Master after master?

Before reducing degree programs offered to "cash cow" status, I'd like to see some evidence of this. It's a little too cynical for me to accept without support.

 

That would be an interesting study.

My anecdote, in the software engineering companies that I worked for, I'd say that a master degree had minimal value when hiring candidates. Once hired it had no value for raises or promotions.

 

I'd add one other LLM as being particularly useful, the license-qualifying ones for foreign law graduates in states where that's sometimes required.

Of the many non-license track masters in law popping up (M.Jur. etc.) the only ones that seem to have substantial respect and utility at this time are the ones in healthcare/pharmacy compliance like Rutgers and Fordham. Other than those, you can probably get an MBA more cheaply, with broader applicability, and without having the explain over and over again in interviews what an M.Jur. is.

 

If it is your employer's dime, then why's not Boston University or UofI MBA's?

 

Which is pretty good with HAU's MBA..

 

I understand what you're saying, Bill, but I want to take advantage of this to remind readers at large: there's more to it than the credential. As I like to say, we receive two forms of capital from the university: the credential and the education. Even if the credential doesn't impact promotability--it should enhance performance and, thus, career prospects.

We denizens of this board (and its visitors) focus so much on schools, degrees, accreditation, jobs, pay, careers, etc. that we sometimes forget to talk about the learning experiences.

My Regents degrees got me my commission and, before that, a job at Xerox and admission to graduate school. But there wasn't much learning going on. (Almost all of them were done entirely by testing.) But I learned things in my MBA that I still draw upon almost 40 years later, my PhD is the basis for what I do on this board, and my DSoSci allowed me to create new knowledge and practice in my profession (and became the basis for my consulting practice). Yes, the degrees themselves were valuable assets (except that DSoSci--there's been no quid pro quo there). But the learning did just as much to enhance my career as did the credentials. This is why I'm so adamant about that aspect of our discussions.

 

I should have mentioned that the company would have offered new hires a larger salary if they had a masters at the software engineering companies that I worked at. I suspect that is very common. Which is why I considered it strange for the company to reimburse employees for taking master programs but to take advantage of it they would likely need to quit and get a different job.

Now I took advantage of one fellow earning a master that worked for me. I suggested that he find a new job at another company to take advantage of the MBA that he had just earned. I say I was taking advantage of his masters because he was a mediocre to poor programmer that was over 50 and had worked at the company many years. Therefore, I couldn't fire him so I suggested he quit because his salary was very low compared to everyone else in my group. That was fun. Although depending on one's perspective it might put me into the asshole category. ;-)

 

Well, Denver Law gets $42,000 in tuition alone for its one year non thesis (and rather undistinguished) online LL.M. in tax. That sounds pretty cash-cowy to me anyway.

 

Columbia also gets some flack for its "cash cow" Master's, given that the acceptance rate for some of their programs is 50% or higher and the tuition is significant ($30K+ per year with no scholarships.) Is the education inferior? Unproven. Are the students in those programs subsidizing the others? I suspect so.

 

I guarantee the students are subsidizing somebody. It cannot cost that much to teach an LL.M.

 

Since law school stopped equating to a big, fat salary thanks to oversaturation (and other factors in the market) the logical next step to generate some much needed revenue for a law school is to find a way to sell to people who already went to law school.

They can likely teach the LLM with the same faculty as their JD program. There's no real need to add expense. It just opens you up to a new market of students. Clever.

Let's see if lawyers go the way of physical therapists and it becomes the norm to stack a doctorate on top of it all because university lobbyists have more sway than good sense.

 

Or maybe not, Bill. If the guy got another job with 'way more money, you're his noble benefactor.
If he didn't, uh... I guess there is always that possibility...

 

He was obviously very upset with me. He didn't quit but a few months later he was moved to a different group that was laid off a few years after that. If he got a new job it almost had to be for more money.

 

The funny thing is, I've begun to rethink my notion that doctorates in law make no sense in America because, so I've been saying, we have no theory of jurisprudence. After Trump and the last election I'm not so sure that's true. If I were forty years younger I might do a JSD.

 

Moo.

 

Master of Moo-re Money.