The School of Law, in association with the Graduate School, offers a program that enables a student to earn both the Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) and Master of Science Accounting-Taxation (M.S.A.) degrees in three to four years of academic work. For the student interested in specializing in tax law, both degrees may be completed with considerably fewer hours than if pursued independently. This is made possible by allowing 12 hours of approved law courses to transfer as elective credit toward the M.S.A. degree and vice versa. These transfers are of credit hours, not grades. Therefore, graduate course work will not be computed in a student's Law School GPA and class ranking. Interested students must declare their intent to pursue the dual degrees no later than their fourth semester in Law School. The first year of study consists entirely of law courses. During the second and third years, the remaining required law courses are to be completed together with selected law electives and an appropriate number of graduate business core courses. Students may enroll in the Graduate School at Texas Tech University and complete all leveling course work and earn up to 12 credit hours toward the M.S.A. in the academic year before matriculation to the Law School. Students who have earned more than 12 credit hours (excluding leveling course work) before matriculation to the Law School are ineligible for the J.D. dual-degree program.