Quote of the Day: Ground Control to ABA, Are You Listening?

Due to the current weakness in the job market for environmental journalists, Columbia’s dual degree program in Earth & Environmental Science Journalism will not be accepting new students for the foreseeable future.

— A note posted on the official website for Columbia University’s Dual Masters program in Earth and Environmental Science Journalism.

(I feel like I’ve heard this before, in some sort of parallel universe. More on this, after the jump.)

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I imagine everyone who clicked this link is thinking the same thing: why don’t law schools use the same common sense? THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH LAW JOBS, and there are too many law schools. Last week, Above the Law Research director Brian Dalton reported on the popular outrage against the ABA’s inability or unwillingness to regulate the number of law schools opening up. (See Indiana Tech for a recent example of what he means.)

As a personal side note, it makes me happy to see the journalism school realizing its own employment issues. Journalism isn’t exactly a slamdunk career choice these days, either. (It also seems like half my class from Northwestern ended up right back in law school.) Still, I imagine it is tough for a university with one of the best J-schools in the country to do the responsible thing and shut a department down for the sake of prospective students.

Anyway, the legal education industry should take a lesson from Columbia’s environmental journalism graduate program. Sometimes, for the sake of potential customers, a.k.a. students, you’ve got to know when to quit.

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