Too Many Master's Degrees

[dcan]

Thought some folks here would enjoy this. Guess this has been a perpetual problem.

From Time Magazine, 1951:

Masters' degrees are getting to be as common among scholars as good conduct medals among the military: during the past year the M.A. (in an assortment of more than 55 fields) was awarded to nearly 60,000 people. Last week Dr. Edgar W. Knight, professor of education at the University of North Carolina, told faculty and students of the George Peabody School for Teachers that what the U.S. public now needs is protection from such wholesale handouts.

Source. But you need a subscription to read the whole thing, which I don't have. Still it seems relevant today.

[cookderosa]

Thought some folks here would enjoy this. Guess this has been a perpetual problem.

From Time Magazine, 1951:



Source. But you need a subscription to read the whole thing, which I don't have. Still it seems relevant today.

I think the growth of BA to MA is considerably faster than HS diploma to BA. The undergrad completion rate is criminal btw. Ranges from 2-7 per 100 will earn their BA in 4 years. At 8 years from their first semester, only 13 of 100 will have graduated. I can give my opinions as to why, there are a lot imo. BUT, among the group that holds BAs? I think they are snatching up MAs left and right. With distance access to RA schools, maybe even the same state school you attended for B&M undergrad? Yes, goldmine. Seriously though, who needs a masters? Teachers (automatic pay bump) and business people (MBA sounds very good). What are the leading online masters? MBAs and MAs in education.

[CLEP101]

Thought some folks here would enjoy this. Guess this has been a perpetual problem.

Looks like I'll worry about this if I ever complete one Masters, let alone two or more. hilarious

[ryoder]

Instant raises for graduate degrees in public jobs is partly to blame IMHO. The day that you get your masters you get a raise. That makes no sense. This creates a very strong built in demand for advanced degrees.

"The preponderance of evidence suggests that teachers who have completed graduate degrees are
not significantly more effective at increasing student learning than those with no more than a
bachelor’s degree." http://cecr.ed.gov/guides/researchSynthe...Q%20A2.pdf

And it gets worse. Apparently teacher experience doesn't matter either.

"The National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed
positive effects on student achievement in states with large proportions of teachers who had at
least two years of experience, but no evidence that additional years of experience were
associated with higher achievement. Gordon, Kane, and Staiger (2006) found large gains in
teacher effectiveness between the first and second year of teaching, much smaller gains between
the second and third year, and no substantial improvement after the third year in the classroom."

People should be paid for performance, not for potential for performance. That is all a degree does. It is an indication of past academic performance and future potential work performance.
I have multiple industry certifications and I hear all the time how they should not factor into one's salary and that they are not a good indicator of performance. The same can be said for a degree.

[dcan]

I have multiple industry certifications and I hear all the time how they should not factor into one's salary and that they are not a good indicator of performance. The same can be said for a degree.

I don't understand this thinking at all. Either a specific cert has weight in your job, or it doesn't. Blanket statements like that are pointless.

Then again, where I work we have to be DoD 8570 certified, which means we require Security+ certification (for what we do), some others need A+ and Net+ (other comparable certs will qualify as well, doesn't have to be CompTIA). And DoD is now adding con-ed requirements to maintain certification in order to keep doing our jobs. Our positions are coded in such a way that to sit in the position requires the certification(s) as well as security clearance, experience, etc. Our personnel files are updated to reflect certification. Other positions require certs like CISSP, etc.

But it makes sense within the DoD to do it that way because it is an easier way to ensure a base level of knowledge for many tens of thousands of people around the world. Individual companies don't really have that kind of problem. In industry your experience and reputation are worth more than gold, vs government that has to have a much more impartial selection and assignment process for a great many legitimate reasons.

[ryoder]

I know it doesn't make sense but I have received a lot of raised eyebrows for my certs:
MCSE, MCSD, CISSP, SCJP, Network+


The MCSE was about 8 certs rolled into one (WinNT 4 WS, WinNT 4 Server, TCP/IP, Networking Essentials, Front Page, IIS 3, and others I cannot remember). The MCSD was 7 certs (2 C++,2 C#, 2 VB, analyzing requirements), and of course the CISSP was a 5 hour long paper test. Many people think that those certs are not important in my personal experience.

[rhapsodyinblue]

ryoder, did you study for those certs online or take classes through a brick and mortar school? I was just curious because I am going to start working on some of those as well.