For one thing, the new degrees don't come cheap. Following the law and business school model, the programs often don't offer traditional graduate financial help in the form of fellowships or research and teaching assistant positions. Still, students often manage to scrape together some funds if they're willing to work campus jobs. Ziegler's part-time job in the chancellor's office at Wisconsin pays her tuition. American studies students find gainful employment at Virginia's digital media center, electronic text center, and Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.
Few students graduate debt free, however.
Even though students usually have to pay full fare, these new degrees lack the financial guarantee of those in business or law. Richard Bryant, director of Carnegie Mellon's computational finance program, admits that some of the required courses will turn out to have a short shelf life and will need to be replaced. But he sees nothing wrong in evolving with the changing business environment. Anderson Smith, associate dean of the college of sciences at Georgia Tech, says that short-lived programs are not a problem from the schools' point of view. Since they usually don't require new faculty or facilities, they're easy to start up and to shut down.