Fancy-name degree/institution going to "low-level" job

And without experience, you can have no results. The odds of experience indicating proficiency are better than someone who just went to school but has no experience. Least one has practice.

True, but it's not the be all and end all. Think "seniority" and you'll have a decent idea of what I'm thinking of.

Oh I know, but I kind of agree with that, because I'm biased against people who went to school but never held a serious job and want to hit that 80k+ bracket the first time they are employed full time.

Mostly because of a friend I had in high school. I got a job at 16, paid for a car while I was still 16, joined the military and worked my way to decent pay and got my degree on the cheap, and now I'm just getting into a decent income bracket.

I mean I know school isn't necessarily easy, but it just pisses me off to have people moving into their first serious job making that much money, regardless of how good they are, since I started at rock bottom being full time in fast food, and then an Airman.

I agree with that. Frankly, I think that's one of the reasons why junior and senior-level students need to take internships for their chosen career field. A lot of interns get a wake-up call when they realize what comes after college. I've known plenty of people to either change their major or drop out of college all together after taking an internship. Then again, I know people who got their jobs out of pure nepotism, and the college degree was just a perfunctory requisite.

I think my first full time job, I earned eight dollars an hour. I never got to see the benefits package because I had to go back to school.

Starting to look for jobs now. I tell you its hard getting work in the public sector at the moment, no matter how good your degree.

Okay well I think I missed it in the entire thread but...

a) What type of degree is it?

Type matters a lot when finding a job.

b) What specific industry is the target?

Some are doing better than others right now.

I mean, if for instance, you had a masters from Purdue for Computer Engineering, you can get a 60-80k starting job fairly easily at the key tech companies. However, if instead you had a masters of History and you wanted to become say a high-level position at a museum, that market is substantially more difficult.

Also, joining the military for the purpose of earning an education doesn't particularly make sense to me. You should be joining the military... because you want to join the military. I think there's a fairly clear separation in the point of your job duties in a civilian versus a military life.