Why do we spend huge amount of money on university degrees and still remain jobless? A friend of mine during nysc in 2011 had his first degree with good grade in a reputable university in Nigeria before enrolling for his master degree in UK. He spent over 4 million naira to complete the master degree programme. After he completed his master degree in uk, he came back to Nigeria about 8 months ago to look for a job. Since then, he is jobless. He search for jobs in Nigeria but he can't get it.
Yesterday, he paid me a visit at home and we were discussing generally. He told me he regret ever pursuing his master degree. He said graduates are doing menial jobs like cleaner, security, nanny etc in uk.That university education is a scam in modern day. Cause you spend huge money to study, still no guarantee of any decent job after gradaution. He concluded the 4 million naira he spent to enrol his master programme in uk, that if he had used it to start a business in Nigeria then, he will be better off. He is so broke cause his parents have left him on his own. He got a job in an engineering firm a week ago. He does not know whether to accept it or not.

Where did he get the 4m to pay for his masters? I sugest he shld try getting some small capital and start off a small bizness. I'm sure he"ll make more than 40k a month in any bizness he goes into.

wait oo na because in carry uk masters degree de tink say naija go lick in a$$$ so tei in de tink weda to reject 40k job? leavam when hunger deal with am in go know wazup. and nobody should say im rude pls

Accept it bro. You are not alone. Take this humbling experience and make the best of it. Learn as much as you can with the engineering coy that's taken you in. Be upbeat and keep chasing your dreams. He that is faithful and prudent with little can be trusted with plenty.
Do not despise humble beginnings because everything happens for a reason. This phase you're in is temporary and its gon pass..but the lessons you can learn now if you put your head down are invaluable.

Though the pay might be discouraging but the experience he gets on the job coupled with his educational qualification would help him in getting a better job. FACT is most good paying jobs except trainee positions require experience.

The problem is: even with a UK Masters degree, you still have to compete with the many BSc holders for the few job openings. Though having a masters could be an added advantage, but relevant work experience, honing your test & interview skills are a lot more essential & could suffice in landing you a good job offer.

Erase the thought of having already acquired a Masters, hone your test & interview skills, manage that job for now (for the experience), keep hunting for better opportunities & I'm sure all will be well in due time.

Take the job, grab the experience, give in ur best, watch and see if the company will increase the pay and at the same time, start up a small venture as well as continue submitting application for other job openings.

"An idle man is the devil's workshop", they would say.

Tell ur friend to stop crying over spilled milk, let him start up d new job and continue the job hunt. Despise not the days of little beginning! A lot of lessons to learn from his predicament though.

Tell your friend to accept the offer,as far as he would have time to attend interview if there's opening somewhere else.

I always see as silly a poor man selling off properties to get a uk masters wen he kws he ll return to nigeria to look for job. Its a waste wen he could have done same masters in unn, unilag, unibadan, abu, unilorin, oau etc.

He shld take d job asap n start growing frm there since he doesn't ve much connection. Wat a wastage 4m, he would ve used 500k n do masters in naija n save 3.5m. Masters na masters those top nigeria uni have produced ppl who changed things in nigeria more than those dt went to harvard prof soludo n prof dora world changers both had masters in d prestigious unn. Super lion n lioness.

D worst is ppl rushin to ukraine for studies n payin so so much for it all na I sch abroad

Maybe they swear for him

Your friend is not alone. I took a cab in Oxford, and the driver is a Nigerian, he told me he has got his masters but couldn't secure a decent job. And if you think N3M is a lot. I know of a profession that gulped N35M in world class institutions and still couldn't secure a job. And trust me, I am not exaggerating about the cost. In my experience, nothing guarantees a job, not even a certificate from Oxford or Cambridge, it takes more.

Tell him not to take the job,there will soon be an opening in Chevron,where the salary is #4m annually..

In the year 2030 for his grandchildren.

The problem with the job is the meager salary. He is thinking that with 40k salary, how is he going to settle down and be comfortable? Concerning the 4 million naira he used to do his master degree, its his parents that finance him with their retirement money. But his dad told him that they have invested enough on him and his younger ones next. He feels betrayed with his huge investment in post graduate education.

Yomieluv:
Tell him not to take the job,there will soon be an opening in Chevron,where the salary is #4m annually..

In the year 2030 for his grandchildren.

*wipe tears*

Ppl need to wake up from this uk/abroad masters.
It can't take d place of experience.
It is so annoying to see some cvs sometimes even more than one masters from the uk and d guys are brought in to Nigerian firms at entry level for lack of experience.
And dis guys takes dis costly uk masters programme like it's d main thing.
High time our ppl learnt d bitter reality and end of uk masters with little or no work experience.

Hmmmm my elder broda went tru same experience wen he returned 2 naija after schooling abroad ...He cried wen a coy told him dey can't pay him more than 75k and dat he is not d only foreign trained graduate....He was realy depressed and frustrated .But my dad told him 2 take d offer and promised 2 give him additional pocket money 4 d main time ...and within 8 months on dat job, God gave him a beta job with a multinational oil coy with super pay...Tell ur friend 2 accept d offer but he shld beg his parents 2 assist him 4 d main time with some additional fund 4 his up Keep and tfare untill he get a beta job...because 40k salary can not take him any were o..as in up keep and self maintenance.

4m naira is equal to 40k job?

And here we'll be seeing someone saying polytechnics are better off universities or otherwise, other than getting obsessed on how to secure a good Job after leaving school.... Am so sure if someone should table that matter of poly or uni to your friend now, he might be mad at the person... No time to check on time... Let's be concern on how to secure a good Job....

Employers don't pay for the country of origin of ur certificate rather they pay for the value u can add to their org.

@ op, tell ur frnd to take the job and prove his worth in the org, then he can request for a pay rise...believe me no employer want to part with their best hand. Like my boss would say, if u are truly good, then ur first job shud be d only time u submit a CV,every oda job u get would come thru referals or competitors pouching u. So let ur frnd take the 40k salary job and prove to them dat his 4M rated UK master's is no beans.

rattlesnake:
Maybe they swear for him

Though funny, you may actually be right.

Most people i know that studied abroad for their masters almost always have rich parents/relatives with connections here and there that can help them secure a job, or the parents have a business they want such a child to manage after School.

Doesn't make sense for a poor man's child to rush abroaf for masters. Pls tell your friend to grab the job fast and leave what people will say out of the matter. He should work hard and put aside that air of 'i did my masters abroad' cos as they say here' ko kan aye!'

I use to wonder why those that go to europe especially UK end up coming back home and searching for jobs that are hard to come by these days, my neighbour as a case of study he went to the Uk and did his msc and sleeping @ home for the past one year, it now got me thinking that Nigerians who go to US or Canada to their PG studies hardly come back home afterwards @Op this is a very important lesson we should all learn from your friends predicament that studying abroad ain't no guarantee of job, in the already saturated unemployment market instead of one wasting 4M to run his msc abroad and still come back home to search for jobs why can't that individual do his masters in either 1st or 2nd generation universities in Nigeria and invest the remaining funds in business(s) at home after all masters na masters!!! May God help us all Amin

Is investment in education a crime? I don't think so. Its just that nigerian unemployment rate is ridiculous. In an ideal society, my friend ought to get a well paid job. when you factor in all the cost of his education, I think he deserve a better salary. Even 40k salary is poor for a fresh graduate compare to master degree holder. Blame the society and not him. cause education is the best legacy. Its not his choice to come back to Nigeria to search for job. Its just that uk has cancelled its post study visa. when you finish ur schooling there, you must come back to ur home country. No job too in uk.

Blame the society for high rate of unemployment?
I wont buy that line.
I think we should be moving towards taking responsibility.
Even in the land of unemployment, young guys are switching cool paying jobs like a nursing mum changing a baby's nappies.
Lets not get it twisted,basic Qualification is the requisite necessity,masters quali is primarily an added advantage while on the job experience is the ultimate spring board.

The fact remains that when most Nigerians are in the Uk they forget to apply for jobs both here and in Nigeria and also fail to add strategic value to themselves.

Imagine if your friend could speak French as well as English language,imagine if he had been applying to Nigeria whilst studying, imagine if he can draught engineering drawing in autocad, Finite element analysis, etc.

When you are in school Nigeria or foreign , in your masters or bachelors degree level always keep your eyes on the bigger picture.

Apply for jobs. Btw I will not take a 40k job. A barbing saloon will yield more than that in a month.

hm what course did he study?

My advice,Before he takes the job he should consider many factors,you shouldn't use because of experience and suffer yourself for months,with the high transport and feeding rate imagine what would be left in the 40k coupled with the stressful wahala...Although he has to start from somewhere,it could be dis job or not....

1st Bullet
Op, your friend should v known that UK degree doesn't guarantee sure employment in Nigeria where there's massive unemployment.
He/she should be prepared to manage any job till the big fish arrive.
Some people I know that do masters in UK & other oversea countries took that opportunity to later live & work there.

Nightingale99:
Accept it bro. You are not alone. Take this humbling experience and make the best of it. Learn as much as you can with the engineering coy that's taken you in. Be upbeat and keep chasing your dreams. He that is faithful and prudent with little can be trusted with plenty.
Do not despise humble beginnings because everything happens for a reason. This phase you're in is temporary and its gon pass..but the lessons you can learn now if you put your head down are invaluable.

Your post is calm. Its a post that gives hope to the hopeless.
2nd Bullet
If a man can invest N4m on masters in the UK, then that person must be very sure about getting job when he/she return to Nigeria. In the case where the person came back & started job hunting like the common Nigerian graduates & postgraduates, you ll ask why he/she wasted N4m on Msc in the UK.
Last Bullet
I v the intention to still do my Msc in abroad for a diff reason. Not to come back to Nigeria & start looking for jobs.
N4m is huge enough to start a business that will grow so large into billions.

martyns303:
In my experience, nothing guarantees a job, not even a certificate from Oxford or Cambridge, it takes more.

You have said it all and If someone has certificate from Harvard/Oxford/Cambridge such a person is in trouble because you have more to prove to your employer before you would be takened on merit and pay in Millions !!........
There is no need for marketing to pass exams ... Some masters programme abroad doesn't even require exams but projects and seminars papers ..... you need a good marketing skills , experience and self-defence skills to grab a good job .... To grab certificate is one thing , to sell it for millions is another thing .... It is not automatic

Maybe he even studied in a lower ranked University in UK taaaa .. OYO is your case !

I think the most important thing for your friend is self awareness. He needs to do a SWOT analysis on himself. He needs to have a career vision. He needs to know his calling. He needs to know what he wants to be doing in 5 years time, 10 years time etc.He needs to know what turns him on. He needs to have a passion for at least one thing and focus his energy learning all he could to be an expert in that field. Above all, he needs to be a continuous learner. I'll recommend 2 books. 1. 'Do what you love and money will follow'. The author's name is something Sinatra, can't remember her first name now, I read this book some 7 years ago. And the second book is titled 'the Age of unreason' by Charles Handy. He created an equation 1/2(2 x 3) to help us make sense of this turbulent job market we are experiencing.

You see, it's difficult to get a decent job in this period we are in any where in the world. The so called advanced countries are struggling to provide decent jobs for their teeming youth population- I'm sure u'll remember movements like Occupied wall street, 99% vs 1% in the US,the Arab spring etc. From the US to the UK, Greece to Spain the stories are not palatable not to mention a third world country like Nigeria. I think the cause of this phenomenon is Globalisation and recently compounded by the global economic metldown created by the subprime morgage collapse in the US housing market, and the Euro crisis. So, the world is experiencing a gloomy job situation, though the unemployment numbers in the US is taking shape now which is good for the world economy. Why I'm giving this background is to let you know that your situation is not peculiar to you, and It's not country specific as well.

So, to directly attend to his situation. First, I'll like for him to stop regretting taking his UK master's education because it's really a big asset for him. The fact that he hasn't gotten a big catch with it doesn't mean that quality education is a no no even in this type of economy.The cultural diversity experience is a really big turn on for multinational organizations. Also, the perceived quality of foreign degrees in Nigeria is great, though some mushroom colleges abroad have watered down this quality that made employers not to put premium on some of these schools. I don't know the university he attended in the UK because that also plays a big role in landing a big time job immediately after grad school. In the UK, I think LSE (London School of Economics) was the only UK school that made the global top 10 university ranking by the Economists and the Business week last year, even Said Business School of Oxford University didn't make the list. And off course, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Dartmouth, MIT, Wharton school, INSEAD etc were in the list, and I'm sure your friend will know far better than some of us that to attend this schools not only cost fortune, the GMAT scores are also very high. So, if he had attended any of these schools, his chances of landing a big time job immediately after the degree would have been as high as 8/10 because of the strong network of alumni of these schools at the 'C- gang' of big time organizations. In other words, what I'm saying is (and for the rest of us), if you wanna take a foreign degree solely because of landing a big time job that will cover your cost in the shortest possible time, you have to be ready to invest in one of those big league schools.

Second. 'He said graduates are doing menial jobs like cleaner, security, nanny etc in uk'... This is another issue I'm really interested in. May be the question I'll ask is, why are they doing those 'odd' jobs? You see, values have been eroded in our society that we think so little of the folks doing those so called low jobs. If everybody is doing white collar jobs, who will do the blue collar jobs for us? Who will build the houses we will live in? who will clean our streets? who will attend to our kids when we are at work? So, to me there's no big deal in doing those work, especially when you know why you are doing it. Have we forgotten that there's dignity in labour? We all praise China, do we know how Chinese work? It's been said that they are the most disciplined workers on earth. Go to all those Asian countries and see what they are doing differently from the rest of the world that shot them to top position in the world economy. They have a blue collar approach to whatever they are doing, they don't hang certificates like us, they roll their sleeves doing the work. That reminds me, Dangote advertised for drivers a year or two ago and it was said that PhD holders applied for that job not to mention Master's and BSc degree holders that applied in record numbers. So, to me, it's not what you do that matters, it's why you're doing what you are doing and I think that's what gives you meaning.

Third. 'That university education is a scam in modern day'. It's not true that university education is a scam in modern day, the question is still why do I have to take a university education? Apart from that, we all need great education., in fact it should be a basic human right. Great institutions have been built by those that have been soundly educated. Great discoveries have been made in Science, Engineering, Medicine, Technology, Construction, Internet, Nanotechnology, Robotics, Artificial intelligence, Genome sequencing, Space exploration etc through education. Even China and India has to educate their kids in the US and the UK before they could build their manufacturing and technology capabilities to the levels we all appreciate now. So, what we might need to figure out is if the skills I'll develop from the university education can be obtained elsewhere either through apprenticeship or on the job training or thru other mode of delivery and pursue that rather than attending because the society thinks is the in thing. I'm sure your friend will want his physician to be thoroughly educated in Medicine before he can allow him to attend to him.

Fourth. 'He concluded the 4 million naira he spent to enrol his master programme in uk, that if he had used it to start a business in Nigeria then, he will be better off'. It's not out-rightly true that the business will succeed. Infact if it's true, he won't be looking for a decent job for so long. In advanced countries it's SMEs that employ people in their numbers and not all those big time jobs. They are known to be the driver of growth in any economy and our job situation is in dire situation because we are not paying enough attention at every level to our SMEs. You see, our society has paid so much premium on paid employment that entrepreneurship (though being wired in our DNA) doesn't come to us naturally. What we were taught by the society is, go to school, get a good grade and look for a job. So, if everybody is in this rat race, who will now create the enterprises for people to work in. This is the state of our society and it must change. Don't get me wrong, I know there are people that will be intrapreneurs but for you to be an entrepreneur that will multiply N4m you need a different mindset and set of skills entirely. Statistics have shown that 85% of small businesses die within 18 months. with this type of stats, how will you start and grow the business? coupled with our own peculiar difficult business environment, I so much doubt that he will double that money. Infact, if your friend could grow that N4m if given as cash he wouldn't have finished his masters degree program, he would have dropped out and use the school fees to fuel his business idea in his first year in school. Entrepreneurs are always hungry and impatient. They want to quickly put that idea to test before anyone else. So, this is another issue in our society that needs to be addressed seriously for us to make headway. Entrepreneurship education as to be a course for everybody in our school system from primary to tertiary. Starting and growing a business is far more challenging than getting a job, you need to know how to raise money, how to sell and do marketing, how to lead and manage people, how to keep the books, how to move the business from a start up to a growing business, how to write a business plans and model, you need to be able to know how to cope without salary. So, it's no joke and that's why it's called a tiger and you must know how how to tame it before going into it.

Fifth. 'He got a job in an engineering firm a week ago. He does not know whether to accept it or not.' Like I said earlier, why engineering? is that what you wanna do? If that's the field you wanna make a difference in and solve a great engineering problem for us, why not take it, even without any salary? You see, we youth of nowadays are so focused on living big, riding range rover without paying the price of hardwork and apprenticeship first. We don't wanna delay gratification anymore. Life is a process and we always run into trouble because we don't wanna go thru the process. If engineering is his thing, he should cool down and learn all he needs to learn for say 1 or 2 years, redo his CV and go pitch for a higher paying job or if he likes the team and still wanna work for them he has to work hard and keep asking for what he feels he really worth because now he's not only having academic knowledge of the field, you now has skills to solve specific engineering problems. And you know, to employers it's all about the superior value you are bringing to the table. I totally agree that 40k is too small by any standard, but that's what it is, he has to figure out what turns him on and go for it. Nobody can stop him except himself.