Originally Posted by FliFast

If this thread has room for an opposing view, I'd like to offer it.
First, I believe if you want some percentages of airline pilots who have degrees -undergrad and graduate-I believe Air Inc maintains this statistic. It's been a few years, but I believe approx. 80% of all 121 pilots have an undergrad degree and only 17% have an MBA-most received while in the military prior to 121 employment.

In a former life, I was a pilot supervisor and assigned to marketing as a Flt Ops liason. I feel my graduate degree didn't hurt me while interviewing for these positions. In addition, it's a blessing to have a job as an airline pilot from the standpoint that you can lose you license and or your medical at any time. Having a plan B might come in handy, but this is just my opinion.

If you do have aspirations about going into airline mangement, a graduate degree can't hurt. However, I've had some absolutely fantastic bosses and a grad. degree wasn't part of their resume. BTW, I have done the management thing, and once was certaintly enough for me. Being a line pilot is the best job at an airline.

If you are thinking a graduate degree will give you a leg-up in the hiring process as a line pilot, you're probably mistaken. In my humble opinion, the best assets to have are network connections, PIC time in aircraft similar to the aircraft used by the employer, and a attitude during the interview that you are the type of pilot that will fit in with your fellow crew members, especially during 5 day trips. Of course, a clean background and a minimum of total flight time goes without saying.

Finally, I did receive my Masters in Aero Science thru Embry Riddle at Andrews AFB. Quite honestly, I did not learn a wealth of information from the textbooks. However, I learned vast amounts of informations from my classmates. My grad. school was set up whereby the students do most of the teaching thru lecture and presentation. Even though my background is civilian, I learned a lot about the workings of the military from classmates stationed at Andrews AFB and civilian contractors assigned to the Pentagon and military contractors. I learned a lot about the F.A.A. and air traffic control from classmates working at these respective employments.
For example, back in the mid-90's the ATC controllers at Andrews AFB were all civillians .
Finally, my degree problem required me to choose a thesis topic, research it, then type a publishable paper. I went from 5 words a minute to 10, but I still have a problem with typos!!!!).

Hope my opposing viewpoint offers some additional information to the original question.

Good Luck