Rheno,

you seem to have made up your mind that getting the cheapest possible Master's is a good career move for you. Do let us know how it works out for you, in that case. But here are a couple of considerations that I think ought to be part of your decision:

1) Opportunity Cost

You've already used this term in another posting, I think. Let's imagine a really minimal commitment to Master's study that might allow you to scrape through if you were a bright spark (perhaps part-time over four semesters - totalling 48 weeks - but let's cut it down to 40 - with maybe 10 hours work per week - anyway a total of 400 hours). Now imagine that instead of studying, you were in gainful employment for these 400 hours. How much would you earn? If it's $20 per hour, for instance, that would be $8000. Well, that's the starting cost of your MA, even if it was offered to you free. Any fees can be put on top of that. Now most top class MA's in TESOL cost something like between $10 000 and $15 000 for those who have to pay full fees (there are various discounts available for residents etc). Anyway, adding the fees and the opportunity cost together, you get a total cost of something like $20 000, give or take a few thousand. Now if you got a ridiculously cheap MA from an unknown institution in a developing country, perhaps your fees would be $3000 - $5000. So adding on the opportunity cost, that brings it up to $12 000 give or take the odd thousand.

Anyway, you can do your own maths on this - the main point is that there aren't any dirt cheap MAs around - if only because of the opportunity costs involved at least for people in developed countries with earning power. So, if you really do want to focus exclusively on cost as a criteria, at least start with a realistic idea of what the real costs are.

2) Future value

You seem to be looking at an MA purely in terms of getting better / easier jobs at language schools in Korea etc. Perhaps a cheap MA will do the trick for you. I don't know. Personally speaking, I'd want a better guarantee that it would before putting in the considerable investment of time and money for what seems like comparatively little reward. But in any case, most teachers do professional qualifications to broaden - not narrow - their options. In the words of a famous insurance ad, they're 'for the life you don't yet know.' So, given that you have to give up one to two years of your never-to-be- repeated life doing a course, it might be argued that you ought to get the most value out of that investment of your flesh and blood. So, in other words, trying to do the most rewarding, stimulating and prestigious course you can afford. After all, a good quality MA will offer opportunities worldwide and in better institutions or fields of work that you don't even know about right now. If you enjoy it or do well, it could be the basis of an academic career, or one in school administration, materials development, teacher education etc in any country. As I mentioned to you earlier, I only really got the full value out of my MA some 12 years after completing it and in a context I could never have imagined at the time. If you have the choice - ie the means to pay for a much better course and you are accepted - I can't see any reason not to - particularly considering the economic argument I outlined in 1 - ie that all MA courses, even free ones - are actually expensive when you factor in the opportunity costs. But expensive quality doesn't look so bad when the option is slightly less expensive junk.

3) The other thing for you to try to visualise is what it will be like for you during the one to two years of the course. What sort of personal experience and development you will be going through. An MA course is something like a ship - to give its passengers a comfortable voyage, it needs an experienced captain, an expert crew, a sound structure, good facilities and a powerful engine room. True, it's possible to cross the Atlantic on a raft if your priority is to get there without spending a cent! But don't expect a cabin. If you go for the cheapest MA, you need to be prepared to put up with minimal resources, poorly conceived assignments, limited feedback on your work, a lack of expertise among your tutors .. and just a nagging feeling that it could have been different - in my case, I don't think that would be particularly constructive for my self-esteem. Obviously, not all cheap options are totally bereft of quality, but I imagine that with MA courses, like most other things, there are some extremely shoddy goods on offer for those who are interested in nothing else by the cheapest price. And one last thought, given the length of time you have to put up with this, I imagine that the chances of non-completion might be pretty high - which will mean the waste of thousands of dollars for nothing. The classic 'false economy'.

If I were getting back into TESOL (not likely right now), I'd definitely get the master's first. Live and learn, man. I would also make sure I went with the absolute cheapest master's program I could find. I'm telling you, and I'm sure you already know this, that most schools overseas won't care if you get a master's from K-Mart TESOL or Harvard. I know your students sure as hell won't care. Showing up at most schools, high schools and Unis, with a high priced master's is as stupid as wearing your church-going tux to work in a slaughterhouse.

Yeah, go as cheap as you can and save that extra money for retirement. By a bond with the extra dough. You may need that to keep yourself out of a McDonald's mopping floors when you're 65.

You don't need to spend a lot to get an adequate master's degree.

Oh, that, yeah. My answer to one who claimed my problems with teaching 'brats' stemmed from my being a "drunk". Hey--if you throw rocks, you must expect them to be thrown back.

Fish, what happened to that great (acutally lame-ass) ad hominem attack you leveled against me last week? I see it got deleted. You know, the one where you ignored my argument that new teachers who really want to teach overseas should avoid getting the expensive TESOL cert, which handcuffs them to only certain jobs, and instead get a master's degree in TESOL.

And I do believe I did post that from a library near my workplace, a place from where I'd never post a message to this site.

Just admit it, man. You have no answer to my claim. No surprise. Those lamers who rely on ad hominems never do.

Get the master's degree folks. Don't get that cert. It's just a waste of money and time.