SHSU has lowered their prices for an MA in History by distance education. They used to charge exorbitant out-of-state fees to everyone outside of Texas. Their board of regents has just recently set the cost at $586 per three semester hour course, which is pretty reasonable for what they offer. www.shsu.edu Dave
Maybe that is because there is not a really big demand for people with an MA in History. I have an MA in History from SHSU --- would you like creame with your coffee????
I suppose that it might come as a shock to many Degreeinfo participants who think of a degree simply as a job credential, but there are actually people out there that are interested in history. It's true! And if you have a "day job", so to speak, then pursuing that interest through DL becomes a very attractive proposition. I have argued repeatedly that distance education is particularly well suited for advanced education in those humanities subjects in which interest is high but job opportunities are scarce. Many students simply can't justify spending the better part of ten years in full time on-campus work pursuing a traditional doctorate. Opening these fields up to people with a serious interest, even a passion for the subject, but making it possible to pursue that passion while earning a living and supporting a family, will only be beneficial. Teaching them will create more job opportunities in their field. They will produce valuable scholarship (albeit at a considerably lower rate than full-time on-campus professionals). They will provide an additional market for scholarly publishers. They will provide a large talent pool for avocational and volunteer work. And increasing the general intellectual sophistication of the population has to be a good thing. Much of this prospective student population is probably of non-traditional age and probably doesn't anticipate dropping their current career in order to become a scholar-gypsy, moving ceaselessly around the country in pursuit of a succession of short term adjunct teaching gigs. So they won't represent a lot of additional competition for the young academic careerists. Besides, people with history MAs do manage to find work. There are more than a thousand community colleges in the US. Many secondary schools hire history BAs, but pressure them to earn masters degrees. And there are uses for history degrees in museums and historical parks, archival or historical preservation work, writing and so on.
