DegreeGo Blog

You’ve probably heard it before: the higher the education you have, the more your salary delivers. When the economy takes a slump, students turn to the education industry as a means to evacuate their unemployment (or less-than-desirable income from their current job); a great thing for colleges that are struggling with the economy themselves and need the student body. It’s a win-win situation, right? And what with everyone walking around with a Bachelor’s Degree these days, the Master’s Degree is the next on the academic food chain. Master’s Degree enrollment rates are higher than ever.

But not all degrees pay out their investment. A Master of Arts in Literature, for example, isn’t going to glean much benefit unless the graduate is the next best-selling novelist; better off that a B.A. in English pursue a Master’s Degree in education. M.A.’s in the social sciences generally don’t do well either, at least not as well as the C.S.W. or, better yet, the M.B.A. When students pursue a Master’s Degree program, it should be perceived as more than the educational evacuation port from the bad economy.

The DegreeGo blog‘s been providing valuable resources for current and future college students since April 2009. This Sunday, the DegreeGo blog is celebrating a half year’s worth of blogging to the college community by reflecting on all the blog’s accomplishments thus far.

To illustrate the wealth of the knowledge here at DegreeGo, we’ve put together a Wordle of all the topics we’ve discussed:

The Post 9/11 GI Bill has had a shaky first semester, to say the least. Stories from military personnel like the Army of Dude are not at all uncommon and active duty, reserve, and veterans alike scramble to find some kind of sanity in the middle of the financial aid delirium. First semesters for programs usually have hiccups in them, and once these issues are ironed out, the new GI Bill will have a long-term positive result on higher education.

Some of the long-term positive effects include: more military members in high-level, corporate jobs; increased enrollment and diversity in military-friendly online schools, like American Sentinel University; and more military recruitment and retention as prospective students and families continue to pursue financial benefits from military service.

TIME released an article about the creativity of colleges that have to face a staggering 20%+ cut to funding due to the financial crisis sweeping over our educational system. While private colleges such as Saint Leo University and American Sentinel University are still thriving in the current fiscal struggles of our nation due to being in charge of their own funding, state-run colleges are facing dire cuts that could mean degrees taking longer than four years for new college students to finish.

Here are a couple of the creative ways public colleges have been handling the thin budget.

The education industry, also known as the Educational Services sector by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, has suffered from the rising unemployment of the economy, just as other industries. Lay offs and unemployment from the education industry, however, are primarily at the public school level. Private schools are still hiring strong; in May 2009 alone, 57,000 employees were hired in the education industry. Private schools make up over 90,000 establishments of hiring institutions.

Students looking to pursue an occupation in the education industry may be interested by the online master of education degree. The online master of education degree offers the benefits of distance learning and the skill sets for a rewarding career in education. A minimum of a master degree is required to teach at the college level, which makes the online master of education degree ideal for students pursuing an occupation in a private university.