Tuition and fees at Columbia University Journalism School — $38,500 for a one-year master’s program. New York University– $40,500 for a year-and-a-half program.
Hmmmmm….. Okay.
Sounds like membership dues for a country club.
You’ll find those price tags in the somewhat pedantic story on changes in J-schools in The Chronicle for High Education. Focusing on the hiring of former BusinessWeek editor Stephen B. Shepard (I guess a certain friend can go back now), to head City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism, it quotes Shepard as saying:

“People complain all the time that the profession isn’t diverse enough. And I don’t mean diversity just in the sense of racial and ethnic diversity, but I mean in class terms, too. Working-class people, immigrants, people who have served in the military. The press in this country is not very representative.”….
“There needs to be a publicly funded graduate school of journalism in this part of the world”…. “There’s not one in the entire Northeast, which means if you don’t have $35,000, you’re out of luck. And that just doesn’t seem right.”….

So the discussion continues (See “Part of the Problem“). But what about questioning the paradigm that journalism schools matter at all? I guess they matter most to those who shelled out the dinero.