A Guide to Professional Degrees

A professional degree is an advanced education designed to prepare you to work in a specific field, such as medicine or law. Similar to advanced academic degrees, like doctorates and certain master’s degrees, professional degrees can be considered terminal degrees—or the highest degree you can achieve in an area. 

Explore jobs requiring professional degrees, the difference between professional and academic degrees, and alternative educational paths you can explore.  

What is a professional degree?

A professional degree is a high-level advanced degree you can earn if you’re interested in studying medicine, law, architecture, or other professions requiring specific knowledge or training. The education you gain tends to emphasise practicality, so you’re prepared to begin working in that profession after graduation. However, with both medicine and law, you will need to take additional steps to earn your licence to practice in either of those fields. 

Industries that require professional degrees

Some common industries that require a professional degree are as follows:

• Engineering: Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Bachelor of Technology (BTech), Bachelor of Architecture (BArch)

• Healthcare: Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Bachelor of Dental Sciences (BDS), Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS)

• Management: Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Master of Business Administration (MBA)

• Mass communication: Bachelor of Journalism and Mass Communication (BJMC), Bachelor of Mass Communication (BMC)

• Law: Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Legislative Law (BA LLB), Bachelor of Legislative Law (LLB)

• Finance: Chartered Accountancy (CA), Bachelor of Commerce (BCom)

How long does it take to earn a professional degree? 

The additional schooling you’ll need depends on what you’re interested in studying. A law degree like LLB usually takes around three years, whereas an integrated degree like BA LLB requires five years.

Dentistry degrees can take five years, and veterinary courses take five and a half years. To become a physician, you’ll need to complete a four-and-a-half-year MBBS degree, an internship that lasts at least one year, and often an additional three-year residency programme.  

What does a professional degree cost? 

The cost of a professional degree will also vary by programme, but the cost can range from INR 10,000 to 70,000 per year.

What are the benefits of a professional degree?

Completing your professional degree means you have achieved a high-level degree in your field—a major accomplishment—and it can lead to work in what are often considered prestigious fields. 

While salaries and job growth will depend on the type of profession you’d like to pursue, professional degrees tend to lead to careers with higher salaries and at least average job growth.  

*All data from Glassdoor as of February 2025

Applying to a professional degree programme

Many professional degree programmes require that you have completed your bachelor’s degree before applying. In many cases, you’ll also need to pass a nationalised entrance exam. 

The most common entrance exams are: 

• Law: Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), All India Law Entrance Test (AILET), Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)

• Medicine: National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)

• Architecture: National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA)

• Engineering: Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) 

Professional degrees vs academic degrees

A professional degree tends to emphasise practicality and professional knowledge, while a terminal academic degree, such as a PhD, tends to emphasise research. In certain medical fields, such as biomedical physics, epidemiology, or health policy, you can earn a PhD if you’re interested in conducting and contributing advanced research to those particular fields. 

Earning a PhD takes, on average, between three and five and requires multiple steps: completing coursework, passing a comprehensive exam, and writing and defending an original body of research such as a dissertation. 

Career alternatives without a professional degree

If you’re interested in working in medicine or law, you can explore several career paths that don’t require a professional degree.

*All data from Glassdoor as of February 2025

Alternatives to a professional degree

If you’re interested in advancing your education but aren’t sure about committing to a lengthy professional degree programme—or taking on its cost—you can explore two alternative areas. 

Advanced academic degrees

Earning a master’s degree can help you qualify for more advanced roles. A master’s generally takes two to three years to complete and costs an average of Rs 20,000 to 200,000 [1].

Several advanced academic degrees that focus on subjects in medicine and law exist, such as the following: 

• Master of Public Health (MPH)

• Master of Hospital Administration (MHA) 

• Master of Public Policy (MPP)

• Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology 

Certifications

With a certification, you'll typically gain concentrated subject knowledge much faster. Earning a certification through a company or professional organisation shows that you have acquired the skills and knowledge necessary to do a particular job. 

Benefits of earning a certification:

1. You can complete many of them online.

2. They tend to be much less expensive than college.

3. Many take a year or less to complete.

Next steps to professional degrees with Coursera

Professional degrees are an effective way to further develop your skills and advance your education and career. You can find many legal and medical courses on Coursera, like PwC’s India’s Customs and Allied laws Specialisation or How to Prepare for Medical School, which unites courses and specialisations from leading universities, such as Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Consider taking a free course to see if you enjoy the subject matter and might be interested in eventually pursuing a professional degree in that area. 

You can also start building job-ready skills for various in-demand careers with a Professional Certificate. Learn from industry leaders at IBM, Google, Salesforce, or Meta while earning a credential for your resume.