Best master's degree to get if my ultimate goal is Ed.D

[bjcheung77]

Ah ha! Good job, I see you've done your research in regards to both AACSB vs ACBSP and EdD vs PhD!  That is what I thought as well - EdD would be more of an applied or professional development degree vs a PhD which is geared for Academia & Research.
 
Coincidentally - AACSB is geared towards Academia & Research and ACBSP is geared towards applied knowledge with an emphasis on teaching (at the community college level or higher because they also accredit Associates, which AACSB does not).

There are a few Ed.D programs available from several for-profit institutions.  A few can be had for under $30K, for the cost, I would recommend getting your Ed.D from ACE (American College of Education), this school has been mentioned on the sister board and this board as well...  They have 4 Ed.D program options to choose from at ~$24K.

ACE Ed.D Link: https://www.ace.edu/programs?program=68
Tuition Link: https://www.ace.edu/tuition-and-admissio...on-details

The requirements for entry is a Masters.  It doesn't have to in Education... Other options for the Ed.D would be from Capella or Trident, or Walden and the likes of them, but they are much more pricey.  I would recommend searching both this board and the sister one (degreeinfo) for more schools just in case they pop up.

For your masters, you may want to consider doing two.  An MSML from WGU and also their MBA as 5 courses overlap, it should take you just a year to complete the both of them - well in your time frame of 18 months, and the price is right.  Should cost $4K for each one, both also have the ACBSP recognition.   If you prefer another, the Purdue name sounds good for the price...

If you have the time of 2 years or 20 months, you might consider doing the coursera, edx, futurlearn, udacity or upgrad MOOC options, they team up with Australian/UK and US universities and the cost is much less than the traditional way of learning, plus you get a well known degree.  I would check them out!  Example an AACSB MBA from the UK for $5-7K, see this thread: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...utureLearn