American college credentials run in one order, from the shortest to the longest: undergraduate certificate, associate degree, bachelor’s degree, postbaccalaureate certificate, master’s degree, post-master’s certificate, and doctoral degree. That order is not a matter of opinion or prestige. It is the award-level ladder that every college receiving federal student aid must report against through IPEDS, the US Department of Education’s postsecondary data system, and each rung has a written federal definition tied to how much full-time work it takes.
This page walks the ladder in order, covering what each level is, what it typically requires, the abbreviations that go with it, and how the same degree is written on a diploma and on a résumé. How long each one takes and what it pays are covered in depth on the degree timeline hub and the pay by education level hub, so they are only summarized here.
The degree ladder at a glance
The middle column quotes the federal definition word for word from the IPEDS glossary, which is the language colleges themselves report against. The credit figures are what a typical semester-credit program carries. They are set by states and institutions, not by Washington, so they vary.
| Level, in order | Federal (IPEDS) definition | Typical credit load | Common abbreviations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undergraduate certificate | An award below the baccalaureate, reported in credit-hour bands: under 9, 9 to 29, 30 to 59, or 60 or more semester credits | Under 60 semester credits | Usually written out, or “Cert.” |
| Associate degree | “An award that normally requires at least 2 but less than 4 years of full-time equivalent college work” | About 60 semester credits | AA, AS, AAS, AFA, AAT |
| Bachelor’s degree | “An award … that normally requires at least 4 but not more than 5 years of full-time equivalent college-level work” | About 120 semester credits | BA, BS, BFA, BBA, BSN, BAS |
| Postbaccalaureate certificate | “An award that requires completion of an organized program of study beyond the bachelor’s … but does not meet the requirements of a master’s degree” | Commonly 12 to 30 credits | Usually written out |
| Master’s degree | “An award that requires the successful completion of a program of study of at least the full-time equivalent of 1 but not more than 2 academic years of work beyond the bachelor’s degree” | About 30 to 60 semester credits | MA, MS, MBA, MEd, MSW, MFA, MPH |
| Post-master’s certificate | “An award that requires completion of an organized program beyond the master’s degree, but does not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctor’s level” | Varies by program | Usually written out |
| Doctorate, research or scholarship | “A Ph.D. or other doctor’s degree that requires advanced work beyond the master’s level, including the preparation and defense of a dissertation based on original research” | Dissertation-based, with no credit cap | PhD, EdD, DMA, DBA, DSc |
| Doctorate, professional practice | A degree for “the recognition, credential, or license required for professional practice”, awarded when total time to the degree “equals at least six full-time equivalent academic years” | Set by the professional program | MD, JD, DDS, DMD, PharmD, DVM, DO, OD, DPM, DC |
IPEDS also keeps a third doctoral box, the “other” doctor’s degree category, for doctorates that fit neither of the two definitions above.
Certificates: the rungs that are not degrees
Certificates are part of the order, but they are not degrees. The federal definitions draw a sharp line between the two. A degree is “an award conferred by a college, university, or other postsecondary education institution as official recognition for the successful completion of a program of studies”, while a certificate is “a recognized postsecondary credential that is conferred upon the satisfactory completion of a postsecondary education program”. A certificate proves you finished a program. A degree places you on the academic ladder.
Undergraduate certificates sit below the associate degree. Since the 2020-21 collection, IPEDS has reported them in credit- and clock-hour bands rather than academic years: under 300 clock hours or 9 semester credits, 300 to 899 clock hours or 9 to 29 credits, 900 to 1,800 clock hours or 30 to 59 credits, and 1,800 hours or 60 credits and up. Those bands are why one school’s “certificate” is a single semester and another’s is close to a full associate degree. The certificate timeline hub has the program-by-program detail.
Two certificate rungs sit higher up the ladder. A postbaccalaureate certificate comes after a bachelor’s but falls short of a master’s, and a post-master’s certificate comes after a master’s but falls short of a doctorate. Teacher-preparation certificate programs are one trap. They are counted as sub-baccalaureate undergraduate programs in federal reporting even when they require a bachelor’s degree for admission, so a teaching certificate does not move you up the degree ladder.
1. Associate degree
The associate degree is the first degree on the ladder. The federal definition is time-based, an award that “normally requires at least 2 but less than 4 years of full-time equivalent college work”. That works out to about 60 semester credits. Florida, one of the states that sets the number in law, caps the associate in arts at “no more than 60 semester hours of college credit” including 36 hours of general education (Fla. Stat. § 1007.25(9)(a)).
The three common variants differ in what they are built for:
- Associate of Arts (AA) is heavy on general education and designed to transfer into the first two years of a bachelor’s degree.
- Associate of Science (AS) serves the same transfer purpose with a mathematics and science core, and at some colleges the AS is the career-track degree instead.
- Associate of Applied Science (AAS) is occupational, built to lead straight to work, and its credits transfer less readily.
Other variants exist, including the Associate of Fine Arts and the Associate of Arts in Teaching. US institutions conferred 1,008,285 associate degrees in 2021-22.
Writing it down causes more trouble than earning it. “Associate degree” and “associate’s degree” are both current, but they are not interchangeable on a résumé line, and neither is capitalized in running text. Associate or associate’s degree settles the apostrophe and the capitalization. What an associate degree looks like compares the document to the other levels, and how to get a copy of an associate degree covers replacing one.
2. Bachelor’s degree
The bachelor’s is the degree most employers mean when a job posting says “degree required”. Federally it is “an award … that normally requires at least 4 but not more than 5 years of full-time equivalent college-level work”. That definition deliberately includes five-year cooperative programs that alternate study with paid work, and accelerated programs that compress the normal four years into three.
The credit figure behind those years is about 120 semester credits. Florida again puts a number in statute, where a baccalaureate degree program “shall require no more than 120 semester hours of college credit” including 36 hours of general education (Fla. Stat. § 1007.25(10)).
The usual types are the Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BS). The split is not about difficulty. A BA normally carries more humanities, language and elective breadth, a BS more mathematics, laboratory and technical coursework, and many universities award both in the same subject. Named professional bachelor’s degrees include the BFA in fine arts, the BBA in business, the BSN in nursing and the BAS, which is designed to build on an applied associate degree. An associate degree that transfers cleanly can cover roughly the first half of the 120 credits, which is why the two-plus-two route exists. US institutions conferred 2,015,035 bachelor’s degrees in 2021-22. Finishing a bachelor’s degree faster covers credit transfer, testing out and accelerated terms.
3. Master’s degree
A master’s degree is the first graduate level: “at least the full-time equivalent of 1 but not more than 2 academic years of work beyond the bachelor’s degree”. Roughly 30 to 60 semester credits, depending on the field and whether the program ends in a thesis, a capstone project or an examination.
Master’s degrees divide into two families. Academic master’s degrees, the MA and MS, are built on coursework plus research, and in many fields serve as the entry point to a doctoral program. Professional master’s degrees are the MBA, MSW, MEd, MPH, MPA, MFA and their relatives. They are built around practice, licensure or a portfolio, and are terminal in the sense that most holders go to work instead of on to a doctorate. The federal definition carries one explicit exception for theology degrees such as the M.Div. and M.H.L./Rav, which were formerly classed as first-professional and may require more than two full-time equivalent academic years.
US institutions conferred 880,249 master’s degrees in 2021-22. Graduate admission runs on transcripts instead of diplomas. The page on degree transcripts in graduate school applications covers what programs ask for and when.
4. Doctoral degree
The doctorate is the top of the ladder, and federal reporting splits it into three boxes rather than one.
- Doctor’s degree, research or scholarship. A PhD or equivalent requiring “advanced work beyond the master’s level, including the preparation and defense of a dissertation based on original research, or the planning and execution of an original project demonstrating substantial artistic or scholarly achievement”. The EdD, DMA, DBA, DSc and DA sit here too.
- Doctor’s degree, professional practice. A degree conferred on completion of a program that supplies “the knowledge and skills for the recognition, credential, or license required for professional practice”, where total time to the degree, pre-professional study included, “equals at least six full-time equivalent academic years”. This is the box holding the MD, JD, DDS and DMD, PharmD, DVM, DO, OD, DPM and DC.
- Doctor’s degree, other. Anything a college awards at doctoral level that meets neither definition.
These three categories replaced the old “first-professional degree” label, which IPEDS discontinued with the 2010-11 collection. Older career guides that still rank a “first professional degree” against a doctorate are describing a classification that no longer exists.
US institutions conferred 203,884 doctor’s degrees across all three categories in 2021-22. The wording on the parchment differs sharply between them, and types of doctoral diplomas compares how a PhD, EdD, MD and JD diploma are actually laid out.
How many degrees are awarded at each level
The ladder narrows as it rises, and the shape of that narrowing is worth seeing before you plan a route up it. These are all degrees conferred by US postsecondary institutions in the 2021-22 academic year, the most recent completed year in the National Center for Education Statistics Digest.
| Level | Degrees conferred, 2021-22 | Share of all degrees |
|---|---|---|
| Associate | 1,008,285 | 24.5% |
| Bachelor’s | 2,015,035 | 49.1% |
| Master’s | 880,249 | 21.4% |
| Doctoral (all three categories) | 203,884 | 5.0% |
| Total | 4,107,453 | 100% |
Shares are calculated from the counts in the source table. Certificates are not included, because they are not degrees and are counted separately in federal data.
Abbreviations, and how a degree is written
The same degree is written three different ways, one for the diploma, one for after a name, and one for a résumé.
On the diploma, the degree is almost always spelled out in full: “Bachelor of Science”, not “BS”. Beyond the degree name, what appears varies by institution. The University of Washington, for example, prints the graduate’s name, the degree earned, the major and options where applicable, and any honors. It only began printing majors on bachelor’s diplomas with the spring 2025 graduating class. Many universities still leave the major off the diploma entirely and record it on the transcript. What a college diploma looks like breaks down the standard elements.
After a name, the abbreviation is used, and usage is split on periods: “PhD” and “Ph.D.” are both accepted, but pick one and stay consistent through a document. Academic doctorates and professional doctorates both take the post-nominal. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees generally do not, outside academic or clinical contexts where they are conventional.
On a résumé, the degree goes in an education entry with the field, the institution and the year, and the degree name is either spelled out or given as the standard abbreviation.
| Level | Written in full | Abbreviations | Typical résumé line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Associate | Associate of Applied Science | AAS, A.A.S. | Associate of Applied Science in Nursing, Portland Community College, 2023 |
| Bachelor’s | Bachelor of Science | BS, B.S., BSc | Bachelor of Science in Accounting, University of Iowa, 2021 |
| Master’s | Master of Business Administration | MBA, M.B.A. | Master of Business Administration, Georgia State University, 2024 |
| Doctorate (research) | Doctor of Philosophy | PhD, Ph.D. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry, Ohio State University, 2020 |
| Doctorate (practice) | Juris Doctor | JD, J.D. | Juris Doctor, University of Denver, 2019 |
Two details trip people up. The possessive belongs to bachelor’s and master’s (“a master’s degree”) but the degree name itself does not take one (“Master of Science”). And a degree you did not finish is written as coursework, with the credits completed and no degree name. The page on how employers verify degrees explains what a background check actually returns, which is usually the award level and the date, straight from the registrar or a clearinghouse.
Where time and money fit in
Each rung adds time and cost, and the two do not scale together. The federal definitions above give the floor: two years, four years, one to two more, and six full-time equivalent years for a professional doctorate. Real completion times run longer for part-time and returning students, and doctoral programs are measured in years of research instead of credits. The degree timeline hub has the completion data level by level, and the pay by education level hub has the earnings and unemployment figures that go with each. Deciding between the next rung and a certificate is usually a question of which of those two pages you believe applies to your field. Which degrees pay best at each level, and which occupations are projected to hire fastest, is set out in the best degrees to get.
Replica diplomas for display
ValidGrad makes novelty replica diplomas for display at each of these levels: associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate, or start from the replica university diploma maker. You choose the degree wording, the layout and the paper, which is what people use when the original is framed, stored or lost and a second copy is wanted for a wall. Current pricing and paper options are on the product pages.
These are novelty and display items. A replica must never be used to claim a credential you did not earn, submitted to an employer or a school, or offered in answer to a verification request; that is set out in our terms and conditions.
Frequently asked questions
What are college degrees in order from lowest to highest?
Associate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate. Adding the non-degree rungs that federal reporting recognizes gives the full ladder: undergraduate certificate, associate, bachelor’s, postbaccalaureate certificate, master’s, post-master’s certificate, doctorate.
Is a PhD a master’s degree?
No. They are separate award levels in federal reporting. A master’s is defined as one to two academic years of work beyond a bachelor’s. A research doctorate is “advanced work beyond the master’s level” that ends in a dissertation defended before examiners. The confusion comes from the route. Many students earn a master’s on the way, and a number of US doctoral programs award one to students who complete the coursework stage. Others admit students straight from a bachelor’s degree and award no master’s at all.
What degree is eight years of college?
Usually a professional-practice doctorate. The federal definition requires that the total time to the degree, counting pre-professional study, equals at least six full-time equivalent academic years, and in practice an MD, DDS, DMD or DVM follows a four-year bachelor’s with a four-year professional program. A JD normally runs three years after the bachelor’s. Residency or fellowship that follows a medical degree is supervised training, not additional degree study.
Is a certificate the same as a degree?
No. A certificate is a recognized postsecondary credential awarded for finishing a program. A degree is an award that places you at a level on the academic ladder. Certificates exist below the associate degree, between the bachelor’s and the master’s, and above the master’s, and they are reported separately from degrees in federal statistics.
Do you need a master’s degree before a doctorate?
It depends on the field and the program, not on a general rule. Many US PhD programs in the sciences admit students directly from a bachelor’s degree. Programs in the humanities, education and the professions more often expect a master’s first. Professional-practice doctorates such as the MD and JD are entered from a bachelor’s degree plus prerequisites. The admitting department’s own requirements are the only reliable answer.
Sources
- National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS Glossary (2024-25 survey materials), with definitions of degree, certificate, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, postbaccalaureate certificate, post-master’s certificate, doctor’s degree (research/scholarship, professional practice and other), the sub-baccalaureate certificate award levels, and the discontinued first-professional category.
- National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, Table 318.10: Degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by level of degree and sex of student, for the 2021-22 conferral counts.
- Florida Statutes, § 1007.25, General education courses; common prerequisites; other degree requirements, for the 60-hour associate in arts cap and the 120-hour baccalaureate cap.
- University of Washington Office of the Registrar, Diplomas, for what is printed on the diploma and the spring 2025 change adding majors to bachelor’s diplomas.
Federal definitions and conferral counts were read on September 13, 2026. Credit requirements are set by states and institutions and change. Confirm the numbers for your own program with the college’s catalog or registrar.