As the former chair and current master's of social work chair of the Department of Social Work here at OU, I would like to clarify some misperceptions that might have resulted from your article in Tuesday's issue about Payscale.com's ranking of social work as the lowest paying bachelor's degree. Although the statement is accurate on its face, the following factors need to be taken into account to understand the context of the claim. To keep it brief, I will skip footnotes, most of which you can find at OU's graduate social work website (contact me for other sources):
Social workers with bachelor's degrees
the definition used by Payscale.com, include people who hold the civil service title social worker but might be neither licensed nor have earned a degree in social work; people who have degrees from programs not accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, who are also ineligible for licensing in most states; people who have degrees in social work from accredited programs but are not licensed; and people who were grandparented into licensure because of employment early in its process and similarly might not have accredited social work degrees.
These designations depress the figures for licensed social workers with bachelor's degrees from CSWE-accredited institutions (the kind we graduate). Further depressing the salaries of BSWs is the fact that 14 states and the federal government do not hire social workers below the MSW level. But the accredited BSW qualifies students to apply for licensure in 36 states, making it an extremely practical and marketable choice for students who must seek employment post-bachelor's degree or who want that option in this turbulent economy.
More important, fully four-fifths of social workers go on to earn MSWs, which suggests that those earning a bachelor's degree in social work factored into the study were in their (lowest-paying) early career years. Further, many social workers never practice at the BSW level, but earn the degree only to qualify for Advanced Standing status in an MSW program or to go on for advanced degrees in other disciplines.
Finally, many professional social workers stop referring to themselves as social workers. Sadly, sometimes it is because they buy into the perceived lack of value of the title. But other times, it is because they gain more significant appellations (Money Guru Suze Orman, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Dr. Dorothy Height).
Perhaps because of the devaluing of social work, however, there has been a growing shortage of MSWs in the field, and in response, the federal government has recently financed additional sources of loan reimbursement for MSW education. And with some 300,000 fewer MSWs than jobs requiring them, these graduates will continue to have a strong job market for the foreseeable future, earning salaries that rank above those of librarians, teachers, counselors, and just below those of college professors and registered nurses. But the really great thing about social work is that our rewards are paid in much more than wages.
Susan Sarnoff chairs the master's of social work program at Ohio University.
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Opinion
