Lowest Cost PHD/DBA

This calculation is missing the "opportunity cost". The time invested in getting the degree can also be considerable. Even at $20/hr, let's say that you invest 3 years and a half times 20hrs a week, this is about 3500 hrs x 20 =$72K.

As you mentioned the CPA, this could be seen as a much better "ROI" opportunity. As a CPA, you can charge between $50 to 100 an hour as a consultant on the side instead of the 25/hr that pays a typical online class. The cost is much lower that a low tier DBA. However, some might see the CPA more difficult than a low tier DBA as you need to pass a rigorous exam.

 

Assuming of course you can build a client list that is willing to pay you $50-100 per hour (I am both a w2 employee and small biz owner...trust me you cannot snap your fingers and have 20 hours per week of billable income)

Whereas each school that hires you (or gives you more classes) that is worth xxx clients at $250 each per month.

You CAN take a class (for a future income) or you MIGHT get a client.... more of a qualitative measurement. So yes there is a POTENTIAL opportunity cost... but I suspect the actual opportunity cost is LESS TV time and time with your family.

 

That's the RA doctorate for me. Where can I find one that only allows me only LESS tv and family time. Even while at NCU, I spent more than that.

 

There is also the risk factor. I'm noticing a ton of new doctoral programs in management. As the number of doctorates increase, I wonder what will be a realistic chance of getting adjunct work in 5 or 10 years from now as doctorates are coming out in the thousands range.

At few places where adjunct, they haven't hired new people in ages as the number of students keep shrinking due to the massive amount of online programs available. I also notice that there are less people interested in MBAs nowadays as these programs have little ROI unless they come from a top tier school.

I would be cautious for an online PhD, a CPA would make more sense as it is less costly. If you already have the "customers" with your MBA and just need the "online" doctorate to increase your market value, I would say go for it even at the 50-70K. If you are new in the business with little work experience, I would say think it twice as you might just end with another expensive piece of paper.

 

Probably people will run out of money before then. They keep jacking up the price of tuitions every year and wages are not escalating at the same scale. If one is needing to make a living with the extra pay one might receive from a doctorate, doing adjunct work, then it might be difficult to pay tuition. Well, I guess just take out more loans and hope for bailouts. Plenty of better ways to invest 70K in my opinion, though.

 

Actually, the reason why NCU and alike schools raise the tuition fees is because they are in the "cash cow" stage of the business and they need to cash as much as they can before the business becomes flooded. As the number of doctors increase and the doctoral labor becomes cheaper, you will see a decrease in tuition fees for low tier doctorates.
If I were a prospect PhD student at a school like NCU, I would hold on for 5 years. You will see that these programs will start becoming cheaper as PhD professors become a dime a dozen and the market value of these degrees go to the floor.

 

And why do you think that the for-profits won't just continue their current business model of charging the daylights out of their students while putting their faculty on starvation wages?

 

This is based on my observation for what happened to online for profit MBAs. These programs have almost no value due to the mass production of low tier MBAs as this is reflected in the price of some of these programs that sell for less than 10K.

PhDs have still some value for academic administrators and adjuncts. As adjunct work becomes more difficult to get and schools realize that too many people are getting these doctorates with little value to organizations, you will see some schools changing policies for salary raises based on doctorates and some schools might start asking for AACSB accredited doctorates even for adjunct work due to the proliferation of dotcom doctorates. At this point, these programs might not be worth much and schools might need to sell them under 10K just to get some students that might still want to get them just for the prestigious title of "Dr".

 

MBA's have flooded the market and I don't seem ANYONE decreasing tuition. Exactly the opposite even. When any school goes from DETC to RA, or attains DETC, they jack up the tuition as a matter of fact. Any school seems out there raising tuition because that's the scam of education. Just keep jacking it up and making people think they need more pieces of paper to get ahead in life. That model is close to being dead.

What do many businesses(and many of these schools are businesses, even state schools, regardless of what some think) do when things get rough? They start to lose customers. They then raise their prices to make up the shortfall of revenues. It's a kiss of death I think. Lack of vision and creativity on the business owner's side to fix problems. Just raise rates.

 

Actually, you make good points. I know the MBA took a big hit, enrollments for this program went down in the last 10 years as many don't see much value from this program. However, technical schools have seen an increase in particular IT, health care technologies, nursing, accounting, etc. Tuition fees for this type of programs have sky rocketed.

It is really interesting to see the huge success of online doctorates, I teach at an AACSB accredited school and we have very little interest for our PhD programs and it is surprising to see the for profits making cash cows out of these programs.

 

...the power of making money in pajamas at night (adjunct work) and being called "Dr." While for-profit online schools have succeeded in making money off their students, I doubt if we'll ever hear from students who took out $70k student loans to get an internet PhD only to realize the difficulty in finding adjunct work that pays enough such that they can repair those loans. I feel many will regret it, but won't make it public for fear of being seen as fools who fell for the scam.

 

Surely most of this page and the last could be split into a thread on its own so the PHD/DBA thread has JUST info on schools, programs, etc? (I realize I am part of this above, but this thread is turning into a "chat" instead of FAQ)

 

University of Atlanta is DETC accredited. They do have less than wonderful history when they were called Barrington University. I would stay away from them.

 

Mr. Heiks, you stated: "And why do you think that the for-profits won't just continue their current business model of charging the daylights out of their students while putting their faculty on starvation wages?"

Not all "for-profits are "charging the daylights" out of their students. I paid much less for my programs than many who went to schools like Mercer, Troy, or many of the "state" colleges/universities. And I really doubt they are putting their faculty on so-called "starvation wages" in the process.

I really do not understand the animosity so many have against the "for-profit" universities out their. The one big plus was that while working on my degrees at Touro I wasn't subjected to the professor's political/ideological indoctrination as I was at other traditional schools.

 

And the other schools are not making money off of their students? Really? Funny how so many so called "educated" individuals tend to speak in such broad general terms. It's akin to being bitten by a dog and declaring "all dogs bite".

Let's try to keep it realistic.

 

My DBA from Breyer State University has been a vast benefit to my career over the last several years. I have a tremendous amount of responsibility within my current position and I am compensated very well for my work. My degree from Breyer State continues to be recognized within the Fortune 500 company for which I work.

I have noticed Breyer State has also made some recent changes as well and they have many experienced and well educated faculty from many regionally accredited institutions.

Our Faculty | Breyer State University

 

Be careful of antipodean unis offering DBAs where you have to keep on doling out monies for a degree you will never get to finish

 

I'm glad it's working out for you, but I don't place much faith in a university that's owned by someone with 3 doctorates from unaccredited schools (CCU wasn't even considering accreditation in 1992), and more letters after his name than a bowl of Alpha-Bits;

http://breyerstate.com/dominick.html

 

One of the interesting things I always find when comparing unaccredited "institutions" (i.e. MUST, Breyer, etc.), that is you can't easily verify what the alumni of those "institutions" are doing:

http://breyerstate.com/alumni-accomplishments.html

I'm still waiting for back2cali to describe the comprehensive exam process at Breyer, who served on his dissertation committee, the title of his dissertation, and how I might obtain a copy of his dissertation.

Shawn

 

If I inserted a less than wonderful degree in my resume, I certainly wouldn't be drawing attention to myself, considering that the majority of employers don't know a thing about accreditation.....until they read the newspaper article about one of their employees with a questionable degree.

I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath.