Postgraduate Education

In Ukraine Postgraduate education is regarded as specialist education and professional training commencing after the Specialist, Master phase. The Law of Higher Education (Article 10) and the Law on Education (Article 47) regard Post-Graduate education as specialised education and professional training on the basis of the previously obtained educational-proficiency level and experience of the practical work. It is defined as retraining, specialisation within a profession; expansion of the professional profile; probation within a profession, i.e. post-qualifying education or continuous professional development. The system of Postgraduate training serves as a ground for lifelong learning.

There is a long tradition and pride in this kind of educational provision for ‘continuing education’ and for ‘social inclusion’, that continues today. Lifelong learning (LLL) is conceptualized on the one hand as the progression through academic qualifications: Bachelor, Specialist, Master, Candidate of Science, Doctor of Science. On the other hand it also covers a wide range of educational courses designed for: ‘second chance’ students; for those who wish to change occupations; for on-the-job training for citizens in employment; for updating professionals; for second diplomas where only the specialist part of the curriculum needs to be followed; and to provide secondary school certificate for those who left school without qualification.

At doctoral level Ukraine has a two-degree system. The first qualification is the Candidate of Sciences (scientific degree of Kandidat Nauk) which normally requires at least three years of study after the award of the Specialist or the Master diploma and is achieved by submitting and defending a thesis (dissertation), as well as following post-graduate studies (aspirantura) in the specialist field. The second qualification is the Doctor of Sciences (scientific degree of Doktor Nauk), the highest degree in Ukraine which is achieved by dissertation that must make an original contribution to a given field of learning, and after a period of further studies (doktorantura) following the award of Kandidat Nauk degree.

Doctoral study programmes (post-graduate course, aspirantura – for Kandidat Nauk degree and doctoral course, doktorantura – for Doktor Nauk degree) can be opened in higher education institutions of the third and fourth levels of accreditation or in research institutes and their branches.

The two doctoral degrees can be earned in two ways: as a result of studies in aspirantura and doktorantura or independently. The public defense of the dissertation is held in the form of a public presentation and scientific debates.

American university system

According to UNESCO the US has the second largest number of higher education institutions in the world, with a total of 5,758, an average of more than 115 per state. The US also has the highest number of higher education students in the world, a figure of 14,261,778, or roughly 4.75% of the total population. The U.S. Department of Education shows 4,861 colleges and universities with 18,248,128 students in 2007.

The 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau found that 19.5 percent of the population had attended college but had no degree, 7.4 percent held an associate's degree, 17.1 percent held a bachelor's degree, and 9.9 percent held a graduate or professional degree. Only a small gender gap was present: 27 percent of the overall population held a bachelor's degree or higher, with a slightly larger percentage of men (27.9 percent) than women (26.2 percent). However, despite increasing economic incentives for people to obtain college degrees, the percentage of people graduating high school and college has been declining as of 2008.

The survey found that the area with the highest percentage of people 25 years and over with a bachelor's degree was the District of Columbia (45.9 percent), followed by the states of Massachusetts (37 percent), Maryland (35.1 percent), Colorado (34.3 percent), and Connecticut (33.7 percent). The state with the lowest percentage of people 25 years and over with a bachelor's degree was West Virginia (16.5 percent), finishing below Arkansas (18.2), Mississippi (18.8 percent), Kentucky (20 percent), and Louisiana (20.3 percent).

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1995 alone, U.S. universities granted 2,142 licenses and options to license patented technology, most of them exclusive; 169 start-up companies were formed in 1995 (more than 1,100 from 1980-95), for which such exclusive patents were the key. The licensing of university-research spin-offs adds more than 150,000 jobs to the U.S. economy each year.

The American university system, like the primary and secondary education system, is largely decentralized, in large part because the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reserves all powers not granted to the federal government or explicitly denied to the U.S. states “for the States respectively, or to the people.” Such a degree of autonomy in higher education is rare.

American universities have developed independent accreditation organizations to vouch for the quality of the degrees they offer. The accreditation agencies rate universities and colleges on criteria such as academic quality – the quality of their libraries, the publishing records of their faculty, and the degrees which their faculty hold. Nonaccredited institutions are perceived as lacking in quality and rigor, and may be termed diploma mills.

Colleges and universities in the U.S. vary in terms of goals: some may emphasize a vocational, business, engineering, or technical curriculum while others may emphasize a liberal arts curriculum. Many combine some or all of the above.

Two-year colleges (often but not always community colleges) usually offer the associate's degree such as an Associate of Arts (A.A.). Community colleges are often open admissions, with low tuition. Four-year colleges (which usually have a larger number of students and offer a greater range of studies than two-year colleges) offer the bachelor's degree, such as the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.S.). These are usually primarily undergraduate institutions, although some might have limited programs at the graduate level. Many students earn an associate's degree at a two-year institution before transferring to a four-year institution for another two years to earn a bachelor's degree.

Four-year institutions in the U.S. which emphasize the liberal arts are liberal arts colleges. These colleges traditionally emphasize interactive instruction (although research is still a component of these institutions). They are known for being residential and for having smaller enrollment, class size, and teacher-student ratios than universities. These colleges also encourage a high level of teacher-student interaction at the center of which are classes taught by full-time faculty rather than graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), who do teach classes at Research I and other universities. Most are private, although there are public liberal arts colleges. In addition, some offer experimental curricula, such as Hampshire College, Beloit College, Bard College at Simon's Rock, Pitzer College, Sarah Lawrence College, Grinnell College, Bennington College, New College of Florida, and Reed College.

Universities are research-oriented institutions which provide both undergraduate and graduate education. For historical reasons, some universities – such as Boston College, Dartmouth College, and the College of William & Mary – have retained the term "college," while some institutions granting few graduate degrees, such as Wesleyan University, use the term "university." Graduate programs grant a variety of master's degrees – such as the Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Science (M.S.), Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), or Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) – in addition to doctorates such as the Ph.D. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education distinguishes among institutions on the basis of the prevalence of degrees they grant and considers the granting of master's degrees necessary, though not sufficient, for an institution to be classified as a university.

Some universities have professional schools, which are attended primarily by those who plan to be practitioners instead of academics (scholars/researchers). Examples include journalism school, business school, medical schools (which award either the M.D. or D.O.), law schools (J.D.), veterinary schools (D.V.M.), and dental schools. A common practice is to refer to different units within universities as colleges or schools (what is referred to in other countries as faculties). Some colleges may be divided into departments – such as an anthropology department within a college of liberal arts and sciences within a larger university.

Except for the United States service academies and staff colleges, the federal government does not directly regulate universities, although it can give federal grants to them. The majority of public universities are operated by the states and territories, usually as part of a state university system. Each state supports at least one state university and several support many more. California, for example, has three public higher education systems: the 11-campus University of California, the 23-campus California State University, and the 109-campus California Community Colleges System. Public universities often have a large student body, with introductory classes numbering in the hundreds and some undergraduate classes taught by graduate students. Tribal colleges operated on Indian reservations by some federally recognized tribes are also public institutions.

Many private universities also exist. Among these, some are secular while others are involved in religious education. Some are non-denominational and some are affiliated with a certain sect or church, such as Roman Catholicism (with different institutions often sponsored by particular religious orders such as the Jesuits) or religions such as Lutheranism or Mormonism. Seminaries are private institutions for those preparing to become members of the clergy. Most private schools (like all public schools) are non-profit, although some are for-profit.

Tuition is charged at almost all American universities, except 1) the five federally-sponsored service academies, in which students attend free and with a stipend in exchange for a service commitment in the U.S. armed forces after graduation; and 2) a few institutions where offering tuition-free education is part of their mission, such as Cooper Union, Berea College and Olin College. Public universities often have much lower tuition than private universities because funds are provided by state governments and residents of the state that supports the university typically pay lower tuition than non-residents. Students often use scholarships, student loans, or grants, rather than paying all tuition out-of-pocket.

The majority of both liberal arts colleges and public universities are coeducational; the number of women's colleges and men's colleges has dwindled in past years and nearly all remaining single-sex institutions are private liberal arts colleges. There are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), both private (such as Morehouse College) and public (such as Florida A&M).

“College” Versus “University” Terminology

In the United States, the term college is frequently used to refer to stand-alone higher level education institutions that are not components of a university as well as to refer to components within a university. Stand-alone institutions that call themselves colleges are universities in the international sense of the term. Typically in the United States, a university is composed of an academically-diverse set of units called schools or colleges, whereas a college – whether it is a stand-alone institution of higher learning or a component within a university – typically focuses on one academic sector that is self-chosen by that institution, where that college is composed of departments within that sector. Note that the multiple colleges or schools comprising a university are typically collocated on the same university campus or near each other on adjacent campuses within the same metropolitan area. Unlike colleges versus universities in other portions of the world, a stand-alone college is truly stand-alone and is not part of a university is also not affiliated with an affiliating university.

Each institution may choose from several different schemes of organization using the terms, in most-macroscopic to most-microscopic order: university, college, school, division, department, and office. For instance, Brown University is composed of one college (The College, which is for undergraduates) and two schools (the Graduate School, which is for post-graduate students, and the Medical School, which is for the preparation of medical doctors). Dartmouth College is a stand-alone institution that names itself using the college term, but is organized similarly to Brown University with undergraduates enrolled in Dartmouth College (directly) and Dartmouth College containing three graduate schools that enroll the post-graduate students: the Tuck School of Business, the Thayer School of Engineering, and Dartmouth Medical School.