Ed.S. degree for business purposes

Parents do not know what IPEDS is, lol. When ACE and other schools report their IPEDS data on their websites, they separate the Ed.S. despite IPEDS classifications.

There really isn't much disagreement among universities. It is uncommon for U.S. schools to call the Ed.S a post-master’s certificate. They have to report it to IPEDS under the arbitrary category of post-master’s certificate, but that is not what schools, accreditors, and state governments call it. They almost always call it a degree. IPEDS could change its mind again. This obsession with a survey that has changing categories is quite odd.

Many agencies and organizations rely on Census Bureau numbers; its classifications are still flawed by the Census Bureau's own admission. For statistical and policy purposes, it actually isn't important that the Ed.S or other graduate credentials be properly classified in specific categories. Organizations often lump all graduate degrees together for analysis purposes. NCES' detailed information on degree majors is more important.

 

Let's walk through the mind of a person outside of the education field who has never heard of an Ed.S. When they google the credential, what conclusion do you think they'll come to?

Your car analogy is poor. Automobile companies share platforms between their various subsidiaries all the time. Cadillacs and Buicks are often fancier Chevys. Audis are fancy Volkswagens. Sometimes, Lexus and Acura vehicles are fancy Toyotas and Hondas. The Nissan Armada and Infiniti QX80 are the same SUV. There is no scandal; this is common knowledge.

The JD, LLB, LLM, SJD, and JSD are limited to the legal field. Are those not degrees?

 

I will say, though, that despite IPEDS' award levels and the degree name, almost no one sees the juris doctor as a doctorate. Even in the legal field, most don't see it as a doctorate. It's only considered a terminal degree for law professors. Other fields, most notably criminal justice, have rejected it as a doctorate. The federal government, for hiring purposes, considers it to be the equivalent of a master's degree. That's just another example of how irrelevant IPEDS award levels are. IPEDS is there for statistics, not hiring.

 

Yeah, I agree. In fact, I was pointing out earlier that the European evaluators most often look at the whole IPEDS "Doctor's degree - Professional Practice" category as essentially Master's level stuff (second cycle degree on European terms). This is why we should not concern ourselves too much with whether the word 'Doctor' ends up in a given title. There are other things to consider.

 

Most parents don't know what CHEA or DAPIP databases are either. That does not mean that these databases are irrelevant.

I think that we all look at certain things from our vantage points. I am not from the States, so my concerns may not be reflective of your own. I concur that IPEDS are irrelevant for hiring. But the statistics and qualification categories can be helpful in making sense of a system that does not have any set qualifications framework. When you’re an evaluator in another part of the world, you typically rely on some categories to handle American qualifications. The CHEA database and the U.S. Department of Education’s Database of Accredited Institutions and Programs can show you the accredited institutions (there are variations with accepted accreditors). But when you want to make sense of the awards, the various IPEDS qualification categorizations can be useful in your research process. They’re obviously not the only tool at your disposal. But they can be good for analysis purposes, to use your language.

 

It was a huge scandal.

Each of those is in a degree category universally in use: first professional doctorate, bachelor's, master's, doctorate, and doctorate, respectively. The EdS is quite the opposite of that. I notice you didn't list a "specialist" degree in law.

 

How is an Ed.S. different from an Advanced Graduate Certificate, or a Post Graduate Certificate, or (what CUNY and St John’s University and some other places offered) the old Professional Diploma?

 

It is different in length for one. A certificate is usually around 15-18 credits. An Ed.S is situated between a M.Ed and an Ed.D and is usually around 30-36 credits. It is considered a professional degree (not certificate). You need to have a Master’s degree for admission. It is somewhat equivalent to a second master’s. Some folks will earn this on the way to their Ed.D. It is not usually applicable outside of Education. Kind of how law and medicine have some specific professional degrees that you may not find on general “lists”. Folks can argue all they want on DegreeInfo about whether or not it is a degree. It really doesn’t matter what you all think. It is a degree program in the field of Education. Those who work in Education (like myself) understand that it is a degree program between M.Ed and Ed.D.

The American College of Education (ACE) would be well aware of the Ed.S since their focus is Education. They chose to offer an Ed.S in Leadership. There are many roles within Education that are not directly related to classroom teaching. (My roles have been non-teaching). This option offers an interesting opportunity to those in education that might be interested in Leadership positions in operations, marketing, Human Resources, technology, etc. Since it is in general Leadership, I’m sure it could be applicable to any business, as the OP was told by ACE.

Throwing insults at me isn’t going to make me wrong and you right. It is a DEGREE program in Education. This conversation has become absurd with all the hair-splitting and dissection.

 

I can't speak to what occurred when I was a little kid or not born yet, but I do know how the car industry has operated since then. Car brands under parent companies share platforms all the time. I don't think that the manufacturing of vehicles is a good comparison to higher education. If you don't know what a credential is, you're going to perform a search on Bing, Google, ChatGPT, or somewhere else. What are those search engines and AI tools going to tell you?

Yes, the juris doctor that almost no one sees as a doctorate, so the legal field still has to maintain real doctorates and has a master's that comes after the juris doctor. Despite the name not matching the real world degree level, the JD is still accepted as a degree of some kind.

 

I agree. Level-wise, the Ed.S is similar to CAGS and other post-master's programs because it has doctoral-level courses but isn't a doctorate. However, I do believe that there are some post-master's certificates that only contain masters-level courses. What makes the Ed.S different from certificates is the length of the program and often, but not always, the inclusion of a culminating project. In that way, it is structured like a master's degree, except it has doctoral-level courses. I have yet to see a certificate program that is longer than 24 semester hours; most are fewer than 18 semester hours.

I'm not understanding the black and white thinking. Why is it hard to accept the concept of a degree that sits between a master’s and doctorate? It's not complicated.

 

I am just looking at this as an outsider. But if I am given a specific definition like the one below in an official glossary of the Center for Education Statistics, which also "reports on [US] education activities internationally" (so that people oustide the U.S. can get a better grasp on your system of higher education), I take notice. If they did not bother to place it into a meaningful degree category (and other global evaluators that I've looked at do not list the specialist degree as a distinctive degree (worthy of listing in the same way as any other degrees that exists in the U.S.), I become a little skeptical. That's all. is it a degree? Possibly, but it appears to exist in the shadowlands and the world has yet to notice it.

"Education specialist/professional diploma A certificate of advanced graduate studies..." (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/glossary)

 

Canadian IQAS International Education Guide - United States of America

Link: https://open.alberta.ca/publications/9781460113776

"The International Education Guides series was developed for use by educational institutions, employers and professional licensing bodies to help facilitate and streamline their decisions regarding the recognition of international credentials."

"Each guide includes: a country overview; a historical education overview; descriptions of school education, higher education, professional, technical and vocational education, and teacher education; grading scales; documentation for educational credentials; and a bibliography. "

Specialist Degree in Education categorized under "Graduate certificates and diplomas" and this just a description of the American system, not even an evaluation of any sort.

"Certified teachers with master’s degrees who want to advance their careers may pursue further graduate study such as a Professional Diploma in Education, a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Education, a Sixth Year Graduate Certificate in Education or a Specialist Degree in Education. These programs require a master’s degree for admission and allow students to pursue advanced professional interests to assume specialized and leadership roles in education such as classroom specialists, counsellors, program administrators and school principals."

The Specialist Degree is not listed in the long list of degrees that exist in the United States. See appendix C on page 68. This list may not be comprehensive. But that's a glaring omission for something that's been categorized on this board a post-Master's degree that supposedly exists in the intermediate (between Master's and Doctorate) category and MUST BE RECOGNIZED AS A DEGREE, NOT JUST NAMED AS SUCH.

Here's something rather important. The guide states the following:

The academic titles awarded by US institutions, including undergraduate and graduate degrees, are not governed by federal or state laws, although accrediting agencies may exert some influence on program requirements that lead to such titles. Universities and colleges therefore exercise wide discretion in the nomenclature they use for degrees.

But nomenclature is just the devising or choosing of names for things. A degree, or whatever. Nothing binding.

 

I think it is a degree that really doesn’t translate globally and doesn’t really need to. It’s mostly applicable to K-12 educators and probably only in certain states, as licensing and pay scales vary across the states. Those who plan to teach/work globally probably follow a different path.

 

I know how they're alike: they're not degrees, either.

 

No one is saying there isn't a market for it, or that it's not a real thing in the field of education. I would expect ACE to offer it.

 

Yes, it is a first professional degree.

 

Sure you can. The story is well documented.

This wasn't a simple case of repurposing one model into another. Cadillac back then was a WHOLE different deal, separate in almost every significant way. It was an actual Chevy Cavalier dressed up as a Cadillac. Cadillacs back then had better engines, better brakes, better....everything. Anyway, not to get too off-topic, but there are tons of descriptions of this scandal on the net.

 

The legal field purposefully switched from the LLB to the JD, almost overnight. Lots of schools even offered their LLB grads to trade their degrees in for JDs. Also, law schools certainly accept the JD as equal to a doctorate when it comes to professor rank, pay, etc.

The legal profession, despite this move, discourages the use of the title, even though every (I think) law school in America issues it. It's nutty. And it's irrelevant to the point.

 

I agree with everything else, Rich - there was certainly a scandal with the Cimarron - but Cadillac has a long history of having their vehicles assembled in plants that produced other vehicles and, sometimes with parts, engines etc. from different makes. Example - "new" Cadillac Seville (1975). That pre-dates the Cimarron by a few years. The engine was a stock 350 small-block V8 - same as used on Chevrolets, although these 350s may also have been sourced from Oldsmobile. Only difference: the ones in the 1975 Sevilles had "Cadillac" stamped on the valve covers. That was it.

There's a listing of plants here (not complete) and as you can see, there are no specific "Cadillac" plants - they're built in many plants that produce other vehicles. AFAIK, there hasn't been a Cadillac-only plant in many many years. The one plant called "The Cadillac Plant" in Detroit was mothballed long ago. I think GM has some fancy office-space on the premises now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_General_Motors_factories

In China, however, I think it's different. All Cadillacs there are built in one plant - Jinqiao, here:

https://cadillacsociety.com/cadillac-facilities/jinqiao-cadillac-china-plant/#:~:text=Built to “support the growth,on January 21st, 2016.