My feelings toward Capella are generally neutral. But some of the salesy talk in that press release really irks me. It may well be one of the first Masters in "analytics" but it is certainly not the first program of this type (and hardly the most prestigious in the running). Programs in "Data Analytics" or "Business Analysis" and "Data Science" have been on the scene for a few years now. Heck, Stanford has a pretty nice certificate (include grad certificate) series on the subject taught by one of the leading experts in data science and machine learning. Of course, I've expressed my preference to a certificate from a good school rather than a masters from a mediocre school before. On the one hand I'm always happy to see new programs. On the other hand I see this as a sign of saturation in the analytics field. Pretty soon, the market will be flooded with over educated and under skilled data analysts. When people are under or unemployed they have a tendency to rush back to school to earn another degree. Over the past few years, the MBA was the drug of choice. Now, it will probably be the MS in Analytics. But hey, maybe these programs will actually succeed in teaching people a marketable skill and society will be better off in the end. At least, we can hope, right?
