According to a July 22 article in The New York Times, the master's degree is quickly moving to replace the bachelor's as the expected degree for entry-level jobs. Bachelor's degrees are now considered standard by employers and do not suffice as a method of distinguishing the most qualified job applicants from a pool. Brandeis is in a unique position to meet these rising employment standards by maintaining and expanding its 4-year BA/MA academic programs.

This shift is financially detrimental to students enrolled in standard master's degree programs, as they are now expected to complete and pay for 5 or 6 years of higher education to obtain a full-time job instead of 4 years.

At a public university, such as the University of Connecticut, the fees are lower but can still be significant. The 2010-2011 full-time graduate tuition for Connecticut residents was $4,986, while full-time tuition for out-of-state students was $12,942. At both Brandeis and the University of Connecticut, students must also pay for their own room and board and other mandatory fees from the school. These costs can make obtaining a master's degree a financial obstacle for many.

Some master's programs are overly focused on their students' careers. As a result, they may compromise their quality of education, in order to cater directly to professionals interested in building their résumés. For instance, The College of Brockport: State University of New York has a masters program in Recreation and Leisure Studies; while the University of Florida offers an MICM, which stands for Master's of International Construction Management; and an MAB, a Master's in Agribusiness. The MICM degree at the University of Florida is advertised on the school's website as a program that "eliminates the need to attend any structured classes," which suggests a very limited and artificial interaction with faculty and classmates.

Other universities, noticing the sharp increase in graduate enrollment, are beginning to shape their master's degree programs toward the needs of the marketplace. The New Jersey Institute of Technology even introduced an entirely new group of graduate degree programs, including an M.S. in Emergency Management and Business Continuity and an M.S. in Critical Infrastructure Systems.

It is questionable whether these types of degree programs encourage thoughtful and critical analysis, as they appear to be vocational and mainly geared towards producing marketable employees. A graduate program should allow students to think more deeply about material learned as an undergraduate and use this knowledge to become a more informed and educated global citizen. However, degrees similar to those at the universities mentioned above will not succeed in both of those tasks.

The programs at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, for example, may allow students to think creatively about engineering and design theories that they learned as undergraduates, but it is unlikely that these programs will encourage students to find ways to apply their new skills to thinking about society at large.

Brandeis has the potential to offer a good solution that would rectify the problems associated with this trend toward master's degrees: the 4-year BA/MA programs. These programs allow students to obtain both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in 4 years in a concentration of their choice. Students are able to obtain the master's degree without taking on an additional financial burden from additional years of study, and they are ensured a high-quality graduate education because of the curriculum's foundation in the liberal arts. The structure of the programs ensure that students build directly on material learned in undergraduate classes and use the skills developed through coursework to become more global citizens and find solutions to society's problems.

However, Brandeis has been phasing out these programs over the past couple of years, claiming that the work completed in these programs is closer to an undergraduate honors degree rather than a graduate degree, according to a report from the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering Committee.

Brandeis should focus on expanding these programs instead of discontinuing them to give students the option of obtaining a high-quality graduate education without the burdening costs of graduate tuition. Those students who prefer the combined degree program will be prepared for a competitive job market because of their specialized and advanced skills. Obviously, combined degree programs are not for everyone; many students may prefer to get the full liberal arts experience out of their undergraduate years and have the option of pursuing graduate studies at a later time. However, for those students who want to find a more specialized job right after college or would have trouble affording graduate school costs, the BA/MA program appears to be a good solution.