What Can You Do with a Doctor of Education (EdD) Degree?
by Marc Shelton, EdD, with contributions by Jaime Handley
Why does a doctor of education (EdD) degree matter?
Earning an EdD not only helps expand your sphere of influence but also opens the door to further career growth. If you already have a master of education (MEd) or a master of arts in teaching (MAT) and are ready to move into more advanced leadership opportunities and higher pay, the EdD could be your next step.
On a practical level, an EdD degree teaches educators to think deeply about why leadership matters and how to best apply leadership theories to achieve positive educational outcomes for students, teachers and educational systems.
The EdD can open doors for you to pursue your personal mission as a servant leader in the business sector, the college classroom, or local school district administration.
While a doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree is more focused on research than application, an EdD degree incorporates hands-on, practical experiences—such as real-world problem-solving, case studies, fieldwork, or professional practice—into the learning process to deepen understanding of research-based concepts. Much like a medical doctor utilizes the work done by researchers to inform better health outcomes for their patients, the EdD degree helps practitioners become wise consumers of research to improve their methodologies as leaders in education.
What jobs and roles are available with an EdD?
Educators with an EdD are prepared to work in broad areas of leadership and expanded roles within a wide range of organizations.
These roles can include:
Chief Leader in Educational Organizations
- PK-12: School principal, school superintendent, school administrator
- Community college: Professor, provost, chief learning officer, president, vice president
- Universities: Professor, provost, chief learning officer, education consultant
Not-for-Profit Organizations
- Executive director
- Program director
- Chief development officer
Curriculum Development
- Curriculum specialist
- Instructional design professor
- Principal overseeing curriculum for a school
- Educational consultant
- Director of curriculum and instruction
Professional Development
- Training and development manager
- Chief learning officer
- College president
- Educational consultant
- College professor
Policy
- Education policy development
- Researcher
- Government agency administrator
- Education policy analyst
- Legislative advocate
What is the earning potential of an EdD degree?
As an entry-level teacher, you typically earn a salary of roughly between $45,000 and $50,000 annually.
As you move into the master's level (depending on years of experience), you can expect to earn roughly $50,000 to $60,000.
A principal with a masters-level endorsement bumps up in the master’s bracket to around $70,000 to $80,000.
With an EdD, the earning potential increases as follows:
A Sampling of Earning Potentials with an EdD Degree
School Superintendent
Once you complete your EdD, the can begin at $80,000 and reach upwards of $300,000, depending on your state.
Not-For-Profit Consultant
in the not-for-profit world earn between $70,000 and $100,000.
Corporate Sector Consultant
You can use your EdD to work in the as a corporate trainer, educational consultant, or instructional design consultant. The typical pay range for a corporate educator is $98,000 to $184,000.
Earning Potential and Work-Life Balance
As you compare potential earning paths with an EdD, it’s important to look at the work-life balance and expectations for each role.
For example, a teacher typically puts in 176 days per year, while an administrator works 210 days. While the earning potential of an administrator is higher, so is the expectation.
It’s also important to consider what level of education fits your lifestyle. An elementary school administrator is expected to work very few nights, while a high school administrator has both after-school and evening responsibilities, such as sporting events, theatre performances, evening practices, etc.
Exploring your earning potential with an EdD while being honest about your preferred work schedule and responsibility load will help you decide if earning your EdD is the right path.
What pathways are available to pursue an EdD while working full time?
As most candidates for a doctor of education degree are already working full time as educators, many EdD programs offer various pathways to earning your EdD while being a full-time employee. Finding a program that allows you to earn credits over the summer when most teachers enjoy a break from the classroom can afford you the time to focus without distraction. It’s also important to see if there are opportunities within your district for tuition reimbursement.
Thankfully, many programs now understand that teachers pursuing higher education have to work to support themselves and their families while they pursue their degrees. As an educator, you also benefit from working while pursuing your EdD, as it allows you to apply what you learn in your program to your immediate professional context. In this way, the EdD has moved toward a more qualitative model to answer real-life needs, problems and opportunities within the educational setting.
The EdD candidate recognizes that their experience may lead to new ways to explore and solve existing problems. As a practitioner, you have a leg up by staying engaged with your role as an educator while pursuing your EdD degree.
At ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵ Fox, we combine our high scholarship expectations with our commitment to providing high-quality support to help you maximize your impact in your current educational environment. Our Doctorate in Educational Leadership allows you to elevate your leadership toolkit, grow a support network, and lead through critical thinking and service.
How long does it take to earn an EdD?
With most programs requiring roughly 60 credits of coursework to be completed in two to five years, there are various options for completing your EdD. As well, some programs may offer credit for masters-level courses previously completed, so consider that when choosing a program. Your EdD will include didactic courses along with residency hours and, finally, your dissertation.
Here are two EdD pathways currently offered by ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵ Fox University:
Three years to completion
You can complete your residency over two summers (one week per residency) and then move into your dissertation phase, finishing your degree in the third and final year. The hybrid format of this program allows you to work full time while completing the didactic portion of your courses online in a cohort of other EdD students.
Through this program, you’ll complete 56 semester credits in core content courses, research, and for your dissertation, depending on your area of concentration.
Two years to completion
If you’ve already earned a principal license, you can truncate your completion time, as you may only need the research and dissertation courses to complete your EdD. You would still do a summer residency, but as you’re already bringing in a possibility of 27 credits, you can typically complete the EdD in two years.
What do you learn in an EdD program?
As you explore EdD programs, look for institutions that have a high level of expectation coupled with a high level of support. Your EdD is about more than a piece of paper showing that you’ve completed the required units. Obtaining your doctorate in education is a journey of empowerment, both for you as an educator and for those you serve.
With an EdD, you’ll develop the internal recognition and intrinsic awareness of what it means to persist as an educator. You’ll also learn how to interpret data quickly to apply available research to your areas of expertise and passion. From a curriculum standpoint, you’ll explore how the curriculum is developed and how to best assess its usefulness.
Subject areas in the EdD program at ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵ Fox include:
- Educational Foundations: Educational policy, history, psychology and technology
- Leadership: Using educational leadership skills to improve educational outcomes
- Teaching and Learning: Research methods and how to apply research, as well as instructional theories and strategies
- Faith and Learning/Ethics: Examining ethical theories to apply them to leadership in education
In addition, ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵ Fox offers three specific areas of concentration.
What could an EdD dissertation project look like?
As an experienced educator, the EdD dissertation is an opportunity to bring your classroom, administration and educational leadership expertise to bear on a particular field of practical research within an area of education. In other words, you know what you know, and part of that learned wisdom is knowing the problems that need to be solved in your context.
As a boots-on-the-ground practitioner, you can merge your experience with your EdD research to create something that tangibly serves your educational community.
Examples of how past EdD students have merged their experience with their research
Persistence in Transition
One former EdD student was an administrator who tried to help the students in his district thrive in transition. For his dissertation, he considered how to develop students' persistence as they move from one grade level and/or school campus to the next. He also explored ensuring all students had access to higher-level courses.
With a dissertation of this scope, one could use the lens of social justice practices to survey various demographics and compare how each manages transition and how to best encourage persistence in each group of students.
504 Policy Guide
Another former student was an educator in the special needs field who wanted to develop a user-friendly guide for implementing policies and plans for accessibility, accommodation and special education. This guide was meant to serve educators, students and their supporting families as they determined how best to support special needs students.
A Wider Scope
As you explore earning your EdD, think of it as both a window and a door. The window enlarges your worldview, and the door provides new opportunities, allowing you to serve in various sectors, from administration and higher education to the not-for-profit and business worlds. Leading change that matters for the educational communities you hope to serve is on the other side of both.
Ready to get started? Check out ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵ Fox University’s hybrid-online EdD program