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Types of degrees

Four principal types of academic degrees – associate, bachelor, master and doctor, representing different levels of academic achievement, are conferred by American institutions of higher education; a few institutions confer additional types of degrees, representing other levels of achievement.

Bachelor’s degree

The bachelor’s degree, usually representing completion of a four-year course of study on a collegiate level, is the oldest and the best-known academic degree, particularly under the designation of Bachelor of Arts. Some varieties of bachelor’s, or baccalaureate, degree is currently offered by about 750 institutions, most of which offer a Bachelor of Science in Education. Other baccalaureate degrees offered by a large number of institutions are Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Divinity, and Bachelor of Home Economics. Most institutions offer more than one variety of Baccalaureates, but about one tenth report use of the Bachelor of Arts only, regardless of the particular curriculum completed.

Master’s degree

The earned master’s degree in general represents one year of work beyond the baccalaureate, but in a few institutions or in a few fields it requires two years of graduate work. The most frequently awarded master’s degrees are Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Education, Master of Business Administration, Master of Music and Master of Fine Arts. The Master of Philosophy degree is conferred to those who have completed all requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree except the doctoral dissertation.

Doctor’s degree

The Doctor’s Degree represents the most advanced earned degree conferred by U.S. institutions, or indeed by those of any country. In the academic sense, a doctor is an individual in any faculty or branch of learning who has attained to the highest degree conferred by a university. Doctor’s degrees in the United States are of two distinct types – professional or practitioner’s degrees, and research degrees.

The former represent advanced training for the practice of various professions, chiefly in medicine and law. The principal ones are Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Dental Science, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Doctor of Pharmacy and Doctor of Jurisprudence. These degrees carry on implication of advanced research.

Quite different in character are the research doctorates representing prolonged periods of advanced study, usually at least three years beyond the baccalaureate, accompanied by a dissertation designed to be a substantial contribution to the advancement of knowledge. The most important of these is the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), which no longer implies knowledge of philosophy, but which represents advanced research in any major field of knowledge. It was first awarded by Yale University in 1861, young men desiring the most advanced training in scholarship attended the principal German and occasionally other European universities to secure their Ph.D’s.

Second in importance and much more recent as a research degree is the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.). It was first awarded by Harvard in1920, but was preceded by the equivalent Doctor of Pedagogy first conferred by New York University in 1891. The only other earned doctorates of the research type currently conferred by 10 or more institutions are the Doctor of the Science of Law and the Doctor of Business Administration.