Think twice before paying for a business degree

The Department of Statistics has recently published the latest census on the Singapore population and it is a treasure trove of data that can be used to inform us what is the best move for folks seeking a basic or advanced qualification. 

Inspired by an article in the Business Times a few days ago, I tried to tabulate the number of degree holders corresponding to the field of study and track changes from 2010 to 2020.

Here are my results :

I'm going to share my personal insights from the data, feel free to disagree and comment below:

a) It is better not to pay for a business degree

There is clearly an increase in business degree holders over the past 10 years, so it's better to avoid getting into a Red Ocean situation by also getting another one. Unless you can get into the Honours program in NUS Bizad or at least a Cum Laude from SMU which still leads to fairly high paying MNC jobs, it will be really hard to distinguish yourself from masses of business graduates. 

I think this is even more so if you are a private degree graduate. You will be discriminated against twice - once for having a private degree and once more for studying a business qualification.

Also, you should take care before signing up for an MBA. They will be a dime a dozen. Still, I consider INSEAD MBA the Rolls Royce of MBAs because not only must you speak three languages, now they require proficiency in Python Programming. 

b) Demand for humanities qualifications seems immune to practical considerations. This is enough reason to avoid going for one unless you are extremely talented.

Over 10 years, we've seen such advances in technology and we've even beaten reduced the number of foreign competition in Tech, yet humanities and arts education has not experienced reduced demand. While I can't recall the research paper in the US, an academic said that interest in the humanities is in fact very "human" and demand to study this field comes from natural interest that cannot be dampened by practical considerations. 

In reality, a humanities education has become more expensive relative to the employment and salary outcomes over the past ten years but you continue to see plenty of demand to become a humanities scholar. 

If you want to thrive in such a field, passion is not enough. You need to combine passion and proficiency. If you become the kind of Arts grad that is non-Honours and can't find a place in academia, better start prepping for the CMFAS or CEA exams.

c) If you are moderately good in Maths, why not go for a STEM degree?

I can sort of understand the dip in Engineering degrees in Singapore. Younger Singaporeans don't trust that the government will not flood the country with foreign technical talent. But the era has changed and technology salaries are at an all-time high. Worse, now we evidence that Singaporeans are so spoilt no one wants to pick free money from the ground. 

The only barrier is a mathematical ability which might require some genetics. I think folks, in general, avoid heavy maths courses. If you push yourself through after biting the bullet, there is much less competition moving forward. 

Furthermore, nothing stops someone with a STEM degree from competing in the business field. If you end up becoming one of those useless engineers that might build a collapsing bridge, you can still fake it by becoming a project manager. If you suck at tracking projects and speaking to people, you can still take CMFAS and CEA later. 

Before I end, I'd like to address the copious amounts of literature that celebrate the importance of generalist skills as compared to specialist knowledge. I read almost every book on generalist skills like Range by David Epstein but I would not put so much weight on this message as they seem to be perpetrated by academics who know that their value in the industry is waning in the face of data analytics and AI. The fact in Singapore from Census 2020 is that the number of generalists is rising for the past 10 years compared to specialists and consequently. at the personal level, you may want to develop a narrow niche of tech skills to juice more money for your investments. 

But their message that specialists would need more generalist skills is not wrong. You'll still need to be politically savvy and present your ideas cogently. 

But these humanities academics are better off encouraging their students to pick up more marketable tech skills rather than harping on Critical Race Theory and why they don't have a sinecure because of capitalism.