Is the term Tertiary Education used in America? Mostly I’ve found the terms “Higher Education” used for university and “Continuing Education” for vocational, but not Teritary to cover all post-secondary education.
EDIT for context: I’m from Australia where the term is used as term to cover any formal post-secondary education.
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I’ve never heard it used.
People with a tertiary education might, but who knows what those elites do….
Nope
I don’t know that I’ve heard it used, but if I did I would understand what it means.
I’m told I often use “big words to sound smart” yet even I would never use that term. That’s just a really bizarre label for college.
Nope. Higher education is the generic term most Americans use.
I have heard from people who finance mainly post graduate education.
But, it’s not something that anyone outside of that specific niche would use.
I would use it in some contexts. I’m a teacher and that term is used sometimes in formal contexts in education.
No, we would say higher education, or post secondary education. Here we’d typically say that once you finish secondary education (i.e., 12th grade) that you go to college. You wouldn’t say “I’m going to university” in the US, typically. I’m a school principal, so these terms are swirling around me as you might expect.
Tertiary would be fore anything beyond the basic high school diploma. I use it, but I also use other phrases also.
As in Masters/PhD level education? “Advanced degrees” would probably be the closest term.
We don’t really use this term because generally we refer to primary school as “elementary school” and secondary school as “middle/high school”. Since we don’t follow that primary/secondary naming convention for earlier education it makes sense we wouldn’t use the term tertiary either.
I might say “post-secondary education” but it would never occur to me to say “tertiary education.” I’d understand what was meant by it, though.
It’s usually “post-secondary education” here instead of tertiary
I’ve seen it used.
“Our kids don’t need no dang territory education!”
Florida govt
Never heard it
Generally speaking “higher education” is the term that is used nearly universally for post-secondary education. However I have heard “tertiary education” a handful of times but thinking on it all of those instances were in higher education administrative settings such as meetings and conferences.
no.
I’ve heard it used but it’s uncommon and very formal
I’ve heard it, but don’t use it.
Never ever heard it before today…
Tertiary is an uncommon word in the USA. More common than quaternary; but if I swung my arms and hit 10 Americans I would expect maybe 1 person to know what it means.
The only place I’ve heard tertiary used was in the military to describe 3rd lines of defense – IE primary, secondary, and tertiary fighting positions. My guess is that officers tried to use it to make themselves feel smarter, but it didn’t work.
In the US, as others have mentioned, we use the term post-secondary, because we’re dumber than Australians and Brits.
It’s a term I mostly see used in statistics, and usually in comparative studies between countries. Not so much day to day. We have high school and college and undergrad vs post grad, etc
No, we don’t really use primary or secondary much so tertiary would make little sense.
If I heard it used, I would understand it, but I would never use it myself.
I’ve worked for a group of college professors for most of the last 20 years.
“Tertiary Education” isn’t used very often. After high school, the next level is usually “Undergraduate” when used with professors, or “College” or maybe “University” for casual speakers.
The next level beyond a University / College degree would be “Graduate School”. A Ph. D., is the highest academic degree in most programs, though there are a host of others, called ‘terminal degrees’.
> “Continuing Education” for vocational
This is common for the ongoing seminars that are required to keep a professional designation. This goes for lawyers/attorneys, nurses, financial planners, doctors, and a host of both college and non-college jobs.
Secondary education = high school
Post-secondary education = college/university (we use the terms interchangeably)
Graduate education is what you’re getting at here. Colloquially referred to as “grad school.” It’s where you go to get a master’s degree or a PhD.
Other grad programs that are more professional/specialized (medicine, dentistry, law, etc.) are called by their more proper names. Medical school, dental school, law school, etc.
No. It’s annoying enough to remember what secondary education refers to. Also “tertiary” has the connotation of meaning less important, which doesn’t fit with college necessarily.
FYI “continuing education” is also the term used for things like requirements that professors attend a conference/talk on a subject to stay current in the field.