Since a master’s degree is the new bachelor’s, it is no wonder that some popular post-baccalaureate letters have lost a bit of their cache in the job market. Take the Master of Business Administration (MBA) and the Juris Doctor (JD) for example. Quite simply, there is an over-supply of MBAs and JDs and the job market cannot support them. These degrees are just not yielding the same career opportunities they once had.
A healthy discussion can certainly be embarked upon as to the multiple mitigating variables that have watered down the overall professional value of these two advanced degrees. One could point to, for example, the supplier response to consumer demand. That is, the overwhelming number of institutions who can now mint MBAs and JDs. The Economist discussed the issue of a saturated b-school market in a 2011 article. In short, the magazine predicts a business school shakeout, which will squeeze out mediocre and lesser players who cannot offer MBA aspirants a highly-valued investment return in the labor market post commencement.
Whatever the cause, it is an inarguable point that the employment and remuneration numbers for MBA and JD degree-holders have room for improvement. Then, in a pound-for-pound comparison between the two, it appears JDs have even more ground to make up.
A featured article on the popular law school website, Tipping the Scales, examines the job prospects of MBA and JD graduates and finds the outlook a bit rosier for the business folk over the lawyers. In a summation point, the article states, “Some 15 of the 25 B-schools on the same campuses [as the top 25 law schools] are placing more of their graduates than law at commencement.”
The article gets more granular on how the numbers fall and is certainly worth a read, but a major takeaway to offer individuals on the fence about which of these two degrees to pursue is that, if job prospects after university are a major factor in consideration, the scales are tipped toward an MBA.
[In case is helps, here is one more resource to get the undecideds asking some of the right questions about which degree might be right for them.]
