Gents, did these folks get their masters in their respective home countries or here in the U.S.?
Over the past ten or so years, I've discovered that a lot of U.S. universities are advanced degree diploma mills for foreigners. They're matched up with a U.S. student and they sign on to the American's doctoral thesis's, and piggy-back to their degree.
I've worked with two East African "PhD"s, who literally should have been scratching around the dirt for insects to eat, but instead were making six figures (for filling a quota) and one from China who'd be more effective if he had a giant off switch on his back to keep him out of the way.
I have quite a few international student in graduate classes who obtained their “Masters” degree in their home country who are now pursuing a graduate degree in this country.
Good question. I don’t know where she got her Masters. The interesting thing was that she made us well aware that she had it, and now that I think about it, I was completely unaware of what the education level was of most of my other coworkers. Actually I was shocked to learn that a few of the best coders we had did not have degrees at all.