Northeastern University 2-year hybrid Doctorate in Law & Policy: Any competitors?

I graduated from Northeastern University's online MBA earlier this year. Overall, I was very impressed with this program and the faculty. I've been looking at Doctor of Law and Policy program - a 2-year hybrid that requires once-a-month trips to Boston. See: Doctor of Law and Policy | Northeastern College of Professional Studies

My question is, are there any other doctorate degrees from AACSB accredited universities that compare to this program? I'm interested in Business, Law, Political Science, Policy and Public Administration.

Thanks!

 

I sprinted through a google search and didn't come up with anything. A more careful search might lead to better results though. So all I can offer is the opinion that Boston is a great city to visit. As you may know, Northeastern is located in the heart of Boston. It's just down the street from my old school, Wentworth, and easy walking distance to Kenmore Square and Fenway Park. Congratulations on your MBA and best of luck with your search.

 

$75,000 for...what exactly?

Who needs this degree? It's apparently not the university research credential. The school also offers a regular Ph.D. in Law and Policy. Granted, it's half the cost of an actual law degree but it has much less than half the utility as far as I can tell.

So again...what could possibly justify the enormous expense and time commitment?

I don't mean to be snarky, by the way. But I've become pretty cynical about the motives of a University that sells a degree program for a heart stopping price when I have never, as in NOT EVER, seen any demand for the credential in professional or business or even academic circles.

 

Dream Maker

Universities are selling dreams of prestige and economic gain, but some of those dreams have no basis in economic reality. Dreams are free, so university profit margins are sustainable.

 

Technically, AACSB doesn't accredit "universities" -- it accredits business schools. A business school is typically part of a university, but only a small part. The rest of the university will not be AACSB accredited.

At Northeastern, for example, the School of Business (which issues the MBA) is AACSB-accreditated, but the rest of the university is not, including the College of Professional Studies (which issues the DLP). So the DLP is not an AACSB degree.

 

Expensive dreams!

You can bet that all or mostly all of the Ph.D. students in the same Department are fully funded. Just shows which students the school really cares about and which are merely sheep to be fleeced. Maybe that's too harsh?

Not that the D.L.P. won't be plenty rigorous. It will be. But even the degree title seems intended to place the holder at a disadvantage if he seeks an academic appointment in competition with the school's "real" doctorate grads.

Again, not to be snarky but this thing looks like one of the many law schools whose graduates pay a great deal and get little in return but a life of debt. Perhaps I'm wrong. I'd like to be wrong.

 

Dreams may be free, but tuition is not. More and more students are recognizing this, weighing the costs and the benefits, and making the hard decision to abandon the dream.

The top example right now is law schools. It's well known that first-year law school enrollments are collapsing:

Fall 2010: 52,500
Fall 2011: 48,700
Fall 2012: 44,500
Fall 2013: 39,700
Fall 2014: will drop again

So are law school profit margins sustainable? No, instead they are cutting tuition.

 

The traditional PhD students at B&M universities can serve important departmental functions as teaching or research assistants. Even if they are given free tuition and a stipend, that's still less expensive than hiring additional teaching or research staff. The distance students generally do not have these uses, so they typically serve as cash cows.

 

AACSB does not accredit programs in political science, law, public policy, or public administration. Valdosta State University has NASPAA accreditation and offers an online Doctor of Public Administration where you can build your own concentration in just about anything. University of Southern Mississippi is reasonably-priced and offers an online PhD in International Development. You can choose a concentration in political development, security studies, economic development, or social/cultural development. Both of these have residency requirements, but they are infrequent. You definitely won't have to go to campus once a month.

Assistantships for distance education students are rare. I've only found two programs that offer assistantships to online students.

 

The world can always use another good lawyer.

As long as students have visions of prestige and economic gain by pursuing degrees, universities will provide them with tuition to chase their dreams.

 

The question is whether we need as many new lawyers as we used to. The answer appears to be "no", and law school enrollments are falling quickly in response.

Of course -- it's the role of a university to offer education to students in exchange for tuition. Nobody excepts that to change.

What is changing is that students are looking at the educational offerings from universities -- and turning them down. Overall college enrollments in the US fell in 2012, and then fell again in 2013.

 

Anyone who works with attorneys (and I do) knows that more lawyers are being produced than the legal system can absorb and, as a result, many JD graduates are branching out into other related disciplines. Many CJ programs are no longer accepting JD graduates to teach.

It's all about supply, demand and the pendulum.

Prognostication: Students will continue chasing the generic bachelors dream for another 10 years until they realize that a garden variety liberal arts degree is not a guarantee of financial success. Subsequently, in another 10 to 20 years, an educational shift will happen where students with financial foresight will begin pursuing more technical degrees that offer greater employment opportunities, to include degrees at the AAS level.

 

As the author (Allie Bidwell) of the article aptly noted: in areas with decreasing high school populations, there is a commensurate decrease in college enrollments. But conversely, college enrollments are increasing on two fronts:
(1) in areas with growing high school populations, such as in the South and
(2) in online universities

Online degree programs will be a game changer that will be evidenced in about another 10 years by helping to facilitate the increased value of in-resident technical degrees (for making money), as opposed to pursuing liberal arts degrees (which are primarily online). In the meantime, online degrees will continue to grow over the next decade.

 

Great Post! I'm interested in the program because I would like to enter into politics over the next 10 years and Northeastern's DLP seems appropriate as I don't want to pursue a JD. I have looked for Doctor of Public Administration, but with very minimal results. I didn't know about Valdosta's DPA. Thanks for sharing.

Anyone have any knowledge on online DPA's or any other doctorate programs that fall into the "political/legislative/government-career" category?

 

I agree that a J.D. is a poor investment these days but if the goal is to go into politics you might just not worry about getting another degree of any sort. The best way to get into politics is to dive right in.

 

I thought AACSB is programmatic accreditation, and only accredit for the program itself. For example, some school MBA is accredited but not Master in Accounting program.

 

You don't need to be an expert at anything in order to get into politics. Just start at the bottom, like at a city council, and work your way up. What people look for is experience in another public office and an ability to sell yourself. Now, if you want to work as a political strategist or policymaker, then further education might help.

 

AACSB has two kinds of accreditation: "business" accreditation (which is general) and "accounting" accreditation (which is specialized).

As I understand it, "business" accreditation applies to the whole business school. This would include any accounting programs offered by the business school, as well as MBA programs. So in this case, an MAcc degree would have the same general AACSB "business" accreditation as an MBA degree.

A school with general AACSB "business" accreditation can apply for AACSB "accounting" accreditation as an optional upgrade. In this case, an MAcc degree would have specialized AACSB "accounting" accreditation, which would be different from the general "business" accreditation for the MBA degrees.

So in either case, any MAcc degrees issued by an AACSB-accredited business school will have AACSB accreditation. But it could be either the general AACSB "business" accreditation, or the specialized AACSB "accounting" accreditation. It depends on whether or not the business school obtained the "accounting" accreditation as an optional extra. In practice, most AACSB schools have only the general "business" accreditation.