New-ish Guidance on Specialist Degrees

When NCES changed their IPEDS categories, institutions didn't know how to code their specialist programs, so they coded them as post-master's certificates. Someone here argued that this meant that specialist degrees are not degrees, but this was just a case of IPEDS categories being inadequate, not proof that specialist degrees weren't degrees. Last year, the University System of Georgia requested guidance, and NCES advised them to report specialist degrees as master's degrees. This is still imperfect because specialist degrees tend to require doctoral-level courses, but there you go.

https://www.usg.edu/advisory_committees/assets/advisory_committees/documents/Spring_2024_RACIRP_IPEDS_Update.pdf

 

When the specialist "degree" is widely awarded aross all (or nearly all) disciplines, I'll consider it a degree.

 

I would like to see clear definitions as to what constitutes a EdS, CAGS, Graduate Certificate, and Executive Certificate.

I’ve seen CAGS range from 12-30 credits, Graduate Certificates seem to generally be 18, and Liberty seems to have coined “Executive Certificate”, which is 21 doctoral-level credits. Why they chose 21 is beyond me.

 

I asked my advisor, she said they want to distinguish it from a Graduate Certificate and a CAGS/EdS, which usually consist of Master’s level (500/600) courses.

No one seems to know how or why they decided on 21 credits.

 

Probably!

 

We all have our own way of viewing things, but being awarded across all disciplines or nearly all disciplines is not in the definition for "degree."

In my opinion, the juris doctor is not a real doctorate, and many would agree with me. Just because they slapped "doctor" in the name doesn't make it a doctorate, but it's still a degree. The structure of the JD and LLM are unique to law. If they were honest, they would call these degrees something other than a doctorate and master's. How many other master's programs are awarded after a doctorate (that's actually a long master's degree) and only require 24 credits?

I will have to disagree with the opinion that, if you use a well-known term, even if the program doesn't fit that term, then it's a degree, but if you use a new term to fit the uniqueness of the program structure, then it's not a degree. Honestly, since many EdS programs have capstones, they're not much different from professional, scholarly doctorates. Even some of the professional, scholarly doctorates don't require a capstone or any other research project.

 

This is where a qualifications framework would really come in handy. In the U.S. words like diploma and certificate can mean anything from a 2 hour non-graded online course to an extensive 40 credit Advanced Graduate Certificate to help qualify you for licensing as a counselor, and everything in between.

At issue is not really whether something is a degree or not. But what is its intended usage and how does it align with other educational credentials. Which gets a lot easier to do if we can just map things along a grid to look for equivalency. Every job posting I've ever signed off on (for about 20 years now) has included the line "Bachelors degree or equivalent" despite the fact that no one can agree what constitutes an equivalent to a bachelors degree. If instead we said the requirement was a level 5 qualification and that could be met with a bachelors degree, or some advanced qualification in construction, for example, we'd resolve that issue.

Otherwise we're just throwing new words out there as the market runs low on people to sell expensive degrees to.

 

The 21 credits of each Liberty Executive Cert all seem to be the CORE required courses from the relevant / related doctorate degree.

Seems a fairly obvious explanation to me.

 

Looking at the Liberty catalog those Executive Certificates all seem to be the 7 required core classes (21 core hours) from the parent doctorate.