"The Coming Crunch for Law Schools" by a WUSTL Law Professor Forum

[javancho]

"The Coming Crunch for Law Schools" by Brian Tamanaha, Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/06/comi ... hools.html

[Z3RO]

Wait, so they want to pay for a higher faculty:student ratio by adding more students?

[sd5289]

1,583 people said yes to Cooley?

[javancho]

1,583 people said yes to Cooley?

I think Cooley is the largest law school in the US, by enrollment. They are just milking the student loan system.

[CanadianWolf]

Agree with javancho that that law school is just milking the easy money student loan system. If subject to discharge in bankruptcy, lenders would demand more assurance of liklihood of repayment before lending. This would lead to fewer law schools, fewer law students & lower tuition more in line with a law school graduate's ability to repay. Apparently lenders & the US government learned little from the recent real estate bust fueled by easy money.

[sd5289]

I just went onto their website for giggles (okay fine, I wanted to see what their 25-75 range is because I've never met anyone who's scored lower than a 155) and it screams scam.

[Helmholtz]

New York Law School took in 641, John Marshall (Chicago) enrolled 539, and Suffolk enrolled 531. (Let's not talk about the 808 first year students taken by Florida Coastal and 1,583 by Cooley.)

Holy Christ, how are there 500+ people each year willing to go to Suffolk and John Marshall (and 800+ (!!!!!!) at Florida Coastal)?

[CanadianWolf]

But you've probably voted for many who scored lower than that---many of whom were running for local judicial posts.

[stratocophic]

Damn. I knew TTTs were big, but that's incredible. How much slimmer would the gap between the number of grads and the number of jobs be if these schools didn't exist

[09042014]

John Marshal pumps out more grads than NW and Uchi combined. Holy shit.

[D-hops]

John Marshal pumps out more grads than NW and Uchi combined. Holy shit.

They enrolled that many, but they fail people out transfers leave, and people drop out.

[09042014]

John Marshal pumps out more grads than NW and Uchi combined. Holy shit.

They enrolled that many, but they fail people out transfers leave, and people drop out.

True.

[CanadianWolf]

Yet the loans live on.

[scammedhard]

Yet the loans live on.

The student loan system had good intentions in the beginning, but it has now become a wealth transfer mechanism from young, naive, immature kids to greedy, old academicians; and all of this occurs with the blessing of the ABA, which is largely composed of many TTT deans, professors, and administrators.

[TIMEATELL]

What we have here is a quintessential example of the diminished value of a legal education. From an analytical standpoint, if we look at value in terms of utility or benefit divided by cost, there's no getting around the fact that the benefit (i.e. job prospects) has gone down while the cost has gone up. Further, this is not unique to legal education. In fact, as bad as it may seem, there are scores of undergraduate students who are dealing with the same issue. Perhaps, they paid an average of $40k/year for 4 years as a result of rising tuition, but majored in an unemployable/under- employable subject. With that said, what bothers me the most about this is the fact that schools continue to take actions that contribute unfavorably to an already diminishing value and at an inequitable cost to students. As such, it has become quite clear that our definition of value as students is quite different than the school's definition value as a service provider. Now that we know (and are experiencing) this, the question then becomes 1) How much value are we willing to sacrifice before taking action? 2) What action(s) will we take?

TIME

[MRavvel]

New York Law School took in 641, John Marshall (Chicago) enrolled 539, and Suffolk enrolled 531. (Let's not talk about the 808 first year students taken by Florida Coastal and 1,583 by Cooley.)

Holy Christ, how are there 500+ people each year willing to go to Suffolk and John Marshall (and 800+ (!!!!!!) at Florida Coastal)?

TBF, there are a lot of very dumb people in Florida. I know someone going to FC. He knows about the high risk, but he intends to "hustle" (his words) and get a high paying gig in Miami or New York.
To be honest I may have done the same thing if I'd never found TLS.
To someone that has never heard of T14, John Marshall probably sounds like a great school. I mean John Marshall was a Chief Justice, right? Can't be that bad.
These students that don't have the analytical skills to detect a scam, or the grades/scores to attend a decent school, probably shouldn't have ever gone to any law school. What I don't understand is why someone that didn't do well in college would even want to go to graduate school.

[scammedhard]

What we have here is a quintessential example of the diminished value of a legal education. From an analytical standpoint, if we look at value in terms of utility or benefit divided by cost, there's no getting around the fact that the benefit (i.e. job prospects) has gone down while the cost has gone up. Further, this is not unique to legal education. In fact, as bad as it may seem, there are scores of undergraduate students who are dealing with the same issue. Perhaps, they paid an average of $40k/year for 4 years as a result of rising tuition, but majored in an unemployable/under- employable subject. With that said, what bothers me the most about this is the fact that schools continue to take actions that contribute unfavorably to an already diminishing value and at an inequitable cost to students. As such, it has become quite clear that our definition of value as students is quite different than the school's definition value as a service provider. Now that we know (and are experiencing) this, the question then becomes 1) How much value are we willing to sacrifice before taking action? 2) What action(s) will we take?

TIME

Some of the blame should go to the schools, but what about the students? It's them that keep going to law school and college no matter what; and it is them that chose to study undergrad majors for which there is no demand in the real world (e.g., philosophy, history, poli sci, etc).

[buckilaw]

What we have here is a quintessential example of the diminished value of a legal education. From an analytical standpoint, if we look at value in terms of utility or benefit divided by cost, there's no getting around the fact that the benefit (i.e. job prospects) has gone down while the cost has gone up. Further, this is not unique to legal education. In fact, as bad as it may seem, there are scores of undergraduate students who are dealing with the same issue. Perhaps, they paid an average of $40k/year for 4 years as a result of rising tuition, but majored in an unemployable/under- employable subject. With that said, what bothers me the most about this is the fact that schools continue to take actions that contribute unfavorably to an already diminishing value and at an inequitable cost to students. As such, it has become quite clear that our definition of value as students is quite different than the school's definition value as a service provider. Now that we know (and are experiencing) this, the question then becomes 1) How much value are we willing to sacrifice before taking action? 2) What action(s) will we take?

TIME

Some of the blame should go to the schools, but what about the students? It's them that keep going to law school and college no matter what; and it is them that chose to study undergrad majors for which there is no demand in the real world (e.g., philosophy, history, poli sci, etc).

When you are told from an early age that college is necessary for success, that you have 4 years to figure out what you want to do once in college, and everyone and their mother tells you that you should major in something that you really like...the chances that someone majors in international feminist theory for 40k a year goes up substantially.

No one is willing to tell kids that they need to gain skills that will make them employable. The feeling that degrees = success has become ingrained in the American thought process, and people, especially 18 and 20 year olds, really don't feel the need to think things through, since everything will "work out" since they got the degree that makes them happy.

[TIMEATELL]

What we have here is a quintessential example of the diminished value of a legal education. From an analytical standpoint, if we look at value in terms of utility or benefit divided by cost, there's no getting around the fact that the benefit (i.e. job prospects) has gone down while the cost has gone up. Further, this is not unique to legal education. In fact, as bad as it may seem, there are scores of undergraduate students who are dealing with the same issue. Perhaps, they paid an average of $40k/year for 4 years as a result of rising tuition, but majored in an unemployable/under- employable subject. With that said, what bothers me the most about this is the fact that schools continue to take actions that contribute unfavorably to an already diminishing value and at an inequitable cost to students. As such, it has become quite clear that our definition of value as students is quite different than the school's definition value as a service provider. Now that we know (and are experiencing) this, the question then becomes 1) How much value are we willing to sacrifice before taking action? 2) What action(s) will we take?

TIME

Some of the blame should go to the schools, but what about the students? It's them that keep going to law school and college no matter what; and it is them that chose to study undergrad majors for which there is no demand in the real world (e.g., philosophy, history, poli sci, etc).

I believe students should share some responsibility, but the levers are controlled by the schools. Given the fact that schools are not forthcoming with trustworthy information that would influence one's decision to enroll as a student, I tend to give students the benefit of the doubt. For example, while visiting The Thomas M. Cooley Law School website, I could not find any information about employment prospects. In fact, I had to visit LSAC's website to view Cooley's ABA profile, which had employment information. The story doesn't end there. The ABA profile data has poor integrity, as there are no dates. Why any entity would permit the publication of data without referencing the dates from which that data was collected is beyond me.

TIME

[aerogear]

New York Law School took in 641, John Marshall (Chicago) enrolled 539, and Suffolk enrolled 531. (Let's not talk about the 808 first year students taken by Florida Coastal and 1,583 by Cooley.)

Holy Christ, how are there 500+ people each year willing to go to Suffolk and John Marshall (and 800+ (!!!!!!) at Florida Coastal)?

Funny thing is that people brag about attending these schools.

[taxguy]

Well, maybe one good thing will come from all the many unemployed new lawyers: better lawyer jokes.

[flcath]

Maybe I am an idiot (wouldn't be the first time), but how can first-year enrollment ever exceed applicants? (1999-2004)

[taxguy]

Applicants might include transfer and LLM applicants as an example. Frankly, I found that chart a bit misleading too.

[flcath]

Applicants might include transfer and LLM applicants as an example. Frankly, I found that chart a bit misleading too.

I dunno man; I don't think that explanation cuts it (transfers and LLMs are a drop in the bucket, and there are always gonna be some applicants who can't get in or choose not to matriculate). We must be missing something here.

[jplayer]

Maybe I am an idiot (wouldn't be the first time), but how can first-year enrollment ever exceed applicants? (1999-2004)

Applicants are on the left side, enrollment is on the right.