Are Some Degrees Worse Than No Degree?

I'm not referring to fraudulent degrees obtained from diploma mills, rather, legitimate degrees that may not have great name recognition or industry standard accreditation. For example: if someone has a bachelors from a top 50 RA school, would moving on to a Master's from a DETC school, or even an RA for-profit, obfuscate the previous accomplishment and diminish it? Or, conversely, would it be a "pad" to the resume, adding something a little extra?

On the same note, with the amount of disrespect thrown around towards certain for-profits, would it be better in some cases to list no degree at all on a resume or application rather than have the maligned school name associated with you?

 

Short answer...absolutely not. If a degree is accredited by an organization recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Ed. it would be a rare circumstance indeed where having no degree is better than having one, regardless of school or major.

 

...let me shake the 8 ball...

 

Any legitimate degree is a notable accomplishment but the question that is being increasingly asked, "At what price?" We recently had a thread that was related to a young college grad who owed in excess of 200K for her degree in something like English Lit. In a situation like that I think that you could put forth the argument that she'd be better off without the degree. You might conclude that the degree still has value but it is still a legitimate question.

 

Say there, Kiz, you're two posts away from 4500.

 

Kizmet is absolutely right on. You have to look at your return on investment. One of the hot topics now is law schools and their ROI. You must be diligent in seeking out what best works for you and will put you to work.

 

Even the ABA now acknowledges that law school may be a bad financial investment. Their recent study, "The Value Proposition of Attending Law School", concluded:

 

I think that there are a few members who would tell you that a degree from a profit school is worse than no degree at all. It's easy to say such negative things on a board like this and everyone is entitled to their opinion. The reality, in my opinion, is that very few employers care where you got your degree as long as it is RA. There are exceptions, but I have found this to be generally true in my experience.

 

Once upon a time I estimated the date on which I'd hit 5K based on my posts per day rate. I never marked it on my calendar but I don't think it will be this year. Maybe I can calculate how many posts I'd need to make per day in order to beat Ted to
10K. I think I'd have to quit my job.

 

Say hi to Rich for me when you enter the 8,000+ category!

 

Rich doesn't love me anymore. So sad . . .

 

In the situation above, I would say that it could be a detractor on your resume. It raises the question of why, if you were able to get into an elite school for undergrad, you would go to a Kaplan or UoP for grad school. Then again, this would be HIGHLY dependent on both who is interviewing you and what school your first an second degrees were at.

For example, if someone did their undergrad at UC-Irvine (currently ranked 45), and then got a PhD from Capella, I probably wouldn't think anything strange of it. However, if someone has a Bachelors from Yale and got their MBA from UoP, it might give me a moment of pause. The question would keep going into my mind "they got in to Yale. Why did they go to UoP for their MBA?" I certainly would not completely eliminate that person from my applicant pool, but I would ask the question at the interview.

Now, keep in mind something. I am an academic pedigree snob. I am also bigoted against for-profits (except AMU, and possibly a few others). It is not something I am proud of, but I have to be honest with myself about it. The important thing is that I am not the ONLY academic pedigree snob out there. There are tons of us, and some of them work in HR.

In this case I would say ABSOLUTELY NOT! Say what you will about for-profits, but if it is an RA degree, then it is an RA degree. UoP bachelors will certainly carry more weight than just a high school diploma. No question about it in my mind.

 

You brought up a good topic. I have about 20 years of experience in IT. I finished a MSIT degree from Aspen University a few years ago but refuse to show it on my resume or anywhere due to its very poor quality. I got 9 credits just for having a MCSE and i had to answer a few questions on each chapter as assignment to pass a class (most answers came directly from wikipedia - no turnitin). I did not purchase any text books for a few classes but still got an 'A'. There was ZERO interaction with the professor. Emails were replied after a week or so with single sentence or single word answers. I am sure this practice is still going on at Aspen and many other DETC online schools. Its better for me to show my RA B&M undergrad Degree and not to show a substandard DETC degree on my resume.

 

That is your opinion of your degree and doesn't really answer the question asked unless you are the one hiring. Does the general hiring manager have experience with Aspen or any school in the context of what the OP asked that would make pursuing an advanced degree a bad thing? Specifically for you and your opinion of your degree, do you think that if you put it on your resume they would view it as a bad thing? It seems to me that you don't put it on there because you feel it was too easily obtained and doesn't merit mentioning. I say that most wouldn't know the difference outside of academia and even if not up to the standard of you or others it could show that you are developing yourself. Regardless of how little effort you had to put in to the accomplishment, you did put in effort and you did accomplish something.

With that said, I think some of the better known for-profit and N/A schools could be a detractor. But I think the less well known schools will stand on more of a neutral ground.

 

Why does AMU get a pass? For-profit is for-profit.

In any case, I think "non-profit" is the biggest misnomer in higher education. If anyone would like to explain how no one is profiting from Harvard, Yale, or any other "non-profit" school, I'd love to hear it.

 

To be clear, are you saying that you plagiarized your work?

 

I do.

Abner :smile:

 

A wise man once said, "Non-profit doesn't mean nobody profits." (Not my words).