Unfortunate Changes to the SANS Technical Institute Masters & Grad Cert Programs

As you may have seen in my thread (here) I was considering the SANS MSISE degree (and also the grad certificates). After deciding to apply I was contacted by one of advisers and they wanted to have a conference call to go over some questions I had. I was told that they no longer allow the masters or grad certificate students to use the Work Study program to fulfill the courses. I'm not sure when the changes were made but the lady I spoke with said it's been almost two years, even though I remember much more recently the Work Study FAQ pages still said that SANS masters and grad certificate students got first priority. Either way it's unfortunate that it puts their programs far out of the reach of most people.

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Comments

Danielm7

That really is unfortunate. If someone does the work study, then passes the cert exam, they should be viewed in the same way as someone who paid full price then passed the exam. It just makes it look like more of a money grab to setup a policy where people can't just work harder and save a bit of money while trying to further their educational credentials.

NetworkNewb

Thats pretty ridiculous imo, everyone is always out for more money...

matai

That's pretty lame. If you've already passed exams utilizing work study prior to entering the program, do those apply?

JoJoCal19

matai wrote: »

That's pretty lame. If you've already passed exams utilizing work study prior to entering the program, do those apply?

You can use them to clear up to 25% of requirements, so for the MSISE/M you can clear 2 out of 8 of the certification courses, and in the graduate certificate you can clear 1 of 4 courses.

danny069

Injustice is what it is. You have people that want to learn and now they want more money. The SANS master's program is overly priced for what they offer if you ask me.

JoJoCal19

I agree danny, they asked if I wanted to move forward with my application now that I am aware and said "NOPE. The ROI just isn't there for the price". Shame really. As it stands now I may or may not be pursuing anymore SANS certs. Im about to take the GCIA on Jan 8th, and thanks to Dynamik's thread on EH.net I plan on challenging the GCIH if I don't get selected for Work Study. I just received a verbal job offer for a security problem manager position that will take me back out of the hands on technical side of security.

markulous

danny069 wrote: »

Injustice is what it is. You have people that want to learn and now they want more money. The SANS master's program is overly priced for what they offer if you ask me.

I think most education costs apply to what you just said. I can go on all day about how people get taken advantage of when trying to gain knowledge.

rudegeek

You can still apply work study classes towards the waiver of 25% of the credits. That lessens the financial burden somewhat.

Or, just get a Masters elsewhere and work towards the GSE

That would't be too shabby.

OctalDump

Danielm7 wrote: »

That really is unfortunate. If someone does the work study, then passes the cert exam, they should be viewed in the same way as someone who paid full price then passed the exam. It just makes it look like more of a money grab to setup a policy where people can't just work harder and save a bit of money while trying to further their educational credentials.

Yeah, it's a bit of pain with education in general. It seems silly that if you know something, and can demonstrate it, that they insist that you do it again. It deprives someone else of a place, and adds very little to your skills.

It's getting to the point with some of the course, that there's only a few subjects that are worth doing and the rest is rechurning over the same stuff. It would be great if accreditation for these schools forced them to give you credit for "substantially similar courses" or "demonstrable skills". Ultimately everyone would be better off. We could all study what we wanted, people might be more likely to do courses, higher education would be encouraged to deliver more interesting content, you could transfer more easily around institutions. You know, promote learning and the spread of knowledge - what a novel mission for higher education!

LionelTeo

If it is listed on their site, then they should honour the words presented there. I had the same encounter while doing my GCIA gold, while the site says the maximum pages is 30 and my advisor told me gold papers can only have 20 pages maximum. I work out with my advisor and he found out that it would require Johannes Ullrich approval if the paper needed to go beyond 20 pages. He gave the approval and I went on to finish my paper.

I would say you can email him if you want, afterall work study is SANS way of subsidizing your course fee for helping them out; and should not be different from a normal course work. This is even backed up by SANS site terms and conditions for the work study program. His email is e-mail jullrich@sans.edu .On his linkedin, it says "If I don't respond within 2-3 days, e-mail again."

gespenstern

They always were for money. Consider this:

1) Their certs are among the most expensive, even for just challenging them;
2) In many cases there are no free or cheap preparation materials like books, etc, so you basically have to take the training;
3) Many if not all of their certs are open book;
4) They have way too many certs and many of them have lots of intersections so overall it starts looking like they want you to have more certs instead of a few to have you pay for them.

I understand when someone is for money, they also have to do something that brings food on the table, but for me it looks excessive.

JoJoCal19

LionelTeo wrote: »

If it is listed on their site, then they should honour the words presented there.

As of now, it's no longer there. But I know for a fact it was at some point early this year as when I applied for SANS 2015 in Orlando, it was still stated there in the Work Study pages that master's students had higher priority in getting selected.

gespenstern

Navigate to the page in question and see its history on internet wayback machine Internet Archive: Wayback Machine, make screenshots

Or see what copy do search engines have, make screenshots if it is old enough to contain this information

NetworkNewb

gespenstern wrote: »

Navigate to the page in question and see its history on internet wayback machine Internet Archive: Wayback Machine, make screenshots

Or see what copy do search engines have, make screenshots if it is old enough to contain this information

Nice! I've never seen that Internet Archive site before. Will have to bookmark that. Don't know when I'd use it, but kind of cool.

JoJoCal19

gespenstern wrote: »

Navigate to the page in question and see its history on internet wayback machine Internet Archive: Wayback Machine, make screenshots

Or see what copy do search engines have, make screenshots if it is old enough to contain this information

Oh yea, I love the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately that won't do any good. They've changed the policy and will not let people use Work Study to fulfill masters/graduate degree classes. Obviously anyone who was already enrolled and knocked out classes that way had them grandfathered in, but they won't allow it anymore.

cyberguypr

I went through my email archives and found I posed a similar question to STI back in March. Their reply was:

"Graduate students are not able to facilitate SANS classes for credit within the graduate program.

Technically, one could (as an individual) participate in the facilitator program and then apply for waivers in the graduate program. Only 25% of the required credit hours can be “waived” (9 credit hours in the master’s degree programs, 3 credit hours in the graduate certificate programs). You can think of a SANS class and a GIAC cert as roughly three credit hours."

There's a lively discussion about this very same topic going on in the Advisory Board. Some believe this is a money grab. Others believe these are accreditation requirements. The truth could easily go both ways as SANS is never shy when it comes to commanding high fees. I could be wrong but I would bet is a case of "because we can".

JoJoCal19

cyberguypr wrote: »

There's a lively discussion about this very same topic going on in the Advisory Board. Some believe this is a money grab. Others believe these are accreditation requirements. The truth could easily go both ways as SANS is never shy when it comes to commanding high fees. I could be wrong but I would bet is a case of "because we can".

Unfortunately I missed my shot at the Advisory Board by 2%, or else I'd be bringing it up for sure. I believe the reason is both money grab and "because we can". I'm not an expert on it, but I doubt the cost of a course has anything to do with accreditation requirements.

cyberguypr

STI responded. They are saying that the problem revolves around SANS and STI being two separate legal entities. it's an accreditation requirement that 75%+ of the degree be completed with new coursework of the entity conferring the degree (STI) and therefore only 25% from an non-accredited entity (SANS). They admitted before accreditation they had no idea of this limit and were allowing more transfer-ins.

OctalDump

cyberguypr wrote: »

STI responded. They are saying that the problem revolves around SANS and STI being two separate legal entities. it's an accreditation requirement that 75%+ of the degree be completed with new coursework of the entity conferring the degree (STI) and therefore only 25% from an non-accredited entity (SANS). They admitted before accreditation they had no idea of this limit and were allowing more transfer-ins.

It's crazy that is an accreditation issue. If you know the material, and have demonstrated it, what value is there in doing it again? It wastes the time of the institution and wastes the time of the student.

JoJoCal19

cyberguypr wrote: »

STI responded. They are saying that the problem revolves around SANS and STI being two separate legal entities. it's an accreditation requirement that 75%+ of the degree be completed with new coursework of the entity conferring the degree (STI) and therefore only 25% from an non-accredited entity (SANS). They admitted before accreditation they had no idea of this limit and were allowing more transfer-ins.

That's a copout honestly. Because when you do the course "through STI" (heavy air quotes emphasized), you're still either utilizing the same SANS OnDemand courseware, or attending the same live SANS event, and utilizing the same SANS books, to do the STI course. If one is doing Work Study, you're just getting there a day early to set up, and then some duties after class. It's a money grab. I pushed the adviser and she said it was a financial decision as STI couldn't make money if the students were all taking the courses through Work Study.