Quote Originally Posted by George L. Singleton View Post
Go for the law degree (JD) by all means. Over a lifetime top lawyers sail their own courses and many have ended up start to finish in careers in the US Dept. of State; US Treasury Dept.; US Dept. of Commerce; CIA; DIA; National Security Council...and of course in the busienss world with international law focused firms.
While this was true in the past, and is still true to a degree, this is rapidly changing. If you want to be a lawyer, then by all means get a law degree, otherwise it is not worth your money. 120k$ would be tuition only at a top law school, and would not include books, housing, travel etc. Even in a place like NC which has a few top schools that can easily top 200k$. If you are looking at Cambridge, Mass. you might even top 300k$. A law degree won't hurt you, but it won't help you any more as a non-lawyer than a MA from a good program, which will be much cheaper.

Something that you might not know is that many top schools now offer 1 year MA's in International Relations. I just graduated from one at the University of Chicago and it was a perfect program for finding out what I wanted to do. I previously had worked for a DoD agency for some time, and I discovered that while I liked that, I like research a whole lot more. The advantage of these programs is that they really help you to sort out what you really like, without costing a fortune, and give you a great head start on whatever you want to do afterwards. Many people will get some financial aid, and the burden won't be terrible.

As far as the PhD goes, if you want to end up in the U.S. and ever hope to teach, then an American PhD is the way to go. There are a few schools in Europe which are viewed well, but the lack of course work generally means that American PhDs get primacy in hiring. If all you ever want to do is to work in politics, then you probably only need an MA to start, and can get a PhD later on.

There is, however, a big advantage to the PhD, and that is money. If a school really wants you, they will give you a fellowship. That is true at almost all of the top schools. There are programs out there, like George Mason (a great institution) which actually don't give a lot of fellowships, but generally rely on local students who will pay the residential rate. Those would be great for a person who mostly wants to go into policy, but would be prohibitively expensive for a Brit, without financial aide.

Regardless the route that you choose, I cannot stress enough that you should try and go to a top school. If you end up in policy it really won't matter where you got your degree, but if you are unsure about what you want to do, or you want to keep your options open (and you really should), going to a top 10-20 school will really help. Moreover, they are top programs for a reason, and you will have better peers to learn from, and better teachers to work with, and a better alumni association to tap into. Of course, you have to do a cost benefit assesment, but when push comes to shove, a person applying from a top program will always have a leg up.

Be advised that because of the economic downturn there will be many more applicants to school this year, especially law and business schools. However, if you have any more specific questions, feel free to PM me. Also, I am still at the University of Chicago, which has a PhD both in Public Policy and in Political Science, and I would be happy to answer any q's about that as well.