Are law school scholarships not true scholarships? Forum

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eric922

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Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by eric922 » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:30 am

I've just started reading Paul Campos's book "Don't go to Law School Unless" and it's really opened my eyes about a lot of things. I had considered putting my local TT regional school as a safety if I got a good scholarship since there'd be no living expenses, but after reading this book it looks like it may not be worth it, anyway that was off-topic, sorry. Campos mentions that most law school scholarships aren't scholarships in the traditional sense, but are really just discounted tuition subsidized by students paying full price. Is this correct? I have no reason to doubt him, but it just really surprised me to hear that and I was curious to see if that was the case in all scholarships for law schools.

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Tom Joad

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by Tom Joad » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:32 am

What is a scholarship in the traditional sense as opposed to discounted tuition?

eric922

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by eric922 » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:36 am

Tom Joad wrote:What is a scholarship in the traditional sense as opposed to discounted tuition?
Well Campos argued that law schools that say they won't negotiate because they are out of money are usually lying simply because unlike a normal scholarship that may come from some grant fund or government funding, most law school scholarships don't come from any general fund. They simply use the funds of full tuition students to give discounts to students with higher scores. Or maybe I just completely read him wrong. It's late and I'm tired.

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RELIC

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by RELIC » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:38 am

eric922 wrote:
Tom Joad wrote:What is a scholarship in the traditional sense as opposed to discounted tuition?
Well Campos argued that law schools that say they won't negotiate because they are out of money are usually lying simply because unlike a normal scholarship that may come from some grant fund or government funding, most law school scholarships don't come from any general fund. They simply use the funds of full tuition students to give discounts to students with higher scores. Or maybe I just completely read him wrong. It's late and I'm tired.
What difference does it make where the funds come from?

Paul Campos is looking at the system from a Macro perspective. As an individual student you should not care.

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Tom Joad

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by Tom Joad » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:40 am

eric922 wrote:
Tom Joad wrote:What is a scholarship in the traditional sense as opposed to discounted tuition?
Well Campos argued that law schools that say they won't negotiate because they are out of money are usually lying simply because unlike a normal scholarship that may come from some grant fund or government funding, most law school scholarships don't come from any general fund. They simply use the funds of full tuition students to give discounts to students with higher scores. Or maybe I just completely read him wrong. It's late and I'm tired.
There are probably thousands of factors that go into a law school's budget. I just don't see why it matters where the money comes from when you are talking about a personal decision? Or are you just curious? I would imagine it varies from school to school.

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eric922

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by eric922 » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:40 am

RELIC wrote:
eric922 wrote:
Tom Joad wrote:What is a scholarship in the traditional sense as opposed to discounted tuition?
Well Campos argued that law schools that say they won't negotiate because they are out of money are usually lying simply because unlike a normal scholarship that may come from some grant fund or government funding, most law school scholarships don't come from any general fund. They simply use the funds of full tuition students to give discounts to students with higher scores. Or maybe I just completely read him wrong. It's late and I'm tired.
What difference does it make where the funds come from?

Paul Campos is looking at the system from a Macro perspective. As an individual student you should not care.
Fair enough. I was just curious about it more than anything. You are right though, it really doesn't make a difference from an individual perspective.

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cinephile

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by cinephile » Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:36 am

The reason you should care is that you should know no law school is ever "out" of scholarships. If they're not offering any to you, then your numbers aren't that competitive. That's what it tells you.

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Clearly

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by Clearly » Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:40 am

They may not be "out" of money in the sense of not having any more, but I'm fairly certain they are given set budgets with which to work, and I am sure they are expected to, and held accountable for staying within that budget. I also don't see much benefit to spending only revenue on scholarships as opposed to funds from the endowment of the university, alumni donations etc. They offer scholarships to attract higher stats, to boost the medians. For every student offered a full ride, it would take one lesser student paying full price (with presumably worse stats), they would often times cancel out the effect on the median. Obviously not all sticker students are below both medians, and not all full rides are above both medians, but I'd guess the majority of both are, and in this case they would break even financially, and on the effect on the median. Naturally the alternative is NOT offering scholarships, which would cause medians to drop, so they're obligated to basically play this game. I guess the point is, it doesn't matter where the money comes from, if your numbers rock, you're in a good spot to get money, and if they don't, your money is leaving your bank account, be it to pay salaries, or subsidize tuition for a better applicant.

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by NYstate » Fri Apr 05, 2013 5:08 am

^^^
No, the alternative is to not be misleading as to where the money is coming from. Scholarships are usually considered to come from a separate funds outise of incoming tuition not your classmates. The deans scholarship isn't an account funded outside of your classmates tuition, even though it sounds like it is. The dean isn't paying for this scholarship , your classmates are.

I hink saying they are out of money is just an excuse. It makes it appear their scholarship fund is out of money. What it really means is that a student is only worth a certain amount to them. After that, they aren't willing to spend more to have you attend.

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Clearly

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by Clearly » Fri Apr 05, 2013 5:30 am

NYstate wrote:^^^
No, the alternative is to not be misleading as to where the money is coming from. Scholarships are usually considered to come from a separate funds outise of incoming tuition not your classmates. The deans scholarship isn't an account funded outside of your classmates tuition, even though it sounds like it is. The dean isn't paying for this scholarship , your classmates are.

I hink saying they are out of money is just an excuse. It makes it appear their scholarship fund is out of money. What it really means is that a student is only worth a certain amount to them. After that, they aren't willing to spend more to have you attend.
I just don't see the argument. The schools collects revenue from tuition, as well as from donations, etc. So they transfer some money to a scholarship account, and issue a scholly...Its their income, they can do whatever they think is in their best interests to do with it. The deans scholarship implies that the dean offered the scholarship in recognition of your achievements, not that he's paying with his own money... I'm not sure anyone thought the latter, I guess I just don't see deception here.

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cinephile

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by cinephile » Fri Apr 05, 2013 6:49 am

NYstate wrote: What it really means is that a student is only worth a certain amount to them. After that, they aren't willing to spend more to have you attend.
This is what I meant to say. Exactly.

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banjo

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by banjo » Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:03 am

Saying "scholarship" also implies that the school is honoring you or something, when in fact you should think of a $$ offer as the first step in the negotiation process. The tuition price listed on the web site is just a ceiling.

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Samara

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by Samara » Fri Apr 05, 2013 8:07 am

Clearlynotstefan wrote:For every student offered a full ride, it would take one lesser student paying full price.
This misconception is what Campos is getting at. A full-ride does not have to be "offset" by a full-tuition student because the marginal cost of each additional student is far less than the tuition amount. If you think about it, the marginal cost is likely quite small. So, it's not a zero-sum game and admissions is not working with a set pile of money. Scholarships are solely a negotiation tool to hit the sweet spot between stat maximization and revenue maximization.

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guano

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by guano » Fri Apr 05, 2013 8:48 am

Samara wrote:
Clearlynotstefan wrote:For every student offered a full ride, it would take one lesser student paying full price.
This misconception is what Campos is getting at. A full-ride does not have to be "offset" by a full-tuition student because the marginal cost of each additional student is far less than the tuition amount. If you think about it, the marginal cost is likely quite small. So, it's not a zero-sum game and admissions is not working with a set pile of money. Scholarships are solely a negotiation tool to hit the sweet spot between stat maximization and revenue maximization.
Do you actually understand business economics?
This might be true when the class is nearly full (eg the 401st student) but not per individual.
A school needs to generate a certain amount of revenue, which requires a particular blend of full price and partially discounted students. Once that target has been approximated, they've reached their budget. Even then, the marginal cost isn't minimal. Sure, for a school that typically has 300 students, numbers 301 or 302 barely cost the school anything, but if they gave too many scholarships, and to make up the difference were increase class size to, say, 340, that's not pure revenue, because even if their facilities can handle the volume, they'd need more professors, and possibly more administrators (at least on a temporary basis).
I'm not that familiar with law school economics, though I have analyzed a few schools' financial statements in the past and there's a lot more to it than just a few massive fixes costs

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by Samara » Fri Apr 05, 2013 8:54 am

guano wrote:
Samara wrote:
Clearlynotstefan wrote:For every student offered a full ride, it would take one lesser student paying full price.
This misconception is what Campos is getting at. A full-ride does not have to be "offset" by a full-tuition student because the marginal cost of each additional student is far less than the tuition amount. If you think about it, the marginal cost is likely quite small. So, it's not a zero-sum game and admissions is not working with a set pile of money. Scholarships are solely a negotiation tool to hit the sweet spot between stat maximization and revenue maximization.
Do you actually understand business economics?
This might be true when the class is nearly full (eg the 401st student) but not per individual.
A school needs to generate a certain amount of revenue, which requires a particular blend of full price and partially discounted students. Once that target has been approximated, they've reached their budget. Even then, the marginal cost isn't minimal. Sure, for a school that typically has 300 students, numbers 301 or 302 barely cost the school anything, but if they gave too many scholarships, and to make up the difference were increase class size to, say, 340, that's not pure revenue, because even if their facilities can handle the volume, they'd need more professors, and possibly more administrators (at least on a temporary basis).
I'm not that familiar with law school economics, though I have analyzed a few schools' financial statements in the past and there's a lot more to it than just a few massive fixes costs
Thank you for saying the exact same thing, but lengthier and more condescendingly.

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guano

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by guano » Fri Apr 05, 2013 9:04 am

You're welcome.

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Re: Are law school scholarships not true scholarships?

Post by J-e-L-L-o » Sun Apr 07, 2013 2:13 pm

guano wrote:You're welcome.

:lol:

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