# What is your highest level of education? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 1, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550 "2009-12-01T02:25:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/81 "2009-12-02T00:57:41Z")
Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/82 "2009-12-02T01:57:45Z")
BA in communication and journalism, MS in communication studies, and I’m currently working on a Master of Arts in Teaching. This last degree is the one that’ll get me a paying job. ---
**Author:** ![liberty3701](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@liberty3701](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liberty3701)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/83 "2009-12-02T03:11:19Z")
Highest level completed: MA in English (linguistics concentration) Currently in my 4th year of a PhD in linguistics, starting my dissertation ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/84 "2009-12-02T03:48:51Z")
MS in Information Systems. This is where I get to add that I had the fortune of finishing my Masters in Rio. Much awesomeness was had. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/85 "2009-12-02T05:12:14Z")
Master’s in Educational Management ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/86 "2009-12-02T08:19:00Z")
I flunked out of three different colleges. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/87 "2009-12-02T11:57:08Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > I never regretted leaving after 10th grade. By the time you finished 4 year college I had 5 employees, happily married with 2 kids. By the next year you were making more money, but I never cared much for money. In my eyes, education and money are a poor measure of anyone’s success. But hey, more for you. Statistically, a college education is a pretty good indicator of quality of life. People with a college degree are less likely to be impoverished. People living in poverty have significantly poorer health and are statistically more likely to experience a range of social ills. So I would say education is actually a pretty good indicator of success by your definition. It’s awesome that you were able to create an exception to the rule, though. No doubt. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/88 "2009-12-02T13:51:32Z")
M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering B.S. in Chemical Engineering I also graduated from the U.S. Navy’s [Nuclear Power School](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Power_School). ---
**Author:** ![footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9f8e36/32.png) [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/footballisplayedwithyourfeet)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/89 "2009-12-02T15:01:54Z")
BA, MA Poli Sci and BSc, MSc (International) Economics PhD PoliSci in a year or so … god willing :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Add99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Add99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Add99)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/90 "2009-12-03T03:25:25Z")
People with a college degree are less likely to be impoverished. True. People who go to college are usually not impoverished to begin with. Poor people start poor and end poor unless they go to college. I disagree. Anyone can support themselves and their families just fine without college. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/91 "2009-12-03T03:43:59Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > Poor people start poor and end poor unless they go to college. I disagree. > > Anyone can support themselves and their families just fine without college. No one in this thread is disagreeing with you. Who are you arguing with exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/92 "2009-12-03T04:02:13Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > Anyone can support themselves and their families just fine without college. Really, I’m not trying to pick a fight with you here, but the facts aren’t on your side. Even people who have college degrees are not exempt from poverty. According to _The Great Risk Shift_ by a political scientist named Jakob Hacker, over half of all people (regardless of degree obtained) will be impoverished for at least 1 year of their lifetime. The probability is even greater for those who are not college educated. Poverty is extremely fluid, except for a small minority of people (2-3%), so if you’re going by the federal definition of poverty, poor people do not as a general rule stay poor. They start poor, then become middle class, and then have a good chance of getting poor again, and fluxuate up and down all their lives, because financial security since the 1970s has become extremely volatile. This volatility has historically been buffered by a college education, and while more and more college graduates are finding themselves descending into poverty at some point in their lives, they still have a statistically better chance of getting and staying out of it. Why? Health care benefits, for one. Sick leave. Most high school drop outs do not have these privileges. When they get sick, they wait longer to go to the doctor, and when they do go to the doctor, they lose wages. If they are chronically ill, not only will they have high medical expenses cutting into their budget, they will probably lose their job, making it that much harder to pay off their medical debt, ad nauseum. You have a buffer yourself–you’re married, statistically that means you’re more likely to be better off. Also if you’re white, another plus for you. If you were a minority or a single female parent though, your statistical likelihood of poverty would soar. Of course I really think what you’re trying to say is that people who have college degrees aren’t any better than people who don’t. I completely agree. I came from poverty and I have strong working-class roots. Which is why I am really adamant that the working class get the shit end of the stick in this country and I’m not going to pretend for one second that I believe we live in a meritocracy. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/93 "2009-12-03T04:08:55Z")
I have a BA in English education. > [@Nobody](#): > > Slight hijack. From what I hear, I get the impression that most or all other western countries only have universities, and not colleges. If this is true, does this mean that (in the west) only the US has two year degrees? I don’t know of any Universities that offer only two year degrees. Colleges are either subsets of universities in the US, _or_ independent schools that have narrowly defined courses of study. For example, the University I attended is partly made up of a business college (Whittemore School of Business), and an agricultural college (Thompson School) too as well the “regular” university for four year degrees in sciences and liberal arts. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/94 "2009-12-03T04:12:53Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > I never regretted leaving after 10th grade. By the time you finished 4 year college I had 5 employees, happily married with 2 kids. By the time I finished 4 year college, you probably had 10 employees and 4 kids. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/95 "2009-12-03T05:19:26Z")
Master of Arts in English, and 20 hours in another graduate program that I will never finish because the school dropped the program. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/96 "2009-12-03T05:29:15Z")
B.A. in Psychology, M.A. in Clinical Psychology (with an emphasis in adults with severe and persistent mental illness), half of a second M.A. in Counseling Psychology (not intending to get the second M.A., but to round out what I felt was missing in my Clinical Psychology program). ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/97 "2009-12-03T05:36:22Z")
> [@kapri](#): > > Master of Arts in English, and 20 hours in another graduate program that I will never finish because the school dropped the program. !!! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/98 "2009-12-03T05:41:58Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > I never regretted leaving after 10th grade. By the time you finished 4 year college I had 5 employees, happily married with 2 kids. By the next year you were making more money, but I never cared much for money. In my eyes, education and money are a poor measure of anyone’s success. But hey, more for you. I didn’t do it for the money, I did it for the travel. ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/99 "2009-12-03T08:36:22Z")
[Magister](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magister_%28degree%29#Denmark_and_Norway)in History of religion and Indology. A weird degree somewhat in between a Master’s and a Doctorate. Also, degrees work a bit differently in Denmark than both the US and the UK (IIRC). We have to do our whole degree (in my case 6 1/2 years) in the same subject (more or less). ---
**Author:** ![Add99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Add99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Add99)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550/100 "2009-12-03T12:25:21Z")
Nice reply, **olivesmarch4th**. I enjoyed having my “devil’s advocate” comments, which although adamantly stated, are only half serious, garner such a well spoken reply. It’s a quirky method for self examination, I admit. Thanks for playing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-highest-level-of-education/519550.md?page=6)