With the professional job market increasingly competitive, more working adults than ever are returning to school to earn their master’s degrees, and more traditional-aged students are working straight through their bachelor’s and going into a master’s program, sometimes with the 4+1 programs that many universities now offer (earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree together in only 5 years).įor most students, traditional residential graduate programs are the most effective way to get a degree and leverage it into a satisfying career with the connections and partnerships that the best research universities provide.