Explosive number of RA doctorates being awarded?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by me again, Mar 28, 2010.

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  1. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    There definitely appears to be an explosive growth in the number of people pursuing RA doctoral degrees, BUT are there really an explosive number of RA doctoral degrees actually being awarded???

    Here's some interesting reading:

    http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf10308/

    http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf10308/nsf10308.pdf
     
  2. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member


    It doesn't look like it with award increases of around 20% for science & engineering doctorates and around 22% growth for business doctorates over the period 1998 - 2008. And many of these were awarded to non-citizens of the USA.

    Checking US demographics and assuming these doctorate awarded to 30 year olds the US population increased by 11% in the 1970 - 1980 decade.

    So population growth may account for some the growth in doctorate awards and possibly the increased number of women earning doctorates accounts for some of the growth. An interesting topic.
     
  3. Dr.B

    Dr.B New Member

    Definitely interesting, agreed. Are doctoral degrees still at something like 1% or less of the population, overall, I wonder? I notice that the field in which I teach and the field in which I have my highest degree are both down a bit as to degrees awarded.
     
  4. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    You won't be seeing an exponential growth this year or next year as most online doctorate programs are just too new. The real growth will be 4 or 5 years from now in particular in the education and business fields. The argument is that new doctorate programs target professionals and not academics but I question how much valuable is for a professional to take a bunch of prepackaged courses and do a "dissertation light" or "professional project".
    Most business professionals are in demand because of their achievements or more specification business certifications such as CPA, CFA, etc. Most of these "new age" doctorates still include MBA type courses but are prepackaged as "Doctoral courses" and use dissertation advisors that are paid by dissertation supervised and completed ("rented faculty") and have a clear financial interest to graduate as many as possible.

    The old model of having full time tenure faculty supervising the dissertation is disappearing and being replaced by the free lance paid as you go faculty that clearly has an interest to graduate as many as possible new doctors and might put the academic integrity at stake.

    Some people from Australia and the UK have mentioned that in these countries distance education doctorates are regarded as equal as on campus but this is mainly due to fact that both programs use the same faculty and resources. In the US, it looks like doctoral education is being regarded as a gold mine that needs to be exploited as fast as possible.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 28, 2010

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