have?
 
I was friends with a guy that had his masters in aviation something and worked in the airport ops at a small regional airport. Got the job shortly after graduating. His duty title was 'Director of Operations' and he was #2 in charge at the airport. Problem was, working for the city, I believe he only pulled in around maybe 14-16 bucks an hour, had decent benefits. He knew it was a stepping stone for a larger airport. He basically got to be in charge of the airport maintenance crew (three guys in their mid 40's), and that was awkward at times for him. His duty title was about the coolest part of his job and he pretty much did it all.....painted, mowed, paperwork, and dicked around a lot. It didn't seem that bad, but it didn't pay squat, especially for having a masters degree it seemed.

I think overall having his degree did help him secure the job, because he beat out one of the local maintenance guys that applied for it, and he was coming from a location about 8 hours from his home. From what I know about that career field, most jobs are city jobs, and even at the big airports, you'll probably be lucky to pull in maybe 60k to 100k at the top end. I think the airport manager at his location maybe only made around 40 to 50k.

Either way, good luck!
 
RJM62 said:
In my opinion, the only good reasons to pursue any degree are: (1) because it is required for (or will substantially improve your chances of obtaining) employment in a particular field; or (2) because you have time and money to waste, and you figure that college is as good a place as any to do so.

Higher education is a racket that rivals La Cosa Nostra. The Bachelor's degree, by design, exists to force graduates to enroll in far more costly graduate programs. To this end, undergrads are forced to earn close to three-quarters of their credits in subjects that are completely and utterly irrelevant to their majors. This insures that they won't know enough about their majors to actually secure employment in those fields.

In order to actually get jobs, they'll have to enroll in graduate school, where they will take courses that in some cases are identical to undergrad courses in every way except the course numbers and the price per-credit. The former will be 5xx or higher rather than 1xx to 4xx The latter will be between two and four times as many dollars as what the undergrad students sitting in the same classroom are paying. Otherwise, the courses will be identical.

Did I mention that it's a racket?

If I had it all to do over again, I would skip the degrees. Seriously. All they do is take up space on my wall. Instead, I would enroll as a non-matriculated student. I would then be able to take only those courses I had an interest in or a need for, and would be allowed to skip all the useless courses that no one in their right mind would ever take were they not part of the "core curriculum."

By doing so, I would be able, in one year, to acquire the equivalent amount of specialized knowledge as someone with a four-year degree in that major, because as matriculated students, they would be forced to spend the equivalent of three years studying totally irrelevant bullshot.

That's my opinion. I believe that higher education is a racket and, at the undergrad level, an intentional waste of time designed solely to create business for the schools at the graduate level. Until you're reasonably sure that completing another degree will give you a career edge, I suggest that you save your money and your time.

I know that I'm in the minority, and I know that this is not the politically correct advice to give to a young person. So again, it's just my opinion, and nothing more. Take it for what it's worth.

-Rich
Click to expand...

If you want to get an engineering degree, you will be taking at most one non technical course a quarter if you want to graduate before you are eligible for Social Security. ;)

OTOH, If you are lucky enough to Co-Op like I did you can have a real job at the start. OTOH, if you invent Apple, Google or Facebook, you can quit after a year.:D
 
airdale said:
For promotions and internal transfers the advanced degree is less important, but to promote a bachelor's degree guy as the supervisor of a group with mostly advanced degrees can be a tough sell even to the group itself. He better be good! Similarly up the chain, the jobs are filled primarily by guys with advanced degrees.
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I was told (cryptically, of course), that I needed a masters degree to further my advancement in the company, if for no other reason that "credentials" make landing new contracts easier. So off I went to grad school (online), 30 years after my BS degree.

And I'm actually enjoying it, though doing classwork after working all day is kind of a drag.
 
RJM62 said:
In my opinion, the only good reasons to pursue any degree are: (1) because it is required for (or will substantially improve your chances of obtaining) employment in a particular field; or (2) because you have time and money to waste, and you figure that college is as good a place as any to do so.

Higher education is a racket that rivals La Cosa Nostra. The Bachelor's degree, by design, exists to force graduates to enroll in far more costly graduate programs. To this end, undergrads are forced to earn close to three-quarters of their credits in subjects that are completely and utterly irrelevant to their majors. This insures that they won't know enough about their majors to actually secure employment in those fields.

In order to actually get jobs, they'll have to enroll in graduate school, where they will take courses that in some cases are identical to undergrad courses in every way except the course numbers and the price per-credit. The former will be 5xx or higher rather than 1xx to 4xx The latter will be between two and four times as many dollars as what the undergrad students sitting in the same classroom are paying. Otherwise, the courses will be identical.

Did I mention that it's a racket?

If I had it all to do over again, I would skip the degrees. Seriously. All they do is take up space on my wall. Instead, I would enroll as a non-matriculated student. I would then be able to take only those courses I had an interest in or a need for, and would be allowed to skip all the useless courses that no one in their right mind would ever take were they not part of the "core curriculum."

By doing so, I would be able, in one year, to acquire the equivalent amount of specialized knowledge as someone with a four-year degree in that major, because as matriculated students, they would be forced to spend the equivalent of three years studying totally irrelevant bullshot.

That's my opinion. I believe that higher education is a racket and, at the undergrad level, an intentional waste of time designed solely to create business for the schools at the graduate level. Until you're reasonably sure that completing another degree will give you a career edge, I suggest that you save your money and your time.

I know that I'm in the minority, and I know that this is not the politically correct advice to give to a young person. So again, it's just my opinion, and nothing more. Take it for what it's worth.

-Rich
Click to expand...
The counterpoint: A four-year university degree was conceived to be an education that helped you find meaning in the world, and to find your place within that meaning. For that reason, an exploration of a wide variety of disciplines was desirable. A bachelors degree is not intended to be a trade school degree, though in today's culture of immediate gratification there's no surprise that people expect it to be a shortcut to the upper middle class.

I, for one, found great value in the breadth of classes I was required to take for my BS. In fact, it led me down a career path I never would have even thought about had it not been for checking some boxes in the various breadth of study requirements. So don't sell the diversity short.

Having said that, I do agree that many components of higher education are racket-like. Nothing's perfect, and no solution works for everyone. But I, for one, find a lot of merit in the four-year-university degree strategy.
 
X3 Skier said:
If you want to get an engineering degree, you will be taking at most one non technical course a quarter if you want to graduate before you are eligible for Social Security. ;)

OTOH, If you are lucky enough to Co-Op like I did you can have a real job at the start. OTOH, if you invent Apple, Google or Facebook, you can quit after a year.:D
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Engineering is a happy exception to the rule. Engineering students actually spend most of their time studying engineering -- and very little else.

-Rich
 
Henning said:
Look at the people in the jobs you want, what degree do they have?
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Nail, head.

If you need it to get where you want/need to be then you need it, if not don't waste your money.

Angie and I both went the trade school route and are doing ok. She will need a degree to really advance her carrier, so she will get one, but she HAD to get a job first as her graduation certificate would have become worthless if she didn't have a job within two years.
 
Piloto said:
When I was hiring (mostly engineers) I would rather look at the accomplishments and experience than the degree itself. A degree will only tell you what the individual is supposed to know but the accomplishments tells you what that individual can really do. Some history examples Right Brothers, Marconi, Einstein, Bill Gates and others with no college degree. Some with college degree: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and others. So you see a degree does not guarantee success.

Good Luck
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I didn't do a lot of hiring, but I did set on the interview boards for a few years. I agree with you in theory, but I always thought that people really exaggerated their experience.
 
Ken Ibold said:
The counterpoint: A four-year university degree was conceived to be an education that helped you find meaning in the world, and to find your place within that meaning. For that reason, an exploration of a wide variety of disciplines was desirable. A bachelors degree is not intended to be a trade school degree, though in today's culture of immediate gratification there's no surprise that people expect it to be a shortcut to the upper middle class.

I, for one, found great value in the breadth of classes I was required to take for my BS. In fact, it led me down a career path I never would have even thought about had it not been for checking some boxes in the various breadth of study requirements. So don't sell the diversity short.

Having said that, I do agree that many components of higher education are racket-like. Nothing's perfect, and no solution works for everyone. But I, for one, find a lot of merit in the four-year-university degree strategy.
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I agree. I value education and I feel like I got a lot out of mine. I really think that it is up to the individual. Some people go to college with the attitude that it is a waste of time and they end up coming out with nothing of value to show for it. Also some people spend four years in college and then never take advantage of the benefits from their education. But I think that is the fault of the individual, not the education.
 
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Ken Ibold said:
The counterpoint: A four-year university degree was conceived to be an education that helped you find meaning in the world, and to find your place within that meaning. For that reason, an exploration of a wide variety of disciplines was desirable. A bachelors degree is not intended to be a trade school degree, though in today's culture of immediate gratification there's no surprise that people expect it to be a shortcut to the upper middle class.

I, for one, found great value in the breadth of classes I was required to take for my BS. In fact, it led me down a career path I never would have even thought about had it not been for checking some boxes in the various breadth of study requirements. So don't sell the diversity short.

Having said that, I do agree that many components of higher education are racket-like. Nothing's perfect, and no solution works for everyone. But I, for one, find a lot of merit in the four-year-university degree strategy.
Click to expand...

Maybe in this country. Overall, I'm not too sure about that. In England, Bachelor's degrees are very major-focused. Most British physicians, for example, only have Bachelor of Medicine degrees. That's true for most of the professions over there.

In fact, I once dated a woman from England who had a Bachelor of Social Work degree, but who couldn't get licensed in New York because the law required a Master's. The thing was that in England, she'd studied Social Work -- and very little else -- for four years, so she'd already taken all the required coursework for an American M.S.W. degree. She just didn't have the parchment.

The problem was solved rather handily by her British university, which simply converted her B.S.W. program to a combined B.S.W. / M.S.W. program, and issued her a Master's degree retroactive to the date she'd earned her Bachelor's, in return for a nominal fee. That raised my eyebrows quite a bit, but apparently it's not an uncommon situation for graduates of British universities who are seeking licenses in the U.S.. The Master's degree is pretty much meaningless in England, anyway, so the universities don't consider it a big deal to convert a Bachelor's to a combined Bachelor's / Master's.

As for the virtue of a liberal arts education, I can understand six credits each being required in English and history, a single course each in psychology, sociology, economics, philosophy, and fine arts; and a single natural science course with lab. That would come out to 31 credits, or the rough equivalent of a year, and would still provide some exposure to the broader world of knowledge.

The way the system is set up now, however, except for engineering students, most undergrads will have completed only the equivalent of one year of coursework in their majors by the time they graduate. That is absurd and wasteful, in my opinion.

Rich
 
Is an education worth it? I think it depends on what you are going to do with your education. You do not need a degree to live a good life, but you will have to work harder without having one.

I only went through the ninth grade, then I passed the high school GED test while in the military.

I became a regional manager for a chain of retail stores. At the corporate level, I gave around ten or more chalk talk presentations on retail store set up, locations, strategy, employees, security, and a lot more that I've forgotten. We did not have computers to display pie charts in those days.

I opened my own business with a total of $250.00 to my name. At its peak I employed 13 people with close to a million dollar a year sales. I bought a home in one of San Diego's more desirable neighborhoods, I bought my own airplane, a little Warrior, I had a 27' sailboat, I paid cash for both. I have since sold my business, airplane, and sailboat, the house is paid off, and I am now retired.

I have had a reasonably good life with my 9th grade education. I admit, I think my life could have been much better with a degree, but then I never had any student loans to worry about, and I think you need a savings account for emergencies rather than a charge card or your parents savings account.

You can continue on with your education, or you can start earning some money and building your life, which one makes the most sense to you?

It does go fast, very fast, it just does not seem that way when your young.

-John
 
I am not sure why you think running an airport is where the money is in aviation. as a post above mentions, many of those positions are government positions. Those can be good jobs, but you are subject to all kinds of craziness like pay freezes completely unrelated to your job performance. Freight companies make money (unlike passenger airlines), so they are likely to be around for a while. MBAs who specialize in logistics are very valuable, and I see many postings for them. Also, I think you ought to broaden your horizons. Almost any principle applicable to aviation management is likely to be applicable to any other transportation mode. Four of the world's five most profitable transportation companies are US railroads.

I agree with the comments regarding engineering above. I am not an engineer, although I have a lot of interaction with engineers. I think an engineer with other credentials is likely to be very successful.

Finally, MBAs teach you management. We have too many managers, and not enough leaders. IF you want to learn leadership, the best places for that are the ground forces, US Army and USMC. Go into one of them and you will really learn how to supervise. My apologies to USAF and USN, but I have been in those, as well as the Army, and the best places to learn leadership are on the ground. I have never been a Marine, but I have served alongside them, and they learn the same leadership principles we did in the Army.
 
John Baker said:
Is an education worth it? I think it depends on what you are going to do with your education. You do not need a degree to live a good life, but you will have to work harder without having one.

I only went through the ninth grade, then I passed the high school GED test while in the military.

I became a regional manager for a chain of retail stores. At the corporate level, I gave around ten or more chalk talk presentations on retail store set up, locations, strategy, employees, security, and a lot more that I've forgotten. We did not have computers to display pie charts in those days.

I opened my own business with a total of $250.00 to my name. At its peak I employed 13 people with close to a million dollar a year sales. I bought a home in one of San Diego's more desirable neighborhoods, I bought my own airplane, a little Warrior, I had a 27' sailboat, I paid cash for both. I have since sold my business, airplane, and sailboat, the house is paid off, and I am now retired.

I have had a reasonably good life with my 9th grade education. I admit, I think my life could have been much better with a degree, but then I never had any student loans to worry about, and I think you need a savings account for emergencies rather than a charge card or your parents savings account.

You can continue on with your education, or you can start earning some money and building your life, which one makes the most sense to you?

It does go fast, very fast, it just does not seem that way when your young.

-John
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There are many examples of people who were and are successful without having a college education. My Father was one of them. He did not have a high school education. He was a farmer and at the same time he ran a construction outfit. He was very successful at both. He made a lot of money in his lifetime and he accumulated a lot of wealth. He was a pretty good investor as well. I was very proud of him and what he did. I remember though, just a few years before he died, someone used him as an example of how far someone could go without an education. When they were done he piped up and said, "imagine what I could have done if I had gone to college." My Father valued education.
 
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