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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
Degree




Masters
Degree

00--00





$ 71,000




$ 84,250

01--02





 59,200




 82,714

03--05





 72,083




 84,882

06--10





 82,486




 94,429

11--15





 95,417




 99,308

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?

Posted by Ioana Sundius at 2009-08-02 03:52 PM
This survey is great for deciding to stay in school or not. The career-changing question is actually whether the data would bear going back specifically for an MBA, vs. resting content with a MSCS or PhD in CS. The salary (and title!) survey I'd like to see is MSEE/MSCS/MSOther vs. MBA: salary and role (PM, Senior PM, Line PM, Director of PM, VP, etc) vs. experience for the technical MS vs MBA crowd.

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).

updated stats for 2010

Posted by Steve Johnson at 2011-10-10 12:56 PM
Comparing results for MBA vs MS, the 2010 data show an Engineering degree results in higher income on average:
$95,188 for an MBA vs.
$107,600 for an MS.

Other masters degrees receive $97,800.

So again, I'm not sure it makes you a better manager, but a masters gets you slightly better money over your lifetime.

Money aside

Posted by Mark Reedy at 2011-10-17 04:42 PM
Steve, recouping your investment in an MBA over 5-10 years aside... Would you be more likely to higher an PM just because he/she has an MBA? Maybe the question is better posed by saying would a candidate not having an MBA result in automatic exclusion as a candidate?

I hire for skill

Posted by Steve Johnson at 2011-10-17 07:11 PM
Maybe it's just me, but I hire for domain expertise rather than education. I hired one product manager who did not have a college degree, much less a masters. I certainly would never discount a qualified candidate over a Masters, but an MBA might result in a preference between two similarly qualified candidates. It seems to me that American companies may value higher education less than others do.

That said, the postings for the tech industry tend to say "masters preferred but not required."