Doctorate Programs on edX

Hey!

Just turned in some Organisational Psychology stuff and spotted that here! https://www.edx.org/doctorate. I don't know if someone posted it here yet, but it can be probably interesting for someone here.

Best regards,
Mac Juli

 

WOW

 

What exactly? The prices? Yes, they are WOW.

 

Too expensive for the average middle class student but I saw a couple of economical ones. I personally wouldn't enroll in any of these though.

 

Many of those programs are just being advertised there, they aren’t delivered/administered through EdX directly.

 

Weird that one of the FAQs is "What is an honorary doctorate?" I suspect it's to catch people who might Google something like "online honorary doctorate" or similar, but I think it makes it look like the programs above are all honorary doctorates and thus (essentially) worthless.

 

This is just a landing page to acquire leads. Better to deal with the school(s) directly.

 

Yes.

 

Unless you are going to make at least a quarter of million dollars per year; otherwise, these Doctorates do not provide an ROI.

 

And if you're making that much WITHOUT one -- they're not even a good tax dodge. For high-rollers, there are far better things to do with your money. But you knew that, right?

 

Are you sure?

Let's say, for simplicity's sake, you take such a degree, paying an even $100K for it. In return, you get a permanent $20K increase in your income for the next, say, 20 years. Ignoring inflation (assuming your wages will increase to keep pace), and ignoring compounding (because your annual raises will be higher the higher your income is), that is a $400K increase in earnings. Your annualized ROI is a bit over 7%. The raw ROI is 300%. And I have to think I'm being very conservative in both the return and the number of years one might realize it.

 

I completed one of “those” programs advertised on the page and anticipate ample ROI as I head into my first retirement; it already opened doors that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Thankfully the GI Bill covered most of it (I covered some cost well within my means to maintain the cohort model/graduation goal timeline once annual caps were met) and I still have quite a bit of the GI Bill left. I don’t know how much ROI I will receive, very highly limited by my own desires (location, work quality of life, career goals), but it was a life changing program in many ways that exceeded my ROE.