Cheapest and Fastest PHD or Psyd Psychology or Social Work

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No doctorate is fast. None are easy. None are cheap.

The costs are enormous. Not just in terms of tuition and fees, but in terms of time, sacrifice, and opportunity costs. It is a multi-year effort that will draw you in, and draw you away from almost every other aspect of your life.

Doing a doctorate is hard. Doing it for strong motivational reasons is hard enough. Doing for vanity is fraught with danger. When the goal is far away, when the costs stack up, when the fun is gone (and doesn't seem like it will ever return), it helps to remember the deep and meaningful reasons one had for doing it. It can get pretty dark as it is, but if that motivational light goes out, you could get lost.

Doing a doctorate is different than other degrees. You can do a bachelor's or master's by just showing up and doing what you are told. But doing a doctorate means you'll have to identify your niche, your place in your part of the scholarly world, and THEN create the work good/significant/original enough to fill it. That's a tall order; many doctoral students never finish. The boneyard of failed doctorates is littered with the remains of people who didn't have a passion for it. They just signed up and did what they were told to do...until the part where they had to take over.

Doing a doctorate means forming or advancing your professional identity. You will be the result of that work for a very long time--possibly even the rest of your life. It should have more meaning that something you did to get a few more customers or to use the title "doctor." That's not a value judgment. What I'm saying throughout this message is that it likely won't be enough to see you through.

This is why I like the system used by the British (and in many countries), where the candidate has to prove his/her mettle and readiness to do doctoral research BEFORE being admitted to the degree. In the US, one can go years without having the first clue, then BAM! The dissertation comes and destroys you. It's really late in the game to begin figuring things out. Many never do.

Those are some very strong points. Thank you!

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The bonus with University of the Cumberlands is that the counseling education and supervision programs are CACREP-accredited.

If one wanted to do one of the other doctoral programs that allows for a concentration in psychology, one could earn master's-level psychology credits cheaply from Capella's flexpath programs. Just don't do the capstone so that you don't finish the masters.

The Cumberlands PhD in Leadership with Counseling Education & Supervision specialization seems like a very strong choice. Thanks for pointing it out.

$26,400, 6 semesters a year, you can do 2 classes each semester, it seems that I would be able to finish in under 2 years total!

Need to look at it more.

As for the other point you made: If one wanted to do one of the other doctoral programs that allows for a concentration in psychology, one could earn master's-level psychology credits cheaply from Capella's flexpath programs. Just don't do the capstone so that you don't finish the masters.

Would you be able to elaborate?