Is Georgetown, Master of Professional Studies Urban Planning program worth the money

I am new to this site, therefore i am unsure how to use it.


Hi Everyone!

I am new to this site, therefore i am unsure how to use it.
I am curious about Master of Professional Studies in Urban Planning at Georgetown University. I plan to attend Georgetown University's Master of Professional Studies in urban and regional planning. The program coast a lot. Is Georgetown, specially Urban Planning program worth the money ? I recently graduated from under grad, and I have 3.6 gpa. In addition, i have accepted to other schools such as human rights program at Columbia.

thanks in advance.

 

The question is what you are planning to do with the degree? Also, Georgetown University's School of Continuing Education do not offer 100% degree online. I completed my Master of Professional Studies in Technology Management w/ Information Security. To be fair, 90% of faculties do not hold Doctorate degree, but only Masters and their professional experiences. I would recommend you to attend Columbia University's program instead. One of my class, the instructor did not know how to teach, the information he lectured us straight from 14th point data center consolidation from the Obama Administration. I did not pay anything out of pocket, but I also received ~ $20,000.00 for housing allowance under the Post 9/11 GI Bill plus the Yellow Ribbon Program.

 

The question is what you are planning to do with the degree? Also, Georgetown University's School of Continuing Education do not offer 100% degree online. I completed my Master of Professional Studies in Technology Management w/ Information Security . To be fair, 90% of faculties do not hold Doctorate degree, but only Masters and their professional experiences. I would recommend you to attend Columbia University's program instead. One of my class, the instructor did not know how to teach, the information he lectured us straight from 14th point data center consolidation from the Obama Administration. I did not pay anything out of pocket, but I also received ~ $20,000.00 for housing allowance under the Post 9/11 GI Bill plus the Yellow Ribbon Program.






























I plan to go to either PHD or Law School. Would you recommend taking out Unsub Loan or Grad PLUS Loan to cover such program ? or even work option.

thanks in advance.

 

I would not recommend you to take out unsubsidized loan for the program. Unless you know that you will get good return on investment.

 

Law school?

If you want to be a lawyer, go to law school and don't waste time and money on any other graduate program. If you don't want to be a lawyer, don't waste time and money on law school. Dual degrees for lawyers are almost never worth it.

Exceptions: If you want to be a law professor, a Ph.D. in a "cognate" field might help but even so, you would be well advised to get your J.D. from Yale.

If you want to do patent law, a Ph.D. in your technical field might help.

In neither case is the Ph.D. absolutely necessary.

Oh, and unless you can go for free or nearly free, don't go to law school.

 

Absolutely not. I am a Georgetown Alum and I love the school. However, there is no way that I would recommend you take on the $40K+ in debt just to get a degree from Georgetown that is a mere stepping stone to another degree.

Here is a question. If what you really want is a PhD or law degree, why not go directly into a PhD program or law school? The two masters programs you spoke of (urban planning and human rights) are in very different fields. Have you focused in on what you really want yet?

What are your short and long term goals? Now that you have finished undergrad and are going into grad school (on your own dime) you have to be very careful on what you spend money/accumulate debt for. If you us government loans to subsidize all of your Georgetown MPS, you are going to have about $500 per month payment, EVERY MONTH, for the next 10 years. Even the new plans to max out student loan payments to 10% of income mean that the loan gets extended to a max of 20 years.

Is this degree worth that much debt? I am willing to bet that there are cheaper ways to reach your goals.