Mexican Office Doctorates for less than 8K

The adjunct role is a trap. You keep teaching because you are hoping for a full time gig but these jobs become less available and ask for more. Once you have 10 years of teaching experience, you are hesitant to take a job as a salesman or technical support person as you would need to start your career all over as few will consider you for senior positions once you have 10 years of teaching experience.
On top, you need to get a doctorate so you can keep getting jobs. People with full time residential five year programs are struggling for full time positions so at some point the adjunct loses hope and it is in survival mode, then the Azteca, UCN, CLEA or Da Vinci doctorate becomes attractive because it is not about impressing people but just about surviving for the next gig to happen.

I agree that makes more sense to open a landscaping company or to drive a Uber vehicle, but once you have the degrees is hard to give up the adjunct career for opportunities that do not require education. It makes no sense to get a PhD to make 60 or 70K a year teaching on a contract basis but it is what it is.

 

It is not going to stop any time soon. Some full time tenure track positions now demand 2 to 4 years of post doc education and with top publications for them to consider you. Top journals publication is the new gate keeper. The reality is that you need less full time people and it is more convenient to have part time contractors, the problem is that you need carrots to drive the horses to keep filling up the PhD programs so it is important to keep few tenure track openings otherwise the whole system would collapse.

For this reason, I agree with you that it makes more sense to complete the UCN PhD if all you want is to adjunct on the side. When I was an adjunct, many professors had degrees from places in India, Latin America, Asia, etc that I have never heard before but they were working with other PhDs from better or known universities making the same money. At the end, the University just needs the check mark and the adjunct is hired based on availability and skills so the source of the doctorate is less relevant as long as it is a legit doctorate.

 

Graduate education is a trap I'm afraid in many traditional subjects.

 

Unfortunately, you opinion about worthless or semi bogus degrees is shared by others when it comes to degrees from UoP, Capella, Walden or any degree coming from a second or third world country. At the end of the day, accreditors need faculty with an accredited PhD that means RA from a US degree or means an equivalent certificate from a NACES member. If the international degree passes the NACES member opinion, it works for an adjunct position regardless of the opinion of anybody.

The model is exhausted. It worked for a while but it gets tricky with online education that makes it more available. With so many degree holders, the graduate educate devaluate and it becomes less valuable. It is an employers market so they profit from the cheap labor. It gets more complicated when people can get degrees from other countries as it opens the doors for schools profiting for the need of these degrees for adjuncts needing them to remain employed in a market with increasing tuition fees and lower salaries.

 

I don't necessarily subscribe to that - but even Johann cannot control the thoughts of others.

Agreed. So why do we spend so much time on other foreign degrees, some of which are not worth a stale tortilla?

You can't blame employers for doing exactly what they learned in B-school themselves - or saw in their early working years. Yes - too many adjuncts and would be's. Economics 101 would suggest many would be wise to look for another gig. I'm not an employment counselor. I have no helpful advice on this. Maybe others do.

RFValve, I admire your persistence, here - persistence itself is an invaluable attribute, but I think I'll leave this topic now. I've said more than I came to say and there's no prize up for grabs. It's like going 15 rounds with Tyson Fury, somehow staying alive and then not getting paid. I'm out. I don't have the long-game that you do. Especially when there's nothing in it for me. Maybe because I'm old.

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But the problem and solution are both present in this sentence.

Getting a doctorate is not about ROI. It is about becoming who you are and will be professionally. Being an adjunct, by definition, means one's professional identity lies elsewhere. And if it doesn't, if all one is is an adjunct, then being one fully will mean more work and more money.

But even if we stick to ROI, let's do the math. Let's stipulate one makes $60K per year with a master's. Further, that person decides he/she can make $10K more per year with a doctorate. Further, the doctorate costs $100K (which we all know can be halved or more, but okay). That puts the break-even point at 10 years. Let's assume this person is 35 and will work for 30 more years. Now we're talking about $300K in additional earnings vs. an outlay of $100K. If these assumptions hold--and their is obviously lots of potential variance in them--that's a 200% ROI. Pretty nice return. (Not adjusted for inflation, so it is assumed the investment and the returns will rise commensurately.)

Each person's situation is different. Shorter return periods. Lack of opportunity to gain financially from the degree. The cost of the degree. (Can't invest what you don't have.) Life and career circumstances. Sure. But overall, we know from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that master's degree holders average 16% more salary than bachelor's holders. Doctorate (either first professional or academic) holders earn, on average, 20% more than master's degree holders. (Average in this case is the median, so the numbers are less susceptible to being skewed by large outliers.)

Again, lots of variance there, so YMMV. But I don't see the evidence for dismissing the idea

When I started on my journey with Union in 1986, there were zero non-residential doctoral programs offered by accredited universities in the U.S., and only 5 that even offered them with short residency. (Union, Fielding, International Graduate School, Nova Southeastern, and Saybrook, IIRC.) The idea of pursuing a doctorate today is so sweet I just might have to do it again! And I suspect the ROI would come out to.....wait a sec, I'm punching in the numbers now....oh, here it is: 0%.

 

Stop? Don't count on it. The phenomenon was first described by David Hapgood in his book, Diplomaism. He wrote it in 1971! I think we've seen in which direction the trend has headed since.

 

That's ROI Rich, but not spectacular. In 30 years you make 200K profit and get your outlay back. You've done a lot of work, earning a doctorate to make that $200,000 above the cost. The $100,000 you invested (paying for the Doc) has earned you just over 6.67% a year, simple interest, paid annually for 30 years. That's not spectacular. If I bought a $100, 000 GIC today, (you call them CDs) I'd get about the same performance, around here. $200,000 and my outlay back. And I wouldn't have to do the long hard job of earning a doctorate.

 

The only way you get ANY financial ROI at all here is if you don't owe student loans. Decades of interest are a killer.

I feel the only valid reason to do a Doc (and maybe one reason why I haven't) is being obsessed - and maybe possessed by your field of interest. The desire to learn everything there is about your topic and break new ground. That's ROI all right, in itself - but not a financial one. If you finance the doc with student loans, you'll have zero financial ROI - or less - by the time you've paid interest into old age. If you pay as you go, then you get a modest financial return in the form of increased earnings. But unlike earning interest, you have to WORK for those. For 30 years...

The faint of heart (or lazy) need not apply. That lets yours truly out.

 

All the above is predicated on the figures Rich supplied. If you make MORE than $300K extra with the Doc over 30 years then your financial ROI rate will be better. If you make less than 300K extra - it's worse. Take student loans, and the interest over decades will obliterate any chance of financial ROI. I believe they can even obliterate people through deprivation and through health conditions brought on by that deprivation and by anxiety.

Maybe student loan problems are part of the reason why Americans' life expectancy is decreasing, while other countries' are increasing. Maybe I'll make a study -- get into a doctoral program ---- NOT!

 

As deeply as I would wish to deny this, deciding to go to grad school or professional school probably isn't an entirely rational choice. The arguments for and against show up after the potential student had made his decision.

If deciding whether to get a J.D., for instance, were a matter of ROI and employability, half the country's law schools would close overnight.

 

Isn't that one of the classic definitions of "a good start?"

 

Back to the Doctoral ROI - there's another factor. Opportunity cost. If you reduced your job hours or gave up working for 3-4 years while pursuing the Doctoral degree, that loss of earnings has to be figured in. If you lost $40K per. in earnings for 3 years, that raises your investment to 100,000 (cost of program) plus 120,000 in earnings loss = $220,000. You've invested 220K to get back 300K in 30 years.

Oh brother! Your ROI has flat-lined - just over 1% a year! Don't go this route unless you have a good chance (really good) of stratospheric post-doc earnings! C-suite or bust! Or maybe there are lithium deposits under your petunias.

 

For $6K at a known good school, UVEG's Doctorados are looking better and better. Quizás sea mi tiempo de aprender español correctamente. (Maybe it's time I learned Spanish properly.)

 

It was just a math exercise to point out that even modest amounts will result in a positive ROI.

 

In this day and age? That hasn't been necessary for decades.

But it is the foundation for the origins of National University. David Chigos, who had a PhD from US International University, wanted management education for his managers. In fact, he wanted them to take an MBA program. But since it was 1971, there weren't any night school MBA programs, even in a robust city like San Diego. So, Chigos approached San Diego State University to see if they would consider setting up a cohort and giving them night classes. Their answer was, essentially, "If they are serious about getting an MBA they'll quit their jobs and come to school here full time."

Instead, Chigos founded National University, keeping the school's records in the trunk of his Cadillac. National went on to become the second-largest private university in the state and, the last time I checked, remain so.

No, I don't believe we can factor in opportunity costs these days.

 

Not after student loans, for sure. And this just in. If you go the UVEG route, based on Rich's model of a $300K increase in income over 30 years, your ROI is like getting around 14% annually on your $6K investment.

 

Oh, I don't know. After earning my PhD, it took me a little over a year to double my salary. Two years later I was making six times as much as I did before graduating. This was no coincidence and was directly attributable to earning the degree. My student loan from Union--which I'm still paying on every month--is a mere annoyance compared to all of that.

And if we're really wondering about costs, why go for some degree handed out the back door of an unknown university? I've recently identified and/or discussed two doctoral programs from well-established educational systems (South Africa and New Zealand) for under $20K, a US school for under $25K, and we know of others out there as well. It seems to make sense to eliminate all this marginal stuff by spending just a little bit more. Even my own DSocSci from Leicester can be done for just over $31K. The PhD by distance learning is the same price. (All examples at current exchange rates.)

 

We always have. I was taught to, regardless of how/where they occur. Why is it different now? They still cost us whether we factor them in or not. Maybe you "don't believe" we can - but I.m a BIG believer. If it's coming out of my pocket in any way at all -- it counts. It's too darn big to disregard.

 

Congratulations. Those are spectacular results Rich. Far outside the model - I suspect you're an outlier in that regard because I was using the figures you provided. I thought they were some kind of average. That takes in people with your kind of results -- down to the "PhDs in Unemployment." Quite a range. My figures are based on one person who, I thought, was supposed to be typical - in the middle of the pack.