University of Iowa's declining enrollment Forum

[timbs4339]

That's still a fuckton of money to pay for a school where the median starting salary is unlikely to top 60K.

[Paul Campos]

The notion that law schools are cash cows for their universities has become far less true in recent years, as schools radically increased expenses to chase prestige. I've seen the budgets of a couple of elite law schools, and tuition revenues at those places now cover about half of operating expenses (most of the rest is covered by their huge endowment incomes, which only a handful of law schools enjoy).

Iowa is certainly bleeding red ink by the bucketful right now. They're doing the right thing by cutting class size radically (although I'm sure they didn't mean to cut it nearly this much), but they're going to have to cut operating costs drastically as well, unless their central administration is willing to have the English department subsidize the law school.

[crestor]

In after the legend campos

[MKC]

In after the legend campos

He just comes to hang out here to bask in his celebrity.

(with all due respect to the honorable Professor Campos)

[jbagelboy]

The notion that law schools are cash cows for their universities has become far less true in recent years, as schools radically increased expenses to chase prestige. I've seen the budgets of a couple of elite law schools, and tuition revenues at those places now cover about half of operating expenses (most of the rest is covered by their huge endowment incomes, which only a handful of law schools enjoy).

Iowa is certainly bleeding red ink by the bucketful right now. They're doing the right thing by cutting class size radically (although I'm sure they didn't mean to cut it nearly this much), but they're going to have to cut operating costs drastically as well, unless their central administration is willing to have the English department subsidize the law school.

With any luck, those with class sizes sub-50 will start closing up shop in the next few years

[vanwinkle]

The notion that law schools are cash cows for their universities has become far less true in recent years, as schools radically increased expenses to chase prestige. I've seen the budgets of a couple of elite law schools, and tuition revenues at those places now cover about half of operating expenses (most of the rest is covered by their huge endowment incomes, which only a handful of law schools enjoy).

Iowa is certainly bleeding red ink by the bucketful right now. They're doing the right thing by cutting class size radically (although I'm sure they didn't mean to cut it nearly this much), but they're going to have to cut operating costs drastically as well, unless their central administration is willing to have the English department subsidize the law school.

Well, then.

[Tom Joad]

Why should Iowa care about its ranking? The point is to provide good attorneys for the state at a reasonable price for the state's residents. Ranking has nothing to do with that purpose.

As Tiago Splitter pointed out, rankings matter to applicants and can help a ton with fundraising.

I do agree with you that Iowa may be best served to focus on that, and mainly matriculate students from that area, and keep tuition at a reasonable price. That will result in a rankings drop though, and that looks bad for the school and the Dean.

Only a retard would care if Iowa dropped in ranking. If you can point to a school going on a successful fundraising drive after rising in ranking, please point it to me so I can lol at that school's alums. And since when is fundrasing the priority of a public university? Not that I concede playing this game even helps with fundraising.

[Myself]

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[NotHermione]

That's still a fuckton of money to pay for a school where the median starting salary is unlikely to top 60K.

Salaries not topping 60K isn't necessarily a fair representation of Iowa's career potential.

About 50% of Iowa's class is made up of Iowa residents and, typically, a large percentage of that class stays in Iowa after graduation. Most of those lawyers live in Des Moines where cost of living is EXTREMELY low and has lower salaries to match. I'm currently living in Des Moines in a 2 bedroom apartment with skyline views and pay $350 a month for rent - a starting salary of 60K in Des Moines is an extremely comfortable living. (This is especially true when you factor in the number of Iowa residents who get substantial scholarship money, on top of in-state tuition, since the school works so hard to maintain the 50/50 resident to nonresident split. )

[Myself]

.

[MKC]

That's still a fuckton of money to pay for a school where the median starting salary is unlikely to top 60K.

Salaries not topping 60K isn't necessarily a fair representation of Iowa's career potential.

About 50% of Iowa's class is made up of Iowa residents and, typically, a large percentage of that class stays in Iowa after graduation. Most of those lawyers live in Des Moines where cost of living is EXTREMELY low and has lower salaries to match. I'm currently living in Des Moines in a 2 bedroom apartment with skyline views and pay $350 a month for rent - a starting salary of 60K in Des Moines is an extremely comfortable living. (This is especially true when you factor in the number of Iowa residents who get substantial scholarship money, on top of in-state tuition, since the school works so hard to maintain the 50/50 resident to nonresident split. )

According to LST, student loan payments at sticker come to $1895 a month for ten years, or $22,740 annually. That's in AFTER-tax income. According to http://www.paycheckcity.com, 60k is $43,411 in take-home pay, which after student loans leaves you with $20,671. If they pay you weekly, your check comes to $397, which seems like a pretty shit return for seven years of post-secondary education.

[sublime]

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[timbs4339]

That's still a fuckton of money to pay for a school where the median starting salary is unlikely to top 60K.

Salaries not topping 60K isn't necessarily a fair representation of Iowa's career potential.

About 50% of Iowa's class is made up of Iowa residents and, typically, a large percentage of that class stays in Iowa after graduation. Most of those lawyers live in Des Moines where cost of living is EXTREMELY low and has lower salaries to match. I'm currently living in Des Moines in a 2 bedroom apartment with skyline views and pay $350 a month for rent - a starting salary of 60K in Des Moines is an extremely comfortable living. (This is especially true when you factor in the number of Iowa residents who get substantial scholarship money, on top of in-state tuition, since the school works so hard to maintain the 50/50 resident to nonresident split. )

Hopefully that's the case for many Iowa residents, although usually somebody has to pay sticker to subsidize all the people getting $- maybe it is the out of staters. LST pegs Iowa @ sticker costing about 160K. That's a pretty big loan payment.

How Iowa can maintain a 50/50 split is just bizarre. But hey, it's bizarre that any law school would cost that much.

[haus]

That's still a fuckton of money to pay for a school where the median starting salary is unlikely to top 60K.

Salaries not topping 60K isn't necessarily a fair representation of Iowa's career potential.

About 50% of Iowa's class is made up of Iowa residents and, typically, a large percentage of that class stays in Iowa after graduation. Most of those lawyers live in Des Moines where cost of living is EXTREMELY low and has lower salaries to match. I'm currently living in Des Moines in a 2 bedroom apartment with skyline views and pay $350 a month for rent - a starting salary of 60K in Des Moines is an extremely comfortable living. (This is especially true when you factor in the number of Iowa residents who get substantial scholarship money, on top of in-state tuition, since the school works so hard to maintain the 50/50 resident to nonresident split. )

According to LST, student loan payments at sticker come to $1895 a month for ten years, or $22,740 annually. That's in AFTER-tax income. According to http://www.paycheckcity.com, 60k is $43,411 in take-home pay, which after student loans leaves you with $20,671. If they pay you weekly, your check comes to $397, which seems like a pretty shit return for seven years of post-secondary education.

Did you miss the part about not paying sticker and that they are pretty generous with scholly money? At sticker, almost every school is a pretty shit return, including/especially ours with its $50k in tuition.

Does anyone have a clear idea on where this money goes? It is not like there is a large amount of high tech lab gear involved in your typical JD program. You need some chairs, a chalk/dry erase board, and a professor, maybe a handout every now and then. How does this get above $25k/year?

[sublime]

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[sinfiery]

A huge part of USNWR is based on overhead $$ spent per student. If your building doesn't have high ceilings and skylights, you aren't cracking the top 50.

[09042014]

A huge part of USNWR is based on overhead $$ spent per student. If your building doesn't have high ceilings and skylights, you aren't cracking the top 50.

Unless you cut students!

[MKC]

That's still a fuckton of money to pay for a school where the median starting salary is unlikely to top 60K.

Salaries not topping 60K isn't necessarily a fair representation of Iowa's career potential.

About 50% of Iowa's class is made up of Iowa residents and, typically, a large percentage of that class stays in Iowa after graduation. Most of those lawyers live in Des Moines where cost of living is EXTREMELY low and has lower salaries to match. I'm currently living in Des Moines in a 2 bedroom apartment with skyline views and pay $350 a month for rent - a starting salary of 60K in Des Moines is an extremely comfortable living. (This is especially true when you factor in the number of Iowa residents who get substantial scholarship money, on top of in-state tuition, since the school works so hard to maintain the 50/50 resident to nonresident split. )

According to LST, student loan payments at sticker come to $1895 a month for ten years, or $22,740 annually. That's in AFTER-tax income. According to http://www.paycheckcity.com, 60k is $43,411 in take-home pay, which after student loans leaves you with $20,671. If they pay you weekly, your check comes to $397, which seems like a pretty shit return for seven years of post-secondary education.

Did you miss the part about not paying sticker and that they are pretty generous with scholly money? At sticker, almost every school is a pretty shit return, including/especially ours with its $50k in tuition.

That number is for resident tuition + COL, not out of state. So, an Iowa resident is looking at starting at $400 a week at graduation, on average. Source on scholly money? Because they offered me $0.

[haus]

A huge part of USNWR is based on overhead $$ spent per student. If your building doesn't have high ceilings and skylights, you aren't cracking the top 50.

I would consider going to school in a tent if they cut off $60k off the cost of the degree.

[sublime]

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[ScottRiqui]

OMG 165 vs 163!!!! It doesn't matter. That's well within the margin of error of the LSAT.

I've seen this sentiment on TLS before, and it's misguided. The margin of error on the LSAT isn't relevant in the aggregate once you're talking about more than a handful of students, because LSAT scores (and their errors) are normally-distributed, and a large number of normally-distributed errors tend to cancel themselves out.

You could take two people with identical ability and aptitude, and one could very easily score 163 while the other scores 165, because of the margin of error. But if you take 200 identical people and split them into two groups, you'll never end up with one group having a median of 163 and the other group having a median of 165.

So when you're talking about the scores of an entire incoming class compared to the class from a previous or subsequent year, a two-point median difference is statistically significant.

[MKC]

That number is for resident tuition + COL, not out of state. So, an Iowa resident is looking at starting at $400 a week at graduation, on average. Source on scholly money? Because they offered me $0.

Average? Average of what? Not students, sticker on resident tuition doesn't mean that is what the average student received.

I applied there because of the large portion of those going there receiving aid, as reported by USNWR. I think if you go through last year's application thread, it would be supported. Fwiw, I was offered a full.

I meant that a student who paid resident tuition for three years was looking at $400 a week after taxes and loan payments at the median salary. I don't know what the average scholly was. I do know that sticker is a bad idea, which is all I was getting at.

[09042014]

OMG 165 vs 163!!!! It doesn't matter. That's well within the margin of error of the LSAT.

I've seen this sentiment on TLS before, and it's misguided. The margin of error on the LSAT isn't relevant in the aggregate once you're talking about more than a handful of students, because LSAT scores (and their errors) are normally-distributed, and a large number of normally-distributed errors tend to cancel themselves out.

You could take two people with identical ability and aptitude, and one could very easily score 163 while the other scores 165, because of the margin of error. But if you take 200 identical people and split them into two groups, you'll never end up with one group having a median of 163 and the other group having a median of 165.

So when you're talking about the scores of an entire incoming class compared to the class from a previous or subsequent year, a two-point median difference is statistically significant.

But I was talking about the individual students, since you are paying a six figure sum for each of them. They ain't worth it.

And if 165 goes from the 50th percentile to the 60th, there really isn't a significant quality of student difference overall. These schools game the system by taking lopsided scores and constructing medians.

[ScottRiqui]

OMG 165 vs 163!!!! It doesn't matter. That's well within the margin of error of the LSAT.

I've seen this sentiment on TLS before, and it's misguided. The margin of error on the LSAT isn't relevant in the aggregate once you're talking about more than a handful of students, because LSAT scores (and their errors) are normally-distributed, and a large number of normally-distributed errors tend to cancel themselves out.

You could take two people with identical ability and aptitude, and one could very easily score 163 while the other scores 165, because of the margin of error. But if you take 200 identical people and split them into two groups, you'll never end up with one group having a median of 163 and the other group having a median of 165.

So when you're talking about the scores of an entire incoming class compared to the class from a previous or subsequent year, a two-point median difference is statistically significant.

But I was talking about the individual students, since you are paying a six figure sum for each of them. They ain't worth it.

And if 165 goes from the 50th percentile to the 60th, there really isn't a significant quality of student difference overall. These schools game the system by taking lopsided scores and constructing medians.

Ah, RC fail on my part. Yeah, you're right - the fact that 1-2 additional point on your LSAT can mean tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money *is* ridiculous.

[sublime]

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