For people who want to reach the top, a master’s degree, once a leg up, now looks like a bare minimum. In America, about 40% of graduates hold a second degree of some sort. Britain’s universities hand out four advanced degrees for every five undergraduate ones. Yet there are growing reasons to question whether this educational “arms race” is very bright. Data suggest that a staggering number of master’s courses offer students no financial return at all.

Lately researchers have been getting better at figuring out how far master’s degrees boost earnings, across a wide range of disciplines. Their findings, detailed in our story, should shame many universities. But for clever young things, the results are also reassuring. It is perfectly possible to join the elites without handing graduate colleges a king’s ransom.