Envisioning a New Ed.D.

But at a living wage?

That may be true, I don't have the most recent numbers in front of me but I remember my parents didn't have to do much more than a high school degree to make a living wage. My grandparents and great-grandparents didn't even need a high school degree to be successful. I found that I couldn't earn a living wage with a bachelors. So narcissism rears it's head and I look out at my fellow field ants and realize that the living wage doesn't exist for anyone without a bachelor's. Then I remember my high school teachers trying their best to get us to go on to college and think that perhaps of the hundreds of thousands of high schools in America there are other teachers doing the same thing. This then pushes the demand for education higher causing the dramatic increases of college tuition that are being seen now. Then I realized that while I'm NOT over payed now, by any means, holding a MBA has been the first time in my life that I've ever earned a living wage. Narcissism again steps forwards and I look at all the other successful field ants around me and they all have at least a Master's degree. With that in mind, I investigate the rumors of PhDs out of work in Silicon Valley and consider the thoughts of experts on Degreeinfo.com regarding the decreasing value of a college degree as measured by the number of other people in a position to lay claim on the same limited resources and realize that we get degrees to maintain a standard of living and to ensure a future for ourselves. Employers have to pay attention to degrees, but from the other side. Will a hospital pay $100K per annum to a nurse with a PhD? I don't know. Will that nurse continue to work as a nurse when s/he can take the PhD into a desk job earning more, and doing something besides bed pans and bloodwork? Will the employer pay a living wage if it is not forced to do so by acknowledging the credentials of the employee?

Credentials make us feel good because they set us apart. If this doesn't happen anymore - if we're not set apart by our degrees - because there are too many bachelors, we could petition for colleges to increase the difficulty of entering the "new market" with us. We would be asking for market barriers to be levied against others. I don't see that as viable especially when it has been mentioned clearly that educators are responding to a need for degrees among the populus (because the populus needs a living wage, I assume). What I see as a viable option is to add a new layer of perfection a new pinnicle to climb. That's why right now I'm suggesting a "super" PhD of some sort.

No, I didn't spell check. No, I don't use Firefox. I'm a stick in the mud and don't really care about image too much until I'm publishing. When I'm publishing I use spell check and graders and all kinds of stuff...

Jacob