Will federal agencies accept..

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by recruiting, Apr 11, 2012.

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  1. recruiting

    recruiting Member

    DETC only degrees? One of my colleagues is going for an MS Occ. Health and Safety degree from a DETC only school and asked me what I thought. I said I'll ask the "family" tonight and get back with you in the AM.

    It was Columbia Southern Univ - MS Occupational Health & Safety.. I having gotten into federal employment based on my BS and VRA appointment, as well as having a MINOR safety background I could not really tell what the good attributes of degree like this would be?

    Thanks
     
  2. FJD

    FJD Member

    Yes, a DETC degree will meet the minimum qualifications for Federal employment under OPM policy. An applicant with a MS would qualify as a GS-9 to start in most cases, although I know someone with an MS who was offered only a GS-7 to start. When he brought up policy to the selecting officials, they just shrugged and basically said, "take it or leave it." So he took it. Here's OPM's policy concerning qualifying education: General Policies: Application of Qualification Standards - Part 4
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    The federal government changed their education standards several years ago, and will now accept degrees from any school with recognized (legitimate) accreditation.
     
  4. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Correct:

    It is also nice to see this in the link FJD provided:

    General Policies: Application of Qualification Standards - Part 4

    "Correspondence or distance learning course work is also acceptable if the applicable school within the institution or applicable curriculum is accredited by an accrediting body that is recognized by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. The distance learning courses should indicate the credit hours for each course and be indicated on the degree transcript together with traditional course work and credits."

    This is good for all dl learners regardless of whether credit was NA or RA. It was not that long ago that dl (or as some like to call it .com learning) was scoffed at. These new interpretations show that government agencies are falling in line with the definition of what "recognized" is, and what a recognized degree constitues according to USDOE and CHEA. I know I spread the word to my government employer years ago. I am sure other dl members have informed their government employers of what a legitimate degree constitututes.

    I for one remember being a dl student at UOI (Iowa) several years ago by true correspondence, and people would just look at me with this weird look on their face. It is nice to see perceptions changing.

    Abner
     
  5. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Note that the feds may require specialized professional accreditation that is "above" NA or RA. The listings at USAJOBS.com, for example, routinely specify ABET-accredited degrees for engineering positions, or ABA-accredited degrees for law positions.

    There are legitimate DETC and RA degrees in these fields that lack ABET or ABA accreditation -- but without that professional accreditation, they may not meet federal standards, even though they are still DETC or RA.

    I don't know if professional accreditation is an issue in Occupational Health and Safety. It does look like the feds expect Safety Engineers to hold ABET degrees.
     
  6. soupbone

    soupbone Active Member

    It can be. Most jobs in Occupational Health and Safety require either the Certified Safety Professional credential or the Certified Industrial Hygienist credential. This is not always the case, but if you search job sites, most of them require either one of those in addition to at minimum a bachelors. This is not specific accreditation though like ABET does with degrees, but an addition to your degree.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 11, 2012
  7. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Technically that's true -- this is certification, not accreditation.

    However, sometimes a particular form of accreditation is required or preferred for certification. For example, you mentioned the Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) credential (which is, in fact, valued by private and public employers). The CIH certification board normally wants to see an ABET degree in industrial hygiene or safety, or an RA degree in engineering, physics, chemistry, or biology.

    The CIH Candidate Handbook does also say that:

    So it seems possible that a DETC degree might also work. But if the CIH credential is potentially important to you, then it might be a good idea to confirm this point before pursuing a DETC degree.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 11, 2012
  8. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    The short answer is "yes," a DETC degree is acceptable for US gov employment. However, I think it's very important to consider just how much competition there is for jobs right now with the economy the way it is. I just read yesterday (already forgot where) that one in five men are currently unemployed in the nation. This means that all available jobs are highly competitive...especially the coveted government positions. So, you really have to ask yourself just how competitive you'll really be with a DETC degree versus others who WILL be applying for the same positions with RA degrees. It would be totally unrealistic to believe that those hiring for these positions would have absolutely no DETC bias.
     
  9. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    By the same token, it would be more unrealistic to believe the average hiring manager is even aware of all the different accrediting bodies, or that they even care beyond knowing that a degree is legitimately accredited. This really just isn't much of a problem outside of academia anymore.

    The real issue as I see it, is competing with degree holders from schools that are nationally known and have good, strong, deep-rooted reputations. In Government, that's going to be a major hurdle to overcome, because there are going to be lots of people with degrees from immediately recognizeable schools. All things being equal in experience, verifiable job performance, and other social variables, the guy with a degree from Texas A&M is going to squash the guy with a degree from The American College of Technology (a DETC school) like a bug in terms of candidacy.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 11, 2012
  10. makana793

    makana793 New Member

    In terms of federal employment, I agree that a DETC degree is fine. In fact, there's a lot of folks in my organization that have degrees from a DETC school. IMHO I don't think the issue is NA vs RA but rather those with applicable work experience and veterans preferrence. The feds will gladly pass over someone with a degree from Harvard with no prior experience and take an Army veteran with a degree Cal Southern or Aspen. Just my 2 cents.
     
  11. truckie270

    truckie270 New Member

    I checked three job sites this morning in the areas of emergency management, public administration, and public safety. About 2/3s of the posts I saw in a cursory examination requiring BA degrees specified that they needed to be earned from an RA institution. I know it is an anecdotal observation, but to pretend that the RA v. NA debate only occurs or matters in academia is wishful thinking.

    I would counter that as stories about degree-mills, people purchasing degrees for pay raises, etc. continue to receive attention hiring managers will start paying more, not less attention to the accreditation debate.

    I am going to recycle the wise comments of ITJD from another thread..... Bold content has been changed by me for emphasis.

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 11, 2012
  12. recruiting

    recruiting Member

    Yes, the age old RA versus NA debate rages on. That has been a hot (well less hot lately) topic that we have tossed around since the humble beginnings of this forum. When I gave out the info to that fellow the debate raged on in the office. I said oh Jesus Christ stop already, several on the NA side several strongly attesting to the RA side. Frankly they sounded like excuse the term a bunch of whiners. It so happened that one of the guys actually had that very degree we spoke of here. He said that when he was going for the MS his BOSS (the former) gave him the business as to whether it was going to be accepted at all by HR - it was and he was promoted when he sought the Safety Specialist position. He told me that the degree was the factor that got him the promotion and grade elevation over his peers.

    I looking into this issue a bit more later in the day, I found that the BCSP certification makes the difference not the degree. However having the gold standard BCSP cert folks see that program as acceptable in meeting their education requirement for all of their certifications should be the only factor that really should count.

    The old bias remains it seems, it may always, however I just don't see why...
     
  13. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    It's true that the "gold standard BCSP cert folks" will give credit for DETC degrees. But that's not the only factor that counts -- because the same folks will give even more credit for the right RA degree.

    The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) awards points, depending on your degree(s) and your work experience. You need to accumulate a certain number of points to qualify for their certification exams.

    But not all degrees get the same number of points. The scoring is spelled out in Table 1 of their Application Guide.

    The maximum number of points that BCSP will award for a single degree is 48, for an ABET-accredited BS in a safety/health-related field. If you have a degree like this, you automatically qualify to start the CSP exam process (Fundamentals exam) without a single day of work experience. But all such degrees are RA. No DETC degree has that kind of value (according to BCSP's standards).

    For comparison, a DETC MS degree in occupational safety/health is worth 9 points. That's better than zero, but it's not as good as 48. In this case, you would still need to get 39 months of work experience (more than 3 years) to qualify for the CSP Fundamentals exam.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 12, 2012

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