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I was under the impression that the OP's goal was to advance his career overall (while also pursuing one of his academic interests, which is not IT), with an interest in getting into an intelligence-related career if the opportunity ever became available. If that is the case, a Political Science degree would be fine. Of course, a quantitative (economics, statistics, mathematics) minor and/or electives would help also. And you already mentioned foreign languages. If the primary goal is specifically to get into intelligence, then I do not have any knowledge on that subject.
Political Science does not have a reputation of being one of the "soft" (easy) liberal arts, like for example sociology, psychology, and even international relations do (no offense intended to those majors...they are legitimate subjects) and it is well-rounded and not so specialized as to cause people of non-political/government fields to intentionally avoid it, thinking the degree is too narrow in an unrelated field.
Overall school rankings are not always important in and of themselves, and they are never the sole factor, but the top programs in a specific discipline are rarely not going to be among the overall higher ranked universities. All but one of those in the international politics sub-field was in the top 20% of ranked schools overall (with one being in the top third).
Also, note that the rankings for specific fields are always at the graduate level (with the exception of business schools, for which they have rankings at both levels). Sometimes the graduate level programs are of much higher quality/reputation than the undergraduate programs of the same field at the same school, and vice versa. Sometimes schools do not even offer certain subjects at the undergraduate level. Yet, in many of these cases graduates of their undergraduate programs in other fields still get top jobs in that specialty since the school had an overall superb reputation and/or connections.
Just like I said one should give extra investigation to even those ranked that are low on one of the lists, I would give extra investigation to a school that is unranked overall despite being ranked on a graduate school list, especially since the OP would not actually be in the graduate school. One of the many flaws of the US News Rankings (which definitely has flaws...the reason I said not to take the rankings as gospel, just as a general guide) is that one of the big weights is peer reputation/survey, reputation among other academic institutions, with no weight given to an employer reputation/survey. The peer reputation is generally accurate in that schools significantly higher on a list are almost certainly of higher reputation even among employers.
But smaller, more subtle differences do not always reflect in the real-world outside of academia. Academics may think a graduate program is of high quality, while employers do not care because the school has an overall negative reputation in their eyes, perhaps even due to poor candidates/employees from other programs in the school. Of course, it could be the other way around too. My point is, an unranked school is a warning sign for more investigation, despite the fact that further investigation may "clear" the specific program as OK. I do not believe that would happen too often in the case of unranked schools though.
Keep in mind, there are a VERY FEW schools that refuse to report data to the US News Rankings on principle (due to flaws in the ranking methodology), and therefore are "unranked." If this is the case for a school, you will be able to find out with some online research. Unfortunately though, the overwhelming majority are unranked because they are simply poor schools. Once again, over 1,000 institutions in the United States are ranked. It is not that hard to achieve ranking. I know of some schools with not-very-nice reputations even within their/my state, and they are still ranked, and they are most definitely still better schools and more reputable than all the unranked schools in my state.
Schools are usually unranked because they can't be ranked. U.S. News will even note that a school's non-traditional nature will not allow them to be ranked based on the criteria that are used. Political science is softer than psychology and sociology in my educated opinion. The behavioral sciences regularly use experimentation and are heavy on statistics. They are also classified as STEM by the federal government. In the intelligence field, anything that focuses on international relations or area studies is better than a domestically-focused, political science degree. They don't care to have experts in American politics. But, all one has to do is look at the requirements of non-technical intelligence jobs to see that international relations and national security studies are listed alongside political science (sometimes with the notation of internationally-focused) as preferred degrees.
The reputation of the graduate program does trickle down to the undergraduate programs because they usually share the same professors who are at the forefront in research in the field. When hiring professors, the ranking of the program one graduated from is much more important than overall ranking. Some of my criminal justice professors came from schools with low overall rankings, but just about all of them graduated from top 25 schools in criminology, law, and sociology. Trust me, CJ employers know that Sam Houston State University is one of the top CJ schools even though it is lowly ranked overall.
I will add that I am very familiar with the employment requirements in the intelligence field because I have a masters in security studies, some of my former professors worked in military intelligence, and I was far into the application and testing process before the sequestration triggered hiring freezes.
As far as employment outside of intelligence, political science does not do well at the undergraduate level. IIRC, Georgetown's study found the unemployment rate for political science majors to be just as high, if not higher, than those of psychology and sociology. Because I have a bachelor's in social science that included a lot of psychology courses and a masters in a sub-field of a sub-field of political science, I have looked for jobs asking for those degrees. I have found that there are many more jobs asking for psychology degrees. There are technical intelligence jobs asking for degrees in the STEM and even business fields, but I have a feeling the OP wouldn't be interested in those. I'm not talking about business intelligence. These jobs look at the building of weapons of mass destruction, cyber attacks, white collar crimes, and funding sources of terrorist organizations.
You should be able to manage your debt by going back to school part time at a reasonably priced state school. I certainly wouldn't quit my job to go back to school full time if that is what you are asking.
Certainly a wise investment in your future to get a degree ( in whatever you decide ), get it! When you least expect it, it could prove to be an asset and make a career move much easier.
My current situation... I have a 13 year background in Managerial Accounting and Operations Management. I suddenly found myself unemployed. Despite having the experience, I cant get someone to interview me based on the fact that I don't have a completed college degree(Even through networking). I've done the work within accounting, and led teams of up to 35 people within operations, but the market has changed such that having the experience is no longer enough. At this point I am going back to school to finish my BS in Accounting, + the additional 30 credits so I can sit for the CPA exam. Its a sacrifice that I now have to make for not making the sacrifice earlier. If I do find a job in the mean time, I will have to take a DRASTIC pay cut of up to 50% in comparison to what I was making prior. That's a hard to pill to swallow.
Setting yourself up for success is doing everything you need to do to continually move forward on your terms; and not at the point when you have no other choice. For waiting till you are forced to make the decision will be much harder on you.
I think it depends on the major the degree is in and how you use it to accomplish something that gives the education its worth. So if you want the degree just for the sake of having the Bachelor label but 1) have no idea who would hire you, 2) how in-demand it would be on the market in four to six years, and 3) how you plan to use that knowledge to achieve something in practical terms, then I wouldn't think it's worth the $80,000 debt burden. If you know exactly what jobs you want and how the coursework you'd pay for will get you there, have a network of people leading you there, then you should go for it.
Schools are usually unranked because they can't be ranked. U.S. News will even note that a school's non-traditional nature will not allow them to be ranked based on the criteria that are used. Political science is softer than psychology and sociology in my educated opinion. The behavioral sciences regularly use experimentation and are heavy on statistics. They are also classified as STEM by the federal government.
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As far as employment outside of intelligence, political science does not do well at the undergraduate level. IIRC, Georgetown's study found the unemployment rate for political science majors to be just as high, if not higher, than those of psychology and sociology. Because I have a bachelor's in social science that included a lot of psychology courses and a masters in a sub-field of a sub-field of political science, I have looked for jobs asking for those degrees. I have found that there are many more jobs asking for psychology degrees.
I was apparently using the incorrect term. I was not aware that there was a difference between Unranked and Rank Not Published (just checked the definitions). Apparently Unranked is as you say - institutions that do not collect and/or report some or all of the data used by the USNWR rankings. However, Rank Not Published (which is the category of the school I attended) means that USNWR successfully calculated its rank and found it to be in the bottom 25% of the rankings (which you alluded to earlier). All the numbers I mentioned previously were based on published-ranks. So there are over 1,000 schools in the top 75% of calculated rankings, and less than 350 in the bottom 25% of calculated rankings.
As for Political Science, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the overall "popular" reputation. I definitely would agree that if someone's primary goal is to get a good job after graduation with their selected major, ANY liberal arts degree should be approached with caution and thorough planning. But both at my college (which is not reflective at-large I admit, since it was a particularly bad school) and on popular college discussion forums, psychology and sociology and the like are the go-to majors for the sorority airhead types that often eventually end up as the clueless HR people so often complained about here.
So even though, in a good school, sociology/psychology/etc are no less intensive or intellectual than political science/history/etc (though I realize in terms of employment opps, history is among the worst), the abnormally high amount of poor students that choose to major in sociology/psych "because they are people persons" has created a popular negative reputation. In good schools, is the reputation unjustified? Absolutely.
There is also a cycle that has been created. Poor students in these programs have made the programs themselves worse over time in poor schools that allow it, as they attempt to dumb down the programs even further so that more students will enter and more can graduate and/or choose to stay in the programs. The sociology program at my school had some students that were literally able to graduate with a bachelor's in sociology without ever having to write a single paper in the subject's classes, by picking sociology courses from the freshman level all the way to senior level that involved nothing but tests and non-writing homework assignments.
Any good Political Science program should also involve a good level of quantitative analysis. Now Economics absolutely would be superior, in terms of job opportunities, to any of the other traditional liberal arts, but the OP did not mention an interest in that, and originally his primary goal was not necessarily to get a non-IT job with the new degree. However, it looks like the OP is now more concerned than he originally was about post-graduation opportunities. In that case, none of the liberal arts are a good idea, especially at schools or programs that are not highly ranked, unless he comes up with a specific job that prefers them. And when jobs actually prefer liberal arts majors, normally they also strongly prefer high-ranked schools and/or programs.
I was apparently using the incorrect term. I was not aware that there was a difference between Unranked and Rank Not Published (just checked the definitions). Apparently Unranked is as you say - institutions that do not collect and/or report some or all of the data used by the USNWR rankings. However, Rank Not Published (which is the category of the school I attended) means that USNWR successfully calculated its rank and found it to be in the bottom 25% of the rankings (which you alluded to earlier). All the numbers I mentioned previously were based on published-ranks. So there are over 1,000 schools in the top 75% of calculated rankings, and less than 350 in the bottom 25% of calculated rankings.
As for Political Science, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the overall "popular" reputation. I definitely would agree that if someone's primary goal is to get a good job after graduation with their selected major, ANY liberal arts degree should be approached with caution and thorough planning. But both at my college (which is not reflective at-large I admit, since it was a particularly bad school) and on popular college discussion forums, psychology and sociology and the like are the go-to majors for the sorority airhead types that often eventually end up as the clueless HR people so often complained about here.
So even though, in a good school, sociology/psychology/etc are no less intensive or intellectual than political science/history/etc (though I realize in terms of employment opps, history is among the worst), the abnormally high amount of poor students that choose to major in sociology/psych "because they are people persons" has created a popular negative reputation. In good schools, is the reputation unjustified? Absolutely.
There is also a cycle that has been created. Poor students in these programs have made the programs themselves worse over time in poor schools that allow it, as they attempt to dumb down the programs even further so that more students will enter and more can graduate and/or choose to stay in the programs. The sociology program at my school had some students that were literally able to graduate with a bachelor's in sociology without ever having to write a single paper in the subject's classes, by picking sociology courses from the freshman level all the way to senior level that involved nothing but tests and non-writing homework assignments.
Any good Political Science program should also involve a good level of quantitative analysis. Now Economics absolutely would be superior, in terms of job opportunities, to any of the other traditional liberal arts, but the OP did not mention an interest in that, and originally his primary goal was not necessarily to get a non-IT job with the new degree. However, it looks like the OP is now more concerned than he originally was about post-graduation opportunities. In that case, none of the liberal arts are a good idea, especially at schools or programs that are not highly ranked, unless he comes up with a specific job that prefers them. And when jobs actually prefer liberal arts majors, normally they also strongly prefer high-ranked schools and/or programs.
Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree. The stereotype I hear for political science majors is that they go to law school in such high rates because they can't find a job and that many of them go on to become sleazy politicians. The reality is that many of them get stuck in temporary positions working for campaigns. Like almost every other social science, one needs a graduate degree to really do something.
Psychology and sociology majors are stereotyped as being touchy feely and naive for thinking that they could find a career without earning a graduate degree. I would say that economics is the most quantitative of the social sciences (I think physical anthropology is the most scientific and has a lot in common with the life sciences), but the unemployment and underemployment rates are high for those who just have an undergraduate degree.
Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree. The stereotype I hear for political science majors is that they go to law school in such high rates because they can't find a job and that many of them go on to become sleazy politicians. The reality is that many of them get stuck in temporary positions working for campaigns. Like almost every other social science, one needs a graduate degree to really do something.
Psychology and sociology majors are stereotyped as being touchy feely and naive for thinking that they could find a career without earning a graduate degree. I would say that economics is the most quantitative of the social sciences (I think physical anthropology is the most scientific and has a lot in common with the life sciences), but the unemployment and underemployment rates are high for those who just have an undergraduate degree.
I just thought of something. Differences in standardized testing scores can partly be attributable to gender distribution among the majors. Females far outnumber males in psychology. http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-18.pdf
As mentioned if it's accredited and inexpensive sure. Even then it best be a degree that can actually put you in a better place of getting a job. Would I get my sociology degree now hell no.
"I just want to clarify that one should not just get any political science degree. There is a preference for internationally-focused political science degrees. A domestically-focused political science degree almost does you no good. "
It largely depends on what you want to do. Personally I see international has waned. After the Iraq war slowed down the media pulled out and frankly international reporting has been largely curbed. They'll report about Beruit from Tel Aviv or worse yet....London. Of course the energy boom has also created a turn away from the middle east. Some of this has had booms and busts for decades. How many professors of the Russian language get tenure these days vs during the cold war
"I would also recommend against a government degree since those are also usually domestically-focused."
Um. Read the Oxford Handbook on Public Policy. There's a whole chapter that explains the development of the disciple from political science to public administration to public policy. There's differences between all three.
"For someone who keeps up with current events, the foreign service officer exam is easy to pass. Without extensive professional experience, it's difficult to get past the next phases. Even though the federal government no longer uses the phrase "critical needs languages," being proficient in the languages on those lists will make you competitive. Critical Language Scholarship Program"
It all depends on how much is kept up. I came pretty close but the other thing to you have remember is the actual appointments for ambassadors don't go to people that actually know about them. Obama ambassador nominees prompt an uproar with bungled answers, lack of ties - The Washington Post This coupled with Bengahzi and frankly I just don't see the field being that attractive as it used to be.
If you want to build things up maybe joining the peace corp could help. Keep in mind this though you can only do that one way peace corp and then CIA. The peace corp openly asks during its application if you worked for cia and that pretty much blocks you.
You could also try to find work at a non profit that operates overseas.
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