Journalism students take a new look at plotting careers

It's no secret that going to journalism school ("J school") just isn't the value proposition it was even a few years ago, especially if you've always dreamed of going into the print end of things.

Traditional jobs at newspapers, magazines and TV stations are few and far between. Gigs writing for online content sites – everything from Demand Media to the Huffington Post to AOL's Patch.com and Seed.com – are more plentiful, but making ends meet for a recent grad burdened with tens of thousands of dollars of student loans ranks as a Herculean task.

Out of that morass, does it make sense to plunk down as much as $40,000 for a journalism degree at New York University, under the tutelage of professor and new-media expert Jay Rosen? The school is betting it will, now that it has partnered with The New York Times to create a hyperlocal neighborhood news Web site. The resulting blog, The Local: East Village will be hosted on nytimes.com.