Why do so many get their doctorate when it isnt needed?

If I cant move on? What they do does not affect me, I know. But they are my friends, they asked me what i thought, I gave my opinion, they AGREED with what I said, then stated some rather silly reasons for getting the PhD. Honestly, Im barely even contributing to the thread anymore. Its taken on a life of its own. So dont put it on me that this thing is going on and on and on. Put it on everyone (including you) who continue to reply, post, and keep it going. I already got the answers i was looking for. The rest of this is just fodder for discussion.

 

Silly in your opinion

Then I guess I am done. I will refrain from responding to your posts to keep it simple. Have a nice day.

 

I know someone with a traditional, Tier 3 ABA-accredited J.D. who mowed lawns for his brother's landscaping company for almost 5 years, so it's not just DL or for-profit schools.

I also saw our union lawyer who graduated from the Tier 4 (lowest rated) New England School of Law absolutely mop the floor with a double Harvard grad (Harvard College and Harvard Law School) in a civil trial. The person who holds the degree is just as important, if not more important, than the degree itself.

 

That picture reminded me of one of my "Oh my God, I'm getting old" moments.....several years ago while I was breaking-in a rookie, I handed him my key ring so he could take his handcuffs off a prisoner. As soon as I gave it to him, he held up my call box key and said "What the heck is this?"

 

Yes, quite true. In the end, the degree is a mere piece of paper. Success is up to the owner of that piece of paper.

Abner

 

Rich,

But the same holds for MBAs. There are quite a few published research articles that show the little value of a low tier MBA but yet you have people still taking these programs in large numbers.

We are assuming that people make rational decisions but my experience shows me that this is not the case for many.

As some people mentioned here, many do it for vanity, self improvement, adjunct work, etc but the OP in question is worried that people are taking these programs just because they are available and because they feel they have to as many are taking them and dont want to be at a disadvantage.

I personally think that a PhD is a good way to grow intellectually, but I wouldnt take any of the 50K programs at the for profits but take any of the cheaper programs at decent places like UNISA.

 

In the case of law, medicine and accounting, it is the license that matters and not the degree. If the individual is smart enough to pass the bar exam, it should be enough evidence of competence in this profession.

The same thing holds for a CPA, most accounting firms can careless where you degree comes from as long as you have the CPA license.

For this reason, I believe that a CPA license is a much better investment than a Doctorate from a low tier school. It might be more difficult to get than any of the online doctorates but at least there is data that supports the return of investment of this type of credential.

Many people immigrate every year with foreign medical degrees to the US and practice in the US after passing the medical board exam and residency. Do you ask your MD about his or her University education? Most likley not.

 

I believe this would make for a good phenomenological research project. Might be a good avenue to get published.

 

Again, a different argument. Now we're talking about which alternative, not if. It keeps shifting as the previous are crushed by the evidence.

As for MBAs (yet again a different argument!), please share your favorite research that supports your point. I'm sure people would love to read this.

 

Thank you.

It's customary (at most B&M schools) after a successful dissertation to hold a small fete for the newly minted doctor. It's not at all unusual for champagne and cake to be part of that.

 

I think there are all kinds of reasons people do this, and I make no judgment about others' motives or their perception of whether there will be a ROI. I do have a small problem with the "entitlement" idea that the government should provide financial aid to those seeking degrees at the doctoral level, but that is beside the point.

The question asks why so many get a doctorate when it isn't needed. I guess the first thing is how do you determine if it is needed? When I first started looking into getting my doctorate, one of my employers (an online University) implied strongly that I would be offered a full time position with them if I got a doctorate, and this was something I desired very much. So would that mean a doctorate was "needed" in my case, or not?

So I signed on with NCU, and prepaid for the entire program to lock in my tuition, and also got a 10% discount for doing so, at the time.

Within a year of enrolling, my employer was sold to another larger entity, and it soon became apparent that I would not be offered a full time position unless I wanted to move half way across the country, which I was not, and am not willing to do.

But I am the type who usually finishes what I start...and it was paid for. I fully realized that there might not be a good ROI at that point. I am not sure how much, if any, NCU would refund if I decided to drop out (or couldn't make it through the program). I never inquired about that and never seriously considered dropping out.

I guess all I am really saying here is there is a variety of reasons people get a doctorate and my story does not fit in any neat little category.

But the good news is that I have received offers and work since getting the doctorate that I would not have been eligible for without the doctorate. I have no regrets about getting it.

I will say, that I personally would never put myself under financial strain in order to afford a doctorate. It is a matter of priorities, I guess. For example, I worked with a woman who was paying about 72K for her doctoral studies at Kent University. She said they had to cut down on everything, including buying presents for holidays, etc., and going out to dinner. I just would not have been willing to change my lifestyle like that in order to afford a doctorate, but as I said, I make no judgment about somebody else's choices and priorities in those areas.

 

I agree with this. I am not making a judgement on my friends, either. Perhaps I didnt clarify the situation well enough. What i should have said is that both of them do not like school and have expressed they do NOT want to get a doctorate degree. They both said they were told it would NOT help them in their chosen career and since the doctorate they are going for is so specific, they would not be able to use it at a later time to branch out. One was even told a doctorate would make him "grossly overqualified" for his job. That same friend managed to get his undergrad and grad degrees with no student loans since his family paid for his schooling. However, he will need to get loans to pay for the doctorate because they said they will not pay $70k+ for a degree that will be no benefit to him. My other friend already has THOUSANDS racked up in student loans. She said she hates the idea of adding to it but she has no choice. BOTH friends said they feel they HAVE to get the doctorate degrees because they are available in their chosen fields, and if they werent suppose to get them, then they wouldnt be available. WHY WHY WHY do people feel they HAVE to get doctorate degrees? My friends' cant afford them, dont want them, and the degrees wont help in their careers, yet they feel they HAVE to have them. Thats the part Im saying I dont get. Im not questioning why anyone would ever get one, Im questioning why some people feel they HAVE to get them. It just makes no sense to me. Im trying to help them the way someone helped me on here. I was going about things all wrong and got some great help/advice. I suggested maybe they get a certificate in their fields if they really need to get something else, but no. They werent hearing it. They said they may do that later on, but they didnt think a certificate was a good substitute for a doctorate degree. *sigh*

 

Not really, you are saying that the fact that people have been taking distance PhD programs is evidence of its value.
I am saying that this might not be the case, many have questioned the value of MBAs with research evidence (see articles below) but yet people keep taking them.

JSTOR: Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Sep., 2002), pp. 78-95
CSA
http://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=8514402
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~alanjung/bus2_0_pfeffer_value_mba.pdf

I am going to have to go with Randells advice to move on. If someone is willing to dish out the 50K for an online doctorate from a low tier school, let them be. I wonder how credible would be a doctorate in business when the graduate could not even evaluate his or her own investment in education.

 

RFValve, you make a lot of good points, but you're going to blow a gasket trying to stop an elephant from sitting down. You can't do it, but you keep relentlessly trying.

We live in a capitalist society and it's all about supply and demand. There is no statistically significant rise in the awarding of doctoral degrees from the most recent stats that have been posted at degreeinfo.com. Also, online doctorates are not flooding the market e.g. as an example, NCU only awards doctorates to 15% of those who attempt to earn one.

Nonetheless, you make an excellent case for multiple arguments, to include the opinion that most people really don't need a Masters or a Doctorate -- and it won't help many people to earn more money (but it will help some). A professor who was teaching business management at the Bachelors level sagely advised his students to stop at the Bachelors degree, telling them that that's all they really need and that there is a lot of competitive snobbery at the top of academia.

Do most people really need a Masters or a Doctorate? No. Will many people continue to pursue these goals? Yes, as long as our capitalist society continues to offer them. It is wonderful that these opportunities are available to those who wish to pursue them, regardless of their motives.

 

You are right. It is like opening an online company. Many of my students start online companies driven by Zuckerberg success. The success rate is very small for online startups and even lower for basement operations but still have many kids that decided to quit their jobs to pursue their dreams of becoming the next facebook.

People join PhDs online with the dream that they will able to make more money, become successful, more opportunities, become tenure professors, etc. Very few would actually be able to materialize these dreams but we cannot stop them from trying.

As Randell said, let's move on as this puzzle has no answer.

 

Here's my measure: where are all the posters who've taken doctorates during their careers and later regretted the decision? They simply don't exist. For whatever reasons, people who completed their degrees got what they came for. All the questioning and value-judging doesn't change that fact. It may not fit some posters' eyes; I get that. But projecting that onto others as if it is somehow an axiom to follow (and not to violate) is just silly.

 

Which is a stupid way of looking at things. the point isn't to get qualified for your job by getting a doctorate. The point is to prepare for all kinds of other experiences not available without doing the degree. The job I held when I finished my Ph.D. was hardly the one you'd expect someone with a doctorate to hold. Right. But everyone I've held since then--including full-time positions and part-time/temporary consulting gigs--is due directly to holding the Ph.D. That's how it's supposed to work.

Of course, if one doesn't want those jobs, then one shouldn't get the degree (unless one has any of myriad other reasons for doing it, as already pointed out in this thread).

Why would someone want to give such cookie-cutter advice to individuals? It's reckless.

 

Okay, let's just take the first one. The link you provided only gave the first page, but I went to an online university library and got the whole article.

First, it is 10 years old and would not be considered very credible in a literature review, except for historical perspective. (A lot can happen in 10 years.) (The second is linked from a Russian-language site (really?) and is non-academic, coming from Fortune magazine. The third is also a non-academic opinion piece filled with anecdotes and no research.)

Second, it is focused on a particular degree, the MBA, not a level of degree (master's). As any scholar in this field knows (and I have a Ph.D. in it, plus I hold an MBA), the MBA is no longer the "go to" master's for people in business careers. Sure, a lot of them are awarded still, but the fad of the MBA-or-nothing is gone, supplanted by the myriad choices now available to business professionals of all ilks, and much more likely to be relevant to them. (Master's degrees in Finance, HRD, HR, Accounting, Marketing, Management, Leadership, etc.) The relevant question should be about the value of a master's, not an MBA. But this is what we have.

Third, the vast majority of the article focused on its critique of the contents and delivery of the MBA, not on its financial impact on graduates.

Fourth, the authors do little empirical research; their argument of the value of the MBA is based on others' research, even older and more out-of-date.

Finally, the focus was on traditional schools offering the MBA to students yet to embark on their careers. The real question (and the original question of this thread) is what effect the degree would have on a mid-career professional contemplating the ROI of spending the time and money on the degree.

On a personal level, my MBA helped keep me employable as I transitioned to the private sector after retiring from active duty. My Ph.D. launched my career to unanticipated levels. Both degrees came from expensive-yet-unimpressive schools. And both were incredible investments.

 

I just don't know how you can say this with any authority. By the way, if you were to say the opposite, I would have the same response. It is such a personal and contextual decision, I just don't see how anyone can make sweeping statements like this. And that's my objection to this thread in general. It is based on that very false premise.