My wife has a JD from a top tier school, but has had a rough time in the legal job market (out of work for over a year). What she really likes is EEO work (studying employment law in school and interning at the EEOC). No business degree for her undergrad, though. She’s looked into MBA programs with an emphasis in HR work and HR masters. The problem is, we don’t live near them. We also don’t want to invest a lot of money as we feel the JD will always be her terminal degree, in a sense. We don’t want to add to her debt load in a significant way, especially since she is out of work, and we don’t want to get in a situation where we have to live apart so she can go to school. We’re really looking at eCornell’s certificate program. She’s leary about online stuff, and more so of certificates than straight out masters degrees. But, it is quite attractive for several reasons. It is reasonably cheap. It is short (around 6 months it would seem). Plus, it is connected in name to a good school. Under these circumstances, could this be just what she needs to segway out of being pegged as just a lawyer and into an HR/EEO specialist? She really likes the work, and wouldn’t mind focusing more on it with an educational boost, but it can be difficult to convince people you aren’t going to jump ship as soon as you can find an attorney position. So she’s also hoping the certificate will at least demonstrate a commitment to heading in this direction. Any thoughts would be appreciated. She’s very, very eager to return to work asap, though we are tied to our current, rural location due to my working situation as I just took a good job back in November of ’08.