
What a PhD Really Means in the US National Security Community - bootload
https://news.vice.com/article/doctors-of-doom-what-a-phd-really-means-in-the-us-national-security-community-1
======
cafard
To summarize: contractors can bill the federal government at higher rates for
PhDs, without respect to the origin or meaning of that degree, and pass on
some of it to the employee, so these employees are getting PhDs in the most
expedient way. The main difference between now and the 20th Century is the
explosion of on-line schools and the expansion of the "national security
community."

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ZanyProgrammer
So (and I'm guessing here because I really can't stand to click on a Vice
link) that a lot of those PhDs are in bullshit fields like "national security
studies" or similar?

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emidln
It seems worse than that from the article. A lot of PhDs are from non-
accredited schools. Some of the PhDs are from a series of online "schools"
that seem to be ran by the same man.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Reminds me of a lot of mid-00s Army officers that I remember- a lot of the OCS
crowd especially had bullshit online degrees from degree mills.

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mcguire
" _He adds that no one counseled him not to attend, and nobody has questioned
his right to call himself a doctor._ "

This is the second or third article I've read (from Vice) on this subject, and
there's never any discussion of the process of getting a PhD. You don't get
one for taking classes, or for taking tests. If I can't find a copy of your
dissertation and at least one published article, I'm very much going to
question your doctorhood.

~~~
pc86
I admittedly do not know much about post-baccalaureate academia. If a non-
accredited school in fact does offer a PhD simply for taking classes, can you
call yourself doctor? What about a non-accredited school that still requires a
dissertation but 99% of those submitted are approved? I am assuming that an
accredited school handing out PhDs like this would lose their accreditation
but maybe that's not the case.

I'm just not sure under what circumstances it's a legitimate decision to say
"You may have a PhD but you're not really a doctor."

~~~
virusduck
I'd say a majority of accredited schools also have very high dissertation
acceptance rates. That is, you have been counseled by your adviser and other
professors (a thesis committee) as to how things are going. They typically
give you advice and want you to succeed.

Those that do not heed this advice do not get advised to turn in a
dissertation.

~~~
derf_
This is correct. When I was a Ph.D student I was told that it was very rare
for someone to fail their thesis defense, because their advisor will not let
them defend until they know they are going to pass. It does happen, but it
takes a special kind of effort and means your advisor screwed up.

~~~
wsxcde
One more amusing anecdote about "failing" a defence. I was told this happened
in the EE department at Princeton.

There was a student whose defence wasn't going well and the committee’s
consensus was that the more work needed to be done. But if the student
actually failed the defence, special university regulations would kick in for
the second defence which would likely make it impossible for him to defend.

Not wanting to do that, the committee came up with an ingenious loophole.
Apparently the committee is allowed to take coffee breaks. So they decided to
take a coffee break - _for two months_ \- while the student went back and
fixed up his thesis and managed to defend once proceedings resumed after the
"break."

~~~
kobayashi
That is absolutely phenomenal. Any sourcing on this, so when I repeat it it's
not just a case of "somebody wrote this online"?

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ra1n85
I'm also intrigued, and seemingly let down, by folks with degrees in "Cyber
{defense|analysis|warfare}". These degrees are always laid out on a resume
with other super-sexy sounding credentials and accolades. Unfortunately, the
interviews always seem to reveal a lot of (sometimes serious) technical gaps.
The only reliable indicators I've come to find for technical and engineering
acumen are curiosity and experience. These sexy sounding degrees are starting
to become indicators of candidates that don't meet requirements.

~~~
chrisseaton
Yes presumably this whole thing unravels when you interview someone and say
'oh great you have PhD - can you tell me about your top three peer-reviewed
papers'

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HarryHirsch
Assuming that you are permitted to unravel the ruse. If your company's purpose
is to suck on the Federal teat, such actions are discouraged. Just look next
door at the Theranos thread! For the better of ten years, asking hard
questions about Theranos was discouraged.

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pmorici
This sounds like a problem with how contracts are written. They should be
requiring that any degrees cited to fill contract qualification requirements
come from an accredited university. That would at least take care of the worst
cases. Some accredited schools with well known and prestigious names also
operate diploma mills because they know large companies will pay for students
to get advanced degrees.

In the wider sense I don't think this is a problem just in government though.
Dubious and outright false credentials are a problem in industry too (ie: An
HP CEO had to resign after it was found his advanced degree was fabricated.)

The bigger question maybe that if the person can perform at a certain level
does it really matter what degree they have? At the same time dishonesty
shouldn't be allowed just because the current system isn't ideal.

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patorjk
Sometimes the big name schools have an accredited ungraduate program, but an
unaccredited masters/phd program.

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mcguire
I cannot find any information about accreditation at UT Austin (other than
[1], which is out of date). I once had a discussion with someone from the
academic staff of the CS department (name redacted to protect the guilty),
which I may have misunderstood or be misremembering, but included a statement
to the effect of, "we aren't accredited by anyone; they're all following us."
(They did have an external visiting committee who reviewed and made comments
on the curriculum.)

[1] [https://cns.utexas.edu/undergraduate-education/academic-
reco...](https://cns.utexas.edu/undergraduate-education/academic-records/sacs-
accreditation)

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DanielBMarkham
Back in the 90s I was working for a very large IT contractor on a very large
federal government contract.

The place sucked, but that's another story. I started as a senior dev, and
within a year or so moved up 3 or 4 levels.

Even after moving up, after a year I couldn't do that no more. I wanted to
build stuff. When I told them I was going to leave, we worked out a deal: I'd
pick a team of 2. We'd work on a project with a couple of other large
government agencies. Folks would leave us alone. We'd get shit done.

So we did. In six months we delivered the project. I worked mostly from home.
We 3 were delivering at a rate that was greater than the 10-20 person teams at
the other agencies. It was sad.

After six months, I was getting ready to bail, but they beat me to the punch.
They told me I could no longer be working at the job I was doing. Why? Because
I was self-taught. Needed at least a Master's degree, preferably a PhD.

It really didn't bother me since I was leaving anyway. On the way out, though,
I spoke to the number 3 guy on the contract. He asked me about a few of the
PhDs I had working for me.

"They're pretty good, I guess. But this one guy? He's so arrogant nobody can
work with him"

The guy basically told me that they had to fill seats with PhDs to meet the
GSA schedule, didn't matter whether they did anything or not.

I liked all the people I worked with, but I'd never voluntarily go back to
that kind of idiocy.

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stvswn
FWIW, this phenomenon is not a "US National Security Community" thing, it's a
government thing (although quality control can vary).

I saw it in the Army -- enlisted Soliders get a certain number of "points"
towards their promotions for completing coursework and obtaining a degree. So,
they find the most expedient methods -- and for-profit schools that catered to
this nonsense were all over. An entire platoon could literally pass around the
same papers and get through an associate's degree together. "Criminal justice"
was a popular one, for some reason.

I have lots of teachers in my family. They get a big pay bump for a Master's
degree (had to be accredited, admittedly, so that's a little better). If the
pay bump is the same no matter which school you go to, why not take the path
of least resistance, especially when you're working full-time and raising a
family? They all have online degrees from one of the local state colleges that
caters to this market. I don't think they try to argue that they are better
teachers for it. It's just a way to hustle for more money (and can you blame
them?)

If you have to make a one-sized-fits-all rule about "this degree is worth this
amount of money," you're going to run into these issues.

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pc86
Can someone explain why "100% online" is used as a clear negative factor? What
makes physical proximity to a whiteboard a better indicator of academic
achievement?

The ability and willingness to have a family, a full-time job, _and_ earn an
advanced degree should not be a negative signal.

~~~
dikdik
So I just finished my MS in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University and
completed it 100% online. The program is meant for working professionals and
there were also students taking classes both on-campus and online, and
students taking all classes on-campus.

I'm on the job hunt now, really hoping people do not frown on the degree.
However, I would still look curiously at someone who received a doctorate
online.

~~~
Nrsolis
How did you like the JHU program? I'm genuinely curious about the rigor and
experience with the school.

~~~
dikdik
I enjoyed the program for the most part. I come from a life sciences
background and found the biology based courses to be slightly boring/review.
The CS courses were definitely challenging for me, I only had minor
programming experience in Python going in.

However, I would avoid doing it 100% online if possible. Courses that were
review for me and/or did not require detailed discussion I would not mind
taking online again. The harder courses are a different story, as well as
courses that require extensive discussion. It is really difficult to
troubleshoot complex problems over blackboard.

~~~
Nrsolis
I was looking at the CS Masters program. I have a strong desire to acquire a
foundation in information security. I was looking at their cybersecurity
program as an adjunct to the CS program.

How was the actual administration of the program? I find that your experience
with the administration can drastically alter your learning potential.

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philodendron
I'm bothered by the lack of labels on the y-axis of that graph. I don't hate
Vice, but in my mind their credibility just went down a peg or two.

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netcan
There are a lot of ways degrees can be bogus. With online education seemingly
at the nexus of technology, timing, investor interest & consumer demand we're
hearing a lot about it lately. Most astute commentators spend some time on the
question of credentialing.

It's one of these weird issues where the new thing needs a good solution, but
when you look at the old thing you see that it has a pretty terrible solution
and that the problem might not be solvable.

I went to a well respected school. A pass in an arts degree "Arts Degree"
(meaning humanities, mostly) at that school was basically available to anyone
willing to show up, turn in 20k-30k words per semester (regardless of quality)
and attend 3-4 tutorial per week without preparation. They just don't normally
fail someone who completes the requirements, with a very liberal definition of
that concept. It's not like math where you can either solve the problem in the
exam or you can't. They accepted that subjectivity and left a large loophole
wide open.

At the same time, very few students actually took advantage of that, with
prior intent. Most of the learning opportunity was ungraded. There was 4-500
weekly pages of required reading on Kant, North African Medieval History, the
history of ideas in cognitive psychology or high classical interpretations of
the allegory of the cave. If you showed up at lectures, tutorials and
discussions ready to discuss these materials every day you would probably
experience learning that is unlikely to occur outside a university.

The mechanism for making sure you actually learn is always some degree of lax.
That's within a University that has no interest, need or intent to exchange
pieces of paper for money. Throw in globalization, an infinite number of
institutions , the monetary incentives faced by bottom tier schools, etc and
you have a big chunk of bogus degrees.

So… We can open the door and turn the lights on a lot of rooms with a lot of
sordid activity. We'll get to see a lot of things we'd rather not see with
knickers indignantly bunched up around ankles. I seriously doubt the
"Intelligence Community" is unique in any way.

It's tricky shedding light on problems we don't know how to solve.

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hamiltonsPple
Skimmed article, not really getting the outrage. Since when do you need a
"real" PhD to do the work described there?

If the issue is that the govt is obliged to pay the contractors higher for
people with PhDs then, by all menas, let's complain. Otherwise this is just
some pointless rending of clothes

~~~
chrisseaton
I don't think the government is obliged to pay the contractors more for people
with PhDs, but it does choose to.

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timtadh
This tracks well with a report I heard this week on declining mean salaries in
the federal government versus industry. As the government pays less, has
declining pensions, and is under constant threat of "shutdown" it isn't
surprising that the best people would rather look elsewhere. That doesn't even
factor in people choosing not to work for the government for political and
moral reasons.

Sadly, this means that the bureaucracy will increase and become more petty.
People will become more concerned about protecting their jobs and less about
doing them well. Because, government work on a resume will become a "bad
smell" making it hard for government workers to find a job in the private
sector. Who wants to hire someone with a fake PhD? Only the government.

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daveloyall
> _VICE News accessed information about the educational backgrounds of more
> than 90,000 people who work in the national security domain and possess a
> Top Secret clearance._

That's the data from the OPM breach. Interesting.

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stonogo
That's a pretty bold unsubstantiated claim you're making there.

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daveloyall
It's purposefully _exactly_ as bold and unsubstantiated as the claim vice
makes.

Ah, crap.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach)
says 18-21.5 million. I was way off. :(

~~~
stonogo
It's far more likely that many government contracts and departments have their
team's qualifications on record due to government accountability guidelines.
While it hasn't been proven _who_ exactly grabbed the OPM data, the chances
are pretty low that someone with the capability to undertake this sort of work
would share the spoils with an organization like VICE.

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niels_olson
When did Vice become a source of hard-hitting investigative journalism?

