Colorado Technical University

How many college degrees can someone have?

Is there a limit to how many and what combination of degrees that someone can have? Can someone have more than one associate's or bachelor's degrees in two different areas? How about multiple master's or doctorate's also? If someone could clarify or give a link to information regarding the common rules for college degrees, that would be great!

Public Comments

1. No, there's no limit. Some people have hundreds (almost all honorary). You can earn as many as you like, but often schools won't encourage you to go for your second doctorate or third bachelors - eventually they expect you to use those degrees.
2. You can have as many degrees as you want. But after one im sure you'd not want to spend another day at college.
3. This is an easy one - add up all the money you and your parents have plus the maximum amount of school loans and aid :-) There is no limit short of money and how old you want to be attending school. I know folks with multiple bachelor's, masters and PhD's. Don't make the mistake of being a philosophy major and ending up working for a call center [My friend did].
4. A person can have as many as they can afford and attend to pass. If you can pass the coursework and pay for the degree program, you can receive the degree.
5. A person could amass any amount and assortment of degrees that they wish to, as long as they are willing to pay for them. You can obtain an degree that any school offers, as many Associates, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorates as you wish.
6. Most people assume that it's as easy as "as many as you can pay for" but it's not really. Colleges have second degree rules, academic progress rules, and specific transfer of course rules that eventually put a stop to your collection. There is no one link to look at because it differs some from college-to-college but here are some key points for you to look at. Note that some colleges will not allow you to work backward - that is; once you have a bachelor's, they won't issue an associates. Associates level - they don't really care so much. You might start raising eyebrows when you go over four. They will be required to be very different from each other - you won't be able to do multiple associates in very close fields (benefiting from overlap) but you can usually get away with that once. For example, you could likely get away with an AA in English followed by an AA in Communication. Be really careful here though - most bachelor's programs limit transfer credit from a community college to 60 hours - you'd have wasted a lot of classes if you're going on to a bachelor's. They also take a lot of time for the return unless you're looking at things like nursing or IT. Know too that these hours are going to count in the satisfactory progress rules of your bachelor's degree. Four unrelated associates degrees could net you well over the allowed hours and still no bachelor's because of that 60 hour transfer rule. Bachelor's - some get very picky. Two bachelor's is pretty common and not all that difficult. Most second degree rules will require 150 hours for the second bachelor's and will transfer in as much as 120 hours from the first one. In other words, you need 30 new hours in addition to meeting all of the degree requirements. A third bachelor's will follow the same pattern but most schools start raising eyebrows on the third one. You'll need a really good reason why. They expect that by this time you'll need to be working on your master's or can accomplish your career goals with a post-bachelor's/graduate certificate program. Expect to need an additional 30 new hours above the first two. The issue after this one and why we don't see too many people with four bachelor's is the satisfactory progress rule. At 180 hours, you're expected to be done with undergrad. The third bachelor's puts you right around 180 hours. You don't hear about this much because not that many people are pushing that close to 200 hours of undergrad (I have 198) so it never comes up in discussion except with professional students. Following the traditional 30 hours per year - 180 hours is 6 years of full-time study. Effectively; the limit is three but in practice it's usually two. Master's - There's the additional issue of qualifying to enter the program here. Most master's programs will transfer very little, if any, credit from another master's. That means that each one is a stand-alone effort. But, there's not a second degree or satisfactory progress limit on the master's at most colleges. For this reason, there are some people out there with a collection of master's degrees. The former director of NASA has five. There's a faculty member of one of the Ivy schools with eleven. Two is pretty common these days, three not unheard of, four is about the usual maximum. (my personal academic goal is five, I'm working on the third) The real issue here is that master's level work is very demanding and not introductory like the associates and bachelor's. It takes a lot of effort to even become eligible to enroll in one master's program - considerable effort to meet the prerequisites for several. To do it, you have to have a bachelor's degree that is exceptionally well rounded (BA/BSc in Liberal Arts) - a BBA isn't going to get you into psych or engineering master's. At the master's level, you can get a degree in any subject that you can get accepted into the program for. Many don't even have specific undergrad major requirements (MBA, MHA, MPH, MPA) and those that do will often allow you in if you take the right undergrad courses. People usually stop at two master's because getting a master's is expensive and hard work and very few people have the immediate qualification to enter more than two fields of advanced study. The doctorate - there are three types of degree at this level. There is the first professional (MD, JD, DO, DVM, DDS, etc), the practice (EdD, DBA, DMA, DA), and the academic (PhD) It is entirely possible to get one of each if you have plenty of time and money. There aren't the same sorts of limits the others impose. Getting into more than one at this level would be a feat in itself. But, there are plenty of people out there with an MD or JD and a PhD - it's not uncommon at all. I've known a few with a practice based degree (EdD) that followed it with a PhD in nearly the same field.