My masters degree in statistics has been instrumental in my job, both in getting the job and using the skills I learned on a daily basis.

My degree 100% improved my life and opened doors for me that I wouldn’t even have known about without it.

Hell no. Go to school for welding or HVAC or plumbing or something else. Where you can not spend a crippling amount of money and have debt for the next 60 years.

My bachelor’s was pretty useless, but it was the key to getting my much more useful masters degree.

Tldr, get a basic associates degree. Do more later if it will prove advantageous.

My perspective is from living in the US.

It’s always worth going to a local community college, even if you have no idea what you want to do, and taking basic classes (writing, speech, etc.). You can come out with a general associates degree without any specialization, low cost, and learn a ton of skills that are broadly applicable in any profession. And if you decide to get a specialized degree later, those classes should transfer in, saving you time and money in the more advanced/specific degree. But there are currently lots of jobs that don’t require a specific degree, or any degree at all.

I personally feel like much of my time in college was wasted. I spent 6 years in college (4 is typical) pursuing degrees because I felt pressured into going to college, rather than working some basic jobs, saving money, and figuring out what I wanted in life. I was fortunate to come out without debt (thanks to some fortunate scholarships and hard work), but also with no money, a 2-6 year lag behind all my friends, and a degree with very little earning potential that I’ve ended up never using. I was fortunate enough to stumble into a great career where we do look at what degree someone had on their resume, but only as a point of conversation - it’s fun to see what studies someone had, and ask them to share what they learned. For the job, we don’t care what the degree is or if they even have one.

I graduated university with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. It was probably the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life but I learned a lot, not only about biology, but critical thinking and debating ideas.

I had a hard time finding a job with such a general degree so unfortunately I needed to to back to college for a 2 year diploma necessary for a licenced job. College was a breeze after university.

I eventually quit that licenced job and now work a basic job in manufacturing that requires only a high school education. It’s the most money I’ve ever made despite it being the easiest. Figure that out (hint: I’m in a union now).

Despite not really needing my education for my job, I still feel like it has drastically improved my life. Ever since university, learning new things has been easy and calling out bullshit even easier.

Getting a BS in Computer Science was huge towards my success. I had to work while in college due to lack of funds. My job as a programmer paid very little before I got my degree. Even with years of experience, I had a hard time getting a dev job with an employer that paid better without my degree. With the degree, it was significantly easier.

I’ve heard of stories of folks that “made it” in dev without a degree. I did not have the charisma or whatever other skill they had to do it…

I will say I have quite a few student loans because my scholarships weren’t enough (I was an average student at best) and my family made a lot of money but didn’t help me so I didn’t get other aid I would have normally qualified for. For me, my very well paying job outweighs the student loan payment. My gamble paid off. (It was a fairly safe gamble, but one can never really know in the uncertainty of life.)

However, even in the last few years school has gone up in price A LOT so that may change the calculations for future folks.

For me, I wouldn’t say it held me back, but the benefits were not direct either. There was never the, I got x job as a result of y degree. My path was a bit more non traditional than most, but it’s my path.

For context, I just turned 40 a few weeks ago.

I went to community college after high school for finance because I was good at math and wanted to make a lot of money. I made it through, got an associates degree and went to a 4 year university after to finish. I dropped out after a semester or two because I had a lot of stuff going on in my life.

I ended up getting new jobs and eventually starting a business doing web dev and digital marketing many years later. I decided I wanted to finish the degree for no reason other than I felt like I was the type of person who should have a degree, so I did.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m tired of the business. I decide I want to sell it and get a masters degree in cybersecurity. In order to do that, I need to take another course first - it’s essentially a condensed cs degree. I learned a ton, got into the masters program and finished it.

The problem now is that I kind of fell for the schools marketing. It’s not easy to find a job in cybersecurity. And I’m also finding that being a cybersecurity engineer or a pen tester or a soc analyst or any of these “desirable” jobs are not really that interesting to me. After I sold the business, I found a direction, career wise, that I like. It’s in a technical space but not as an engineer and not in cybersecurity. And I think I’m ok with that. Getting my masters, I learned a lot, technically.

So to answer the original question, I don’t think either of the degrees helped me in a traditional sense, but they overall did more good than ham by a lot. Given the chance to do it again, maybe I would study something different, but I wouldn’t skip either of the degrees, even if I’m not directly using the skills today

I dropped out 20 years ago and I’ve done alright but have grown into a management role and now it is very hard to move into other management roles without a degree. I am considering going back to school to finish it.

Both. I studied journalism (strike 1) and graduated in 2008 (strike 2). I chose “print” as my option (strike 3).

Consequences: never worked a day in journalism in my life. Judging by the state of journalism globally in 2024, I can’t say that I mind. Having “a” degree is still a necessity for most non-menial jobs, so in that regard it always came in handy. Cost of the education wasn’t through the roof, didn’t have to take on any loans or such. To this day my only debt ever is my mortgage to the bank, looking to keep it that way.

The gap between college and non college educated in the US is the non college educated vote for Trump in a 4to1 proportion. Oh also make in average $20K less, a year, than college educated people.

Went to school for environmental engineering almost twenty years ago and graduated with one of the first accredited degrees in the field.

For the last twenty years I’ve traveled the country helping clean up the environment or prevent land from being further contaminated. Yeah the system is fucked up, lawyers and politicians and society don’t value the environment over a quick buck. But I’ve done some good as opposed to wave a sign around at a protest.

Built up enough experience that I’m now part of a specialized team with the EPA that goes to all states and territories to help with case development on complicated or high profile sites that states and regions don’t have the resources to handle.

Doing exactly what I wanted to do for my career, and directly because I got a good education that opened the doors to do it. I make a decent salary and have a skillset that makes employment easy and secure.

The consequences of me going was I had to pay my bill still after I dropped that shit, went full time software development.

It helped massively. Before I was a web frontend Dev and despite me trying to get more waried work they didn’t want me to learn new stuff because I was very good at what I did. So no possibility for my for any better job.

After I got into the automobile industry worked as a programmer, integrator and had so many opportunities for different career paths. I went on business trips to the US and Korea, found love here and moved. Now I’m partially in management and make so much more money which would all not be possible without going to university (in Sweden).

It definitely helped my life with new ideas, good friends and a better career. It’s also free in my country, and you actually get paid to go there, so it was never a difficult decision.

1. it absolutely helped me land my first job in a better position than I would have gotten otherwise. A degree was a prerequisite in my industry, that has since changed, but there was no way I couldn’t get the degree at the time.

It was a shit job, but it still got my foot in the door.

2. no employer gave a flying F about my education after my first job other than ticking the box by “has degree”.