UCH trims class size 20%, cuts 20 staff + raises tuition 15% Forum

[ahnhub]

If you applied 6,000 total JD attrition (which seems to be what's been happening: --LinkRemoved--) you get down to 34,000 JD's graduating in 2015.

I think that probably overstates the effect. If I had to guess total 1st-year enrollment will probably stay north of 40,000.

Thanks for tallying this.

It is at least conceivable that the attrition rates might also increase a little if at least a significant portion of law students are becoming informed about how poor their job prospect are if they aren't in the top X of their class. Probably wishful thinking but there is a large percentage who should be dropping out after 1L year who are not behaving rationally.

I think we'll see some school closures soon, for the simple reason that tenure track/tenured faculty are hard to fire unless you shutter the whole department and it is doubtful that all of the present schools will be able to preserve their current faculty. A law school isn't the kind of department that can justify itself to the rest of a university unless it is in the black.

The reason I'm hesitant to say actual enrollment will collapse is because schools can still choose to admit more and more less qualified applicants. Interestingly, it seems like most T1/T2 schools like Hastings are going with reduced class sizes. But if it came down to admitting more people or closing its doors, I would presume a school would go with the former.

[KevinP]

Some time ago but might still be relevant:
http://www.moodys.com/research/MOODYS-D ... -PR_242368

[hung jury]

If you applied 6,000 total JD attrition (which seems to be what's been happening: --LinkRemoved--) you get down to 34,000 JD's graduating in 2015.

I think that probably overstates the effect. If I had to guess total 1st-year enrollment will probably stay north of 40,000.

Thanks for tallying this.

It is at least conceivable that the attrition rates might also increase a little if at least a significant portion of law students are becoming informed about how poor their job prospect are if they aren't in the top X of their class. Probably wishful thinking but there is a large percentage who should be dropping out after 1L year who are not behaving rationally.

I think we'll see some school closures soon, for the simple reason that tenure track/tenured faculty are hard to fire unless you shutter the whole department and it is doubtful that all of the present schools will be able to preserve their current faculty. A law school isn't the kind of department that can justify itself to the rest of a university unless it is in the black.

The reason I'm hesitant to say actual enrollment will collapse is because schools can still choose to admit more and more less qualified applicants. Interestingly, it seems like most T1/T2 schools like Hastings are going with reduced class sizes. But if it came down to admitting more people or closing its doors, I would presume a school would go with the former.

But they are running out of students to draw on. We have 67k applicants this cycle. There is, what, 45k spots available nationwide? That seems like a 22k surplus but it is worse for the schools than that. A fair number of those 67k applicants will not matriculate even if accepted because they decide not to head to law school, so you have to shave off from that 67k. Another fair chunk are applying to higher rank schools, and will only matriculate if they hit their targets (and some won't). There is also a geographical dimension to the data--not every student will be willing to move across the country to fill up slots, so some schools in areas of low demand will feel a disproportionate pinch (e.g., a school in West Virgina probably can't draw on all the NY applicants). And once you get to the very low qualified applicants, you'll have bar issues, etc. if you start accepting them.

A lot will depend on whether the 67k is the floor for applicants or if it keeps dropping, but even if things level out in terms of applicants I'll be surprised if a few schools don't close.

On that note:

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... port-.html

[minnbills]

My school is also dropping its class size about ~60 students

[kapital98]

Some time ago but might still be relevant:
http://www.moodys.com/research/MOODYS-D ... -PR_242368

Thank you for the financial analysis. It's the best thing to come out of this thread.

[Lasers]

this is basically hastings' plan to kick start their usnews rank.

i support it though because regardless of the motivation, the school is doing the right thing by cutting down class size and not adding to the glut of unemployed would be lawyers.

[BlueDiamond]

My school claimed they were cutting class sizes but havent said anything about it in a while.. and I just found out COA went up 2 grand for next year.. awesome

[zeth006]

this is basically hastings' plan to kick start their usnews rank.

i support it though because regardless of the motivation, the school is doing the right thing by cutting down class size and not adding to the glut of unemployed would be lawyers.

Basically.

My only question is what happens next. Are any professors going to be shown the door, or are course enrollments going to be smaller? What about the resulting shortfalls? Does this mean tuition stays the same?

[Aberzombie1892]

Basically.

My only question is what happens next. Are any professors going to be shown the door, or are course enrollments going to be smaller? What about the resulting shortfalls? Does this mean tuition stays the same?

The realistic answers to your questions are as follows:
1. No professors will be terminated.
2. Course enrollments will likely be smaller, there will certainly be fewer elective courses to choose from, and clinical programs won't be expanding anytime soon.
3. The school will likely accept more transfers, increase the size of the/or create a LLM program, create/expand a part time program, etc.
4. Tuition will increase regardless of anything (thanks big gov)

I'm just worried that law school programs may go the way of B-school programs in terms of having classes that have international students making up 33% of the class (to increase medians, decrease acceptance rate, etc.). It sounds slightly silly at the outset, but there are ways to make something of that nature marketable.

[Lasers]

this is basically hastings' plan to kick start their usnews rank.

i support it though because regardless of the motivation, the school is doing the right thing by cutting down class size and not adding to the glut of unemployed would be lawyers.

Basically.

My only question is what happens next. Are any professors going to be shown the door, or are course enrollments going to be smaller? What about the resulting shortfalls? Does this mean tuition stays the same?

no professors getting cut loose. course enrollment will probably be smaller though immediate impact won't be felt (probably more drastic change after the class of 2014 graduates which is the last larger class). tuition will undoubtedly rise.

not sure about the resulting shortfalls, but what aberzombie said seems very possible.

[TTTLS]

Good. I hope they outrank UC Davis one day.

inb4 SBL.

[zeth006]

Good. I hope they outrank UC Davis one day.

inb4 SBL.

Oh God. It's been a while since I've seen the usual Davis v. Hastings rows on TLS.

[ilovesf]

Good. I hope they outrank UC Davis one day.

inb4 SBL.

Oh God. It's been a while since I've seen the usual Davis v. Hastings rows on TLS.

Naw, it's never ending.

[Lasers]

Good. I hope they outrank UC Davis one day.

inb4 SBL.

you cheeky cnt.

[ilovesf]

Good. I hope they outrank UC Davis one day.

inb4 SBL.

you cheeky cnt.

you can say cunt, go ahead, do it.

[Lasers]

Good. I hope they outrank UC Davis one day.

inb4 SBL.

you cheeky cnt.

you can say cunt, go ahead, do it.

i forgot i was on tls for a moment.

[kapital98]

this is basically hastings' plan to kick start their usnews rank.

i support it though because regardless of the motivation, the school is doing the right thing by cutting down class size and not adding to the glut of unemployed would be lawyers.

Basically.

My only question is what happens next. Are any professors going to be shown the door, or are course enrollments going to be smaller? What about the resulting shortfalls? Does this mean tuition stays the same?

no professors getting cut loose. course enrollment will probably be smaller though immediate impact won't be felt (probably more drastic change after the class of 2014 graduates which is the last larger class). tuition will undoubtedly rise.

not sure about the resulting shortfalls, but what aberzombie said seems very possible.

It will take them a lot of time to decrease the number of professors on staff. Expect a lot of hiring freezes in the future and early retirement options for tenured faculty.

+ Hastings will always be better than Davis

[Lasers]

apparently hastings will be looking to HIRE more faculty next year, not cut any existing faculty:http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2550750392

[ilovesf]

apparently hastings will be looking to HIRE more faculty next year, not cut any existing faculty:http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2550750392

well some profs leave every year so i guess they need to keep hiring to replace them.

[Lasers]

apparently hastings will be looking to HIRE more faculty next year, not cut any existing faculty:http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2550750392

well some profs leave every year so i guess they need to keep hiring to replace them.

true, but that student/faculty ratio looks like it will improve big time if you cut down on students and at the very least keep the same amount of faculty. 5% raise to all existing non-faculty as well.

dean wu has a plan and is getting things done.

[TTRansfer]

WUSTL is also hoping to cut the class size down, back to our historic 1L class size (220-230) and probably will take fewer transfers. This is happening a lot of places. There are lots of factors at play here driving these decisions. Part of this is due to abnormally high levels of applications for the c/o 2012 and 2013, part of it is due to the sharp decline last year and (especially) this year, part of it is probably USNWR driven, and part of it likely has to do with job placement. It is definitely a good thing though.

I wonder if part of it is the thought of potentially taking on more transfers.

[ilovesf]

apparently hastings will be looking to HIRE more faculty next year, not cut any existing faculty:http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2550750392

well some profs leave every year so i guess they need to keep hiring to replace them.

true, but that student/faculty ratio looks like it will improve big time if you cut down on students and at the very least keep the same amount of faculty. 5% raise to all existing non-faculty as well.

dean wu has a plan and is getting things done.

One prof told me today (so this could be wrong) that next semester each section will have one of their classes in a half section size group of 40 so that students could get a smaller classroom atmosphere.

[sundance95]

apparently hastings will be looking to HIRE more faculty next year, not cut any existing faculty:http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2550750392

well some profs leave every year so i guess they need to keep hiring to replace them.

true, but that student/faculty ratio looks like it will improve big time if you cut down on students and at the very least keep the same amount of faculty. 5% raise to all existing non-faculty as well.

dean wu has a plan and is getting things done.

Also much higher per student expenditures.

[boredatwork]

Take this with a grain of salt but I was talking to an admin at Loyola and he basically told me that Law school is so much more expensive because law students demand so much more from the school in terms of services.
-nice facilities
-various advisers
-good student to faculty ratios
-etc
Seems to hold true to Hastings. they *seem to be cutting non-classroom services. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of who they let go.

[hiima3L]

Hastings 3L here.

This should have happened years ago. Tuition has gone up significantly since I started while our job placement is fucking abysmal and I'm sure only getting worse. (Anecdote: I'm one of maybe a dozen people I know with jobs lined up.)

Dean Wu talks incessantly about lowering costs while stil maintaining quality, yet the real problem remains: we have way too many unnecessary classes and thus way too many unnecessary and costly professors. Our 2L and 3L curriculum can and should be cut dramatically. I think that is the biggest problem with Hastings: the school is simply way too fucking big. Dean Wu and everyone at Hastings knows it, yet no one in the admin is willing to do what we really need to do, IMO.

Seminars and and non-bar classes and such are nice and fun, yes, but you don't learn anything that will help you get a job and/or pass the bar. If we just had our bar classes, our more practical substantive classes, and our (awesome) skills classes, I'm guessing we could drop enrollment by at least 1/3 and still break even. Yet our administration is raising its wages and hiring a bunch of new professors to teach classes about law none of us will ever practice and simply should not be wasting $ on providing. Every professor says law school doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer well to begin with, so why make it even more of a mockery? Every semester I'd look at the catalog and think WHY does this class exist when people can't even get into Evidence some semesters. God damn.

tl;dr Good job, Dean Wu. Now it's time to cut the curriculum.