'The Biggest Mistake I Ever Made': Master's Degree Holder Rejected by 400 Employers

Cassidy Kulhanek graduated with a master's degree and then was rejected for 400 jobs.

Kulhanek, 28, of Chicago, spoke to Newsweek today after a tweet of hers from April 7, resurfaced on social media—mainly in Reddit's "antiwork" community, which has over 1.5 million members.

Her tweet—under the Twitter handle @HeavenlyGrandpa—was posted by another Reddit user Sunday and has since been upvoted over 55,000 times. In her tweet, Kulhanek said, "After getting rejected from now over 200 jobs I applied to I can confidently say that getting a masters was the biggest mistake I ever made."

Kulhanek told Newsweek she posted the tweet about halfway through her job search, which ultimately lasted about a year. She said she was eventually rejected for about 400 jobs during the entire span of her search.

Currently, she is an art consultant who loves her job—which she said "has radically changed" her quality of living since being hired in August.

She now has more time and energy for her passions, which include comedy and art. She doesn't have "that sinking feeling of being a failure anymore."

But it took a difficult path of realization to get to where she is now.

In undergrad she double-majored in studio art and German language studies, later working as an assistant preparator at a local museum.

"When my contract ended I reapplied for the position and was replaced with someone who had a master's—and that was part of the reasoning I was given by my supervisors at the museum," Kulhanek said. "I didn't want to lose out on another job because I was lacking that degree."

She then received her master's in studio art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It wasn't long until one employer after another passed on her, causing depression, frustration and making her feel "very foolish."

"I learned so much from my degree and I do value the connections I made and the education I got, but that wasn't paying my bills," she said. "I was struggling to buy food. I kept wondering how different things would be for me if I had instead been working and saving money over the time that I spent in grad school.

"I worked retail and restaurant jobs all through undergrad and grad school, and I found myself wondering if I would eventually have to returnn to the service industry to make ends meet again."

Kulhanek's situation is not that unique. According to data from The Center for American Progress, graduate programs enroll 15 percent of all higher education yet they compose about 40 percent of federal student loans issued annually. That is more than $37 billion in annual loans, or 20 percent higher than the total annual undergraduate borrowing at public colleges.

The website Education Data said that master's degrees typically cost between $30,000 and $120,000 depending on the school, major and length of the program. The average cost hovers around $66,000, while a master's degree in art costs higher on average at $72,800.

Master's degrees from public institutions typically cost approximately $27,000 less than degrees from private institutions. Receiving a master's is usually a two-year process.

Jared Bass, senior director for higher education at The Center for American Progress, told Newsweek that graduate-based student loans represented approximately 46 percent of all loans originated in the 2020-21 award year, which is about 6 percentage points higher than the aforementioned CAP data from January 2020.

The total loan volume for 2020-21 decreased overall, though the graduate total increased slightly by a little over $2.2 billion.

He referenced Bureau of Labor Statistics data that looked at the current population and occupations that rely on master's degrees and average weekly earnings. While an individual without a high school diploma might make $781 per week, and someone with a bachelor's degree might make about $1,300 per week, a master's degree can net over $1,500 weekly in certain instances.

"Traditionally, the higher level of attainment the more money you're supposed to make," Bass said. "Based on these numbers from 2020, that held true even with the pandemic."

It depends on industry and occupation, he added, but wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in graduate enrollment when the newest data is released for the current academic year.

Education was originally intended to be "The Great Equalizer," Bass noted, though the pandemic has exposed racial, gender and class-based inequities. Also, unemployment data has shown that different sectors affected can be broken down by industry and education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed work, or the idea of work. The "antiwork" subreddit has stemmed from the movement of giving employees more power.

Some replies involving Kulhanek's tweet sarcastically mention companies "desperately" needing employees, but not paying fair-enough wages to hire them.

One user claimed many employers want to hire someone with a top-10 education who is willing to accept pay in the bottom 10 percent of the workforce, working based on loyalty—even if it results in he or she being among the first laid off during an economic downturn.

Another user said education is only a small piece of the puzzle.

"Everyone I know who's found a job in the last few years got it through somebody who knew somebody," the user commented. "Zero jobs were found through online applications."

Other users also questioned Kulhanek's motives for getting a master's degree in an art-related field—which even she admits is not entirely off-base.

"The job market in the arts is shamefully small and I knew that going into my degrees," she said. "I would say to them, though, that it is our fault collectively for not valuing the humanities and not creating more opportunities in that sector. And frankly, that argument is kind of irrelevant in this instance anyway. I was applying for any and all jobs I felt that I had the slightest of qualifications for. Art jobs only made up a small fraction of the things to which I applied."

The messages she received from strangers ranged from very supportive and encouraging, to being "mocked pretty relentlessly" and called various names.

"I was shocked at the complete lack of empathy, as well as the blindness to the fact that this is not just a problem for people like me with 'worthless' degrees," she said. "People are struggling to find work—and struggling further to make a living, not just have a job. I think a lot of people have yet to confront the fact that right now having a job does not mean you're able to survive. That's not a failure of those struggling. That's a collective failure."

She added that even though she only had to pay for one semester of her master's program, she still went nearly $20,000 in debt. Due to student loan payments being postponed again, she is not sweating it—at least right now.

Updated 12/27/2021, 3:08 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with comments from Jared Bass and additional information.