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Does a Masters Degree Make a Difference?
By Steve Johnson
According to our survey, it does.
In the 2005 Annual Product Management Salary Survey, we compared product management experience against college versus advanced degrees. In each experience group, the higher degree results in a higher salary.
|
Experience |
Bachelors |
Masters |
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|
00--00 |
$ 71,000 |
$ 84,250 |
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|
01--02 |
59,200 |
82,714 |
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|
03--05 |
72,083 |
84,882 |
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|
06--10 |
82,486 |
94,429 |
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|
11--15 |
95,417 |
99,308 |
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|
15+ |
99,933 |
108,625 |
I remember my father complaining about people with MBAs years ago. He felt that they treated people and projects like numbers on a spreadsheet. And I think we've all seen examples that prove the fiction of "a good manager can manage anything." However, MBA programs teach how to run the business aspects of a product, something technical people tend to avoid.
Product managers garner credibility from a deep understanding of the product combined with broad customer experience. Nonetheless, adding a masters degree to your resume seems to result in adding to your family's bottom line.
MBA or Masters?
Essentially, as many switch their careers into PM having accumulated advanced degrees and experience under their belts, they want to find out if at some point there will be a growth plateau for lack of an MBA (say, it becomes very difficult to become a VP of products).