Masters of Science in Human Resource Management

The M.S. degree in HR is for individuals who want to make a significant contribution in the 21st century. With their ever-increasing responsibilities, human resource managers' compensation has also been increasing. Base salaries for HR professionals continue to climb faster than overall salary increases in the United States. HR pay has risen 5.4 percent in the past year against a 4.2 percent rise in overall U.S. salaries, according to the 2000 Human Resource Management Survey sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management and published by the HR consulting firm William M. Mercer, Inc.

You can enter a career area with high projected growth in numbers of openings and compensation; this applies to students right out of undergraduate school as well as to people changing jobs. The exhibit below portrays the projected growth in openings per year in Illinois to the year 2006. (It should be noted that Exhibit 1 is illustrative in that several other categories comprise the field of human resources, including interviewers and compensation professionals.)

Exhibit 1. Openings for Personnel, Training, & Labor Relations Managers

Almost invariably, college degrees are rewarded with higher incomes in the human resources field. For example, the median income of all supervisory or managerial human resources practitioners is 40% higher with a BA/BS/BBA degree than without any college education; it is 23% higher with a graduate degree than with a BA/BS/BBA degree. A similar but less pronounced pattern was found for non-supervisory HR professionals and even for clerical employees. (For additional HR compensation data, see Exhibit 2.)

Salaries for many human resource (HR) positions are rising faster than overall U.S. salaries, according to a survey conducted by consulting firm William M. Mercer, in conjunction with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The 2000 Human Resource Management Compensation Survey includes data provided by nearly 1,100 companies and covers more than 31,000 employees in 97 HR jobs. Jobs included in the survey range from top HR executives to benefits administrators and clerks.

The new survey found that the median annual total cash compensation for top HR executives (whose duties include industrial relations) was $201,500, up 5.1% from a year ago. For top HR executives without industrial relations responsibilities, it was $195,000, up 9.3% from 1999. The median total cash compensation for other selected HR positions is reported as follows:

HR jobs also exist outside of corporations. For example, there are HR jobs in public service organizations and in consulting firms. The latter are doing work for corporate and public service organizations that outsource some of their HR functions. Some of the big accounting firms have HR practices.

Our M.S. in HR allows more integration of business and human resource functions than is possible in other programs; this allows students to apply HR principles in a competitive business environment. Much of the business literature stresses that HR professionals need to have an increased understanding of the competitive business environment. To address this need, the MS in HR will require that students be exposed to business courses. Most of these will be from DePaul's highly rated MBA program.

An M.S. in HR provides education to a segment of the population with that is relatively untapped. Among the educational trends noted in a report by the AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, is the fact that the number of HR Master's degrees granted by U.S. business schools has increased from 2,179 to 3,716 (71 percent) during the 1992-1997 period. This is second only to MIS master's degrees granted by business schools, which increased from 1,486 to 2,675 (80 percent). Although the absolute numbers are relatively small compared to the number of MBA degrees granted (from 58,619 in 1992 to 96,234 in 1997, or 16 percent), it does indicate an increasing demand for a specialized master's degree in HR.

An indication of the increasing demand for people with specialized training in HR is the number of people taking the HR certification exam from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). According to Sherrie Thuot, a SHRM executive, the number of people taking the exam has increased greatly over the last few years. More specifically, 8,772 took the exam in 1997; 11,300 in 1998 (a 28.8% increase over the previous year); and 15,002 took it in 1999 (a 32.8% increase over 1998). SHRM projects that 18,000 will take it in 2000 and 20,200 will take it in 2001. If those projections hold up, that would be a 130.3% increase from 1997 to 2001. Janie Rollinson, DePaul’s Program Manager for The Center for Human Resources and Training, said that since 2001, the SHRM certification program has helped close to 500 people per year prepare for PHR/SPHR certification. Even if a small percentage of people interested in certification would be interested in a Master’s degree, there would be sufficient market demand for an MS in HR.