EdS/EdD/PhD with Lower Hours Per Week/Lower Cost/Meaningful Focus

Discussion in 'Education, Teaching and related degrees' started by eyeoflayman, Jun 25, 2016.

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  1. eyeoflayman

    eyeoflayman New Member

    Hi all,
    I am currently working in a semi-administrative role at an international school in Asia, where much of my focus is on community outreach, service-learning and youth empowerment. I have a Masters degree in Adult Education for Global Change, where I focused my research mostly on service-learning and grassroots community development. I am interested in further pursuing my academic education, but have several requirements that limit my range of possibilities.

    Does anyone have suggestions on EdD, PhD or EdS programs that meet all (or at least as many as possible) of the following requirements:

    1) Require relatively low number of hours per week


    (I work full-time; I have two young kids; I have a lot going on in the community; etc)- I don't mind stretching out my studies over a longer number of years, I just want to commit less intensive hours each week (though I can do intensive summers)

    2) Needs to be relatively inexpensive

    3) Has a meaningful focus; a framework of seeing education as a tool for the meaningful progress of the individual and society.

    (Though I have strongly been considering the path EdD/EdS in Educational Leadership/Admin or maybe Curriculum Development, my main goal/purpose is to be able to continue a path of contributing meaningfully to educational paths related to community development, youth empowerment, service-learning, education for change, etc (the idea being that for me its less about 'working' in a 'school' and more about participating in meaningful social action as a path of service). So, any unique programs that have a bit more of this kind of purpose embedded in them will be attractive to me. Doesn't even have to be "Education" only, could be something more Development Studies related, etc.)

    4) For US-based programs, I'd prefer Regionally Accredited options, but am potentially open to Nationally Accredited options as well (though if an EdS, it would need to be an RA school in case I later wanted to continue on to get an EdD). I am also more than open to programs from just about any country.

    ________________________________________

    So far, these are some of the programs I've been researching. For most of them, I still have almost no idea how much of a time commitment they would require per week (which is one of my important requirements for this), so if anyone has any insights into the weekly time commitment for any of the following, please do share your knowledge. Also, I might be quite off with the tuition costs, since so many universities make that information hard to define in a concrete way. Thanks for any corrections in that too!

    - U of West Georgia (EdD School Improvement ~$21,000)

    - U of the Cumberlands (EdD ~$23,000 / EdS ~$15,000-- EdS seems more time flexible than most)

    - Fort Hays University (EdS ~$8,000)

    - Columbus State University (EdS ~$14,000)

    - Indiana State University (EdS or PhD)

    - Delta State University (EdS Ed Admin and Superverion ~$12,000)

    - U of Arkansas (EdD or EdS)

    - U of South Africa (UNISA) (PhD ~$4500-$9000)

    - Asia eUniversity (PhD Education ~$15,000)

    - U of Bath (UK) (EdD, I think ~$20,000)

    - California Coast University (EdD ~$19,000 self-paced, NA but not RA)

    - William Howard Taft University (EdD ~$20,000 self-paced, NA but not RA)

    - American College of Education (EdD ~$21,000 / EdS ~$12,000-- but looks like requires ~25 hours per week, too much for me)

    Thanks for any help/advice/ideas/etc! Sorry for such a long message, but I figure if I map out more fully where I'm at with all this, it might bring more meaningful replies.
     
  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Welcome to the forum, and thank you for both very clearly spelling out what you're looking for, and also doing some research!

    You have some excellent choices, but if you don't mind a religious school (religion isn't part of the coursework at the graduate level), Liberty University should be on your list, they offer both Ed.S. and Ed.D. programs completely online. They're RA, and if you're a first responder, military, or a Veteran, there's a pretty good tuition discount;

    Doctoral programs | Liberty University Online
     
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Most courses in the Cumberlands EdD/PhD program require being online during the evening one day per week. This means being "in class" during the beginning of morning working hours in East Asia, which a number of previous enquirers from there have found too inconvenient to consider.
     
  4. eyeoflayman

    eyeoflayman New Member

    Thanks for the suggestion, Bruce. I'll look into it a little closer.
     
  5. eyeoflayman

    eyeoflayman New Member

    Thanks for the input Steve, Do you know if the synchorized course time thing is also a requirement for the EdS program or just for the EdD/PhD?
     
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I don't, sorry. Ask admissions, though, they're responsive and well informed.
     
  7. KayV

    KayV New Member

    As someone with an Ed.S. but not an Ed.D., I would strongly encourage you to pursue the doctorate instead of the specialist degree. While an Ed.S. is supposed to be a terminal degree, it seems to have been superseded by the Ed.D.

    Also, I think the University of Arkansas Ed.D. in Workforce Development has become rather expensive in recent years.

    Lamar University in Texas also has an online Ed.D. program.

    Good luck!
     

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