alt Hacker NewsDo teachers need advanced degrees?
Comments
It's funny that this is a question when every college STEM class is taught by people who have degrees that have absolutely nothing to do with being able to teach effectively.
A friend who came from a wealthy family went to an Ivy League teaching school. While she was there, her family went bankrupt and she had to take on student loans. Fast forward to today, she regrets going there, saying a cheap state school would have been just as effective for her career.
FYI: the author of this piece is the eugenicist Cremieux who was responsible for using hacked data to attack Zohran Mamdani for checking Black and Asian on his college application.
> Have you never met a bad doctor? A shoddy lawyer? A barista with a PhD?
I presume the implication is that bad doctors and shoddy lawyers exist and just because they have advanced degrees doesn't make them good at what they do. This seems reasonable.
BUT, I find it fascinating that people who aren't doctors or medical experts think they can spot a "bad" doctor or people who aren't lawyers or experts in law think they can spot a "shoddy" lawyer.
A good doctor/lawyer makes good decisions and executes beneficial actions given the facts surrounding a situation. It's pretty hard to judge whether those decisions and actions are good or bad if one isn't an expert.
That's a huge motivating factor for professional licenses.
Teaching salaries start at $48,112 on average. If schools want advanced degrees the industry needs to pay more, and that's beyond whatever adjustment the provide for holding an advanced degree.
No job "needs advanced degrees". They need experience.
If you want to get your foot in the door in a competitive market, degrees help. They offer some substitute for experience. But it's ridiculous to require them.
Those who produce the materials teachers teach should have advanced degrees. Teachers should have degrees demonstrating their competence in accessing and relating to such knowledge.
Shouldn't need any degrees tbh, only the ability to do their job
No.
Such a ridiculous framing. Of course a teacher needs to provably know their subject, along with a solid practicum and a dollop of teaching theory, because, as with teaching oneself piano, bad teaching habits get engrained easily.
That said, some subjects are more difficult than others to teach, and thus require better education.
some studies even saying experience was irrelevant along with advanced degrees. so what do teachers need? big personalities?
they need money, in america.
[dead]
My understanding is that, these days, a lot of advanced degrees held by teachers are in Education, not say Math or History.
I’d love to see this data recut by degree type.
Edit - wow we’re talking about 50-70% of the masters being in Education, Special Education or Admin fields. (Page 14: https://mhec.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/202510-MHEC-Grad...)
This data is basically telling us nothing about the value of a topical masters degree.