Why are these exams so expensive?

danny069

I recently passed my Sec+ exam and wanted to continue down the road in the IT security field. I was looking into the C|EH exam which is $500 plus $100 for self-study fee. The CISSP is $600. Why are these exams so expensive? It's just not fair.

dave330i

Cisco Arc is $15k.

webgeek

dave330i wrote: »

Cisco Arc is $15k.

Pointless Cert! Well depends since all the CISCO certs the CCAr has would only need to renewed every 5 years

ptilsen

The GIAC certs are all, what, $800 to challenge, and $3,000 to $5,000 to take with the class (most, by most reports, are very difficult to pass without taking the class)? An MCSA will set you back about $500 just on the tests, MCSE about $750. With study materials, MCSA is more like $700-$800 and MCSE is well over $1,000.

The CISSP requires four years of professional experience with Sec+. In four years of working in relevant roles, it shouldn't be too difficult to save up $600 or put in on a credit card. It's not fair to compare it to CompTIA, which are entry level certs. If anything, A+ and Net+ are the overpriced certs. They're about the same price per exam as any MCTS and provide less value. CISSP, for only $600, easily provides more than five times the value of the CompTIA trio and for about the same total price (the whole trio is four exams > $100 each).

Xyro

danny069 wrote: »

I recently passed my Sec+ exam and wanted to continue down the road in the IT security field. I was looking into the C|EH exam which is $500 plus $100 for self-study fee. The CISSP is $600. Why are these exams so expensive? It's just not fair.

Not much in life is.

Look at it this way though... it could be worse. Instead of $600 it could be $1600. $600 is quite a small investment when you consider the potential growth of earnings acquired by gaining the certification.

DoubleD

Its cheaper than Uni

docrice

When you move up in your career and make a higher salary, they won't seem as expensive compared to when you're starting out at an entry level position. What makes a lot of these courses and exams so expensive is that they tend to be specialized, security-related ones especially due to their bleeding edge and dynamically-changing nature. There's also much demand for them so naturally you run into a situation where the costs go up.

If you want to move ahead in life, you'll have to often make sacrifices. Sometimes these come in the form of expensive investments, whether exams, lab equipment, or time.

LarryDaMan

ptilsen wrote: »

The GIAC certs are all, what, $800 to challenge, and $3,000 to $5,000 to take with the class (most, by most reports, are very difficult to pass without taking the class)?

Crazy and with 100+ students in some of these classes, $500,000 is a hefty haul for 5 days of training. For one class too, SANS will often have 5+ different classes going on during the same event. SANSFIRE has 40 courses, cha-ching. Impressive, we're in the wrong sector of the industry!

I have only heard good things about the training and it is gravy if you can have an employer pay. SANS targets companies, but individuals too as evidenced by my junk mail (snail and electronic) for the upcoming SANSFIRE. Even though I can afford it at this point in my life, the juice isn't worth the squeeze in my opinion. I'd rather take a vacation or make it rain in a club or something

Corrsta

What really surprised me were the SANS courses... Do most people take them through their employer, or are most people comfortable with forking over that much cash for the certs?

networker050184

Find a good company to work for and they will pay them all for you.

lunchbox67

If you believe it to be unfair don't do it.

And keep in mind, when your income increases some slug who did nothing to educate himself will find it unfair that you live in that house, drive that car take that vacation ... so be sure to share yours with him so things are fair.

docrice

Corrsta wrote: »

What really surprised me were the SANS courses... Do most people take them through their employer, or are most people comfortable with forking over that much cash for the certs?

Most people probably attend SANS courses through employer sponsorship. That said, I'm one of the rare individuals who did a lot of his own out-of-pocket. I had to give up a lot of other things in life to do it though, but I'm solidly committed to the field.

MSP-IT

docrice wrote: »

Most people probably attend SANS courses through employer sponsorship. That said, I'm one of the rare individuals who did a lot of his own out-of-pocket. I had to give up a lot of other things in life to do it though, but I'm solidly committed to the field.

Yeah, with that amount of certifications I would definitely think so. You're one of the kinds of people I tend to look up to.

N2IT

That's why you should make a plan and think less is more. Instead of loading up on a dozens of certifications pick a couple that align with your career path. Start off with one and be satisified and move forward from there. Don't just go wild that's where the cost will kill you.