University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law

The University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law ("USD Law") is a public law school in Vermillion, South Dakota, and the only law school in the state, that enrolled a first-year class of 88 students in Fall 2025 — all full-time — from 405 completed applications, with a median LSAT of 152 and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.47. It is ranked #122 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News rankings, and its employment outcomes rank far above its tier: 97.1% overall employment (#28 of 196) and 85.7% bar-required placement (#65) for the Class of 2024, with federal clerkships at 9.3% (#13 in the country). The central decision issue for admitted applicants is that the school pairs the lowest resident tuition in this profile series ($12,076 — a rate that has actually fallen since 2019) and a single-state alumni network spanning eight governors and twelve federal judges with first-time bar passage that trails the South Dakota average, driven by out-of-state takers passing at just 54.29%, at a 2025–26 cost of attendance of approximately $35,429 for residents and $55,537 for non-residents.

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USD Law at a Glance

Category	Latest information
Founded	1901 (by U.S. Ambassador Bartlett Tripp and U.S. Senator Thomas Sterling)
Type	Public (University of South Dakota)
ABA approval or accreditation	ABA approved (Council of the Section of Legal Education, approved since 1923)
Location	414 East Clark Street, Vermillion, SD 57070 (the only law school in South Dakota)
Latest U.S. News rank	#122 tie (2026 edition)
Latest completed applications	405 (Fall 2025, 2025 509 report)
Latest acceptance rate	62.47% (Fall 2025; 253 offers)
Latest LSAT median	152 (Fall 2025; 25th: 149, 75th: 156)
Latest GPA median	3.47 (Fall 2025; 25th: 3.16, 75th: 3.81)
Latest entering class	88 (Fall 2025, all full-time; no part-time division)
Current tuition	$12,076 resident / $32,184 non-resident, plus $5,037 in fees (2025–26, 509 report); U.S. News reports the same totals including fees: $17,113 / $37,221
Current estimated cost of attendance	≈$35,429 resident / ≈$55,537 non-resident (computed from 509 tuition, fees, and the $18,034 off-campus living allowance)
Latest first-time bar passage	81.4% in South Dakota (35 of 43, beating the state's 78.79%); 69.2% across all jurisdictions (54 of 78, LawHub) — the out-of-state split explains the gap
Latest bar-required employment	78.0% of the Class of 2025 in bar-required jobs (64 of 82); 85.7% full-time long-term bar-required, #65 of 196, and 97.1% overall employment, #28 of 196 (Class of 2024, ILRG)
Current dean	Neil Fulton (selected as dean in 2023; delivered the Class of 2026 hooding speech in May 2026)

The admissions figures are drawn from USD Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (405 completed applications, 253 offers, a 62.47% acceptance rate, and 88 students in the first-year class as of October 2025), which also reports total J.D. enrollment of 252 and one transfer in against one out. U.S. News reports 253 admitted and 88 enrolled from 405 applicants — the same figures on a slightly different label. Tuition and cost data are from the 509 report and the university's tuition page; U.S. News reports $17,113 in-state and $37,221 out-of-state, which reconciles exactly to the 509 tuition-plus-fee lines. Employment data for the Class of 2025 are from an independent tabulation of the ABA employment summary, and the school publishes its own Employment Summaries for 2025, 2024, and 2023 directly on its ABA disclosures page. Bar data for 2025 come from the school's own published bar-passage table, disaggregated by jurisdiction.

Introduction

The University of South Dakota School of Law was established in 1901 by U.S. Ambassador Bartlett Tripp and U.S. Senator Thomas Sterling, and it has been accredited by the American Bar Association since 1923. It is the only law school in South Dakota and one of the smallest ABA-accredited law schools in the country, enrolling 252 J.D. students in Fall 2025. For its first eight decades, the school operated under diploma privilege — South Dakota admitted its graduates to the bar without examination — until the South Dakota Supreme Court abolished the practice in 1984. The school moved to a new building in 1982, was renamed the School of Law, and in 2017 took its current name, the Knudson School of Law, following a $12.5 million gift.

The school's identity is inseparable from its monopoly. As the only law school in South Dakota, USD Law supplies the state's entire legal establishment: its alumni include eight governors, thirteen members of the U.S. congressional delegation from South Dakota, nineteen state attorneys general, thirteen U.S. Attorneys, twenty-nine state supreme court justices, and twelve federal judges — among them Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Roger Wollman, District of South Dakota Chief Judge Jeffrey Viken, Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Bud Day, Miami Dolphins founder Joe Robbie, Governors Frank Farrar and George S. Mickelson, Senators James Abourezk and Tim Johnson, Chief Justice David Gilbertson, and Attorneys General Marty Jackley and Jason Ravnsborg. When the school's dean told South Dakota legislators in 2023 that ninety-six percent of that year's graduates had found legal jobs and sixty-eight percent were practicing in the state, he was describing the school's function, not just its outcomes.

Its present identity rests on three pillars: the lowest-cost footprint in this profile series (resident tuition has fallen since 2019, and total resident cost of attendance computes to roughly $35,000 a year); a placement record that ranks in the top thirty nationally on overall employment and in the top fifteen on federal clerkships; and a curriculum built for South Dakota practice, with a mandatory-clinic structure and the state's only law library. The school publishes the South Dakota Law Review and operates its clinics across the Vermillion community and the state's judicial circuits.

Rankings and Reputation

USD Law's overall rank sits in the middle of the national table, but the metric-level data tell a two-sided story: employment outcomes rank in the top thirty nationally, tuition ranks near the bottom of the price table, bar passage ranks #146, and faculty diversity ranks #193 of 196. The school's small size amplifies every metric — good and bad.

Overall ranking

U.S. News edition	USD Law rank
2026	122 (tie)
2024	127 (−5 from prior year, per Spivey Consulting tabulation)

U.S. News is the source used for the At-a-Glance table. U.S. News reports an 8.2:1 student-faculty ratio; ILRG computes 13.3:1 (#112 tie) from the ABA disclosures' 19 full-time and 36 non-full-time faculty against 252 students. The discrepancy is methodological — U.S. News counts full-time instructional faculty while ILRG uses the full-time-plus-non-full-time total — and at a school with only 19 full-time professors, both ratios describe a genuinely small faculty. Both are noted rather than one selected.

ILRG's metric-by-metric report, built on the December 2025 ABA disclosures, places the school as follows: #170 of 196 in LSAT composite (152.3); #143 in GPA composite (3.48); #190 in selectivity (62.6% acceptance rate); #112 (tie) in student-faculty ratio (13.3:1); #28 in overall employment at ten months (97.1%); #65 in bar-required employment (85.7%); #13 in federal clerkship rate (9.3%); #146 in first-time bar passage (72.6%); #430 of 275 distinct tuition rates ($32,184 non-resident — near the bottom of the national price table); tied #124 in female faculty (41.8%); and #193 of 196 in minority faculty (3.6%). The employment and clerkship ranks are among the best of any school in this profile series; the selectivity, minority-faculty, and LSAT-composite ranks are its weakest.

Specialty rankings

No specialty rankings beyond the overall #122 (tie) were confirmed in the sources reviewed. U.S. News lists clinical training, dispute resolution, environmental law, health care law, intellectual property law, international law, business/corporate law, constitutional law, contracts/commercial law, and criminal law among the school's program areas, and joint-degree options including the M.B.A., M.P.A., Master of Public Accountancy, and Master of Arts programs. The school's social-media marketing has claimed a top-ten national ranking in a clerkship-related category; the verifiable figure is the ILRG federal clerkship rate of 9.3% (#13 of 196), which independently supports the clerkship strength the school advertises.

Admissions: What It Takes to Get In

Entering class (Fall 2025)

Admissions metric	Fall 2025
Completed applications	405
Offers of admission	253
Acceptance rate	62.47%
Enrollees from applicant pool	85
Total in first-year class	88 (all full-time)
Yield (enrollees / offers)	32.81%
Enrollment rate from completed applications	20.49%
Total J.D. enrollment	252
Transfers in / out	1 in / 1 out

The 32.81% yield is solid for a school at this rank and reflects the single-state dynamic: applicants committed to South Dakota practice have nowhere else to go in-state, while the small class absorbs them. A class of 88 is among the smallest in this series — small enough that a handful of admitted applicants declining their seats moves every percentage.

LSAT and GPA

Statistic	25th percentile	Median	75th percentile
LSAT	149	152	156
Undergraduate GPA	3.16	3.47	3.81

GRE acceptance was not confirmed in the sources reviewed; applicants should verify with the admissions office.

Interpreting the numbers

The six-year trend shows slow, steady credential growth on a stable selectivity base: the acceptance rate barely moved (64.8% to 62.6%), the median LSAT rose two points (150 to 152, with the 25th percentile climbing from 147 to 149), and the median GPA rose seventeen hundredths (3.30 to 3.47), with the 75th percentile jumping from 3.65 to 3.81 — the sharpest movement in the distribution. The school is drawing a modestly stronger pool without becoming more selective, consistent with its role as the default institution for South Dakota's future lawyers.

A median LSAT of 152 places USD Law near the bottom of the national distribution — #170 of 196 by ILRG's composite — and applicants should be clear-eyed about what that means: the school is not competing for the national applicant pool, and its admission profile reflects its mission of educating South Dakota's future bar. The GPA median of 3.47 is the mitigating signal: the school admits applicants whose academic records, not test scores, carry their candidacy.

Application timing

Application fee: $35 (2025 ABA 509 report; U.S. News reports $36 — use $35 as the 509 figure)
Application deadline: July 1 (2025 ABA 509 report; U.S. News confirms)
Financial aid deadline: July 1 (2025 ABA 509 report and U.S. News); the university's FAFSA priority deadline is April 1, which applicants targeting need-based aid should treat as the operative date
No binding Early Decision program is reported in the sources reviewed
All admitted students are automatically considered for internal scholarships, with initial offers made after admission
The J.D. requires 90 credit hours; the program is full-time only, with no part-time or evening division

Cost, Scholarships, and Debt

Tuition

Year	Resident	Non-resident
2025–26 tuition (2025 ABA 509)	$12,076	$32,184
2025–26 mandatory fees	$5,037	$5,037
Total, tuition and fees	$17,113	$37,221
2019 tuition (for comparison)	$16,944	$34,872

This table is the school's best argument and the most unusual in this profile series. Resident tuition has fallen by $4,868 since 2019 — a 29% decrease — and non-resident tuition has fallen as well, which is nearly unprecedented among American law schools. The resident all-in figure of $17,113 (tuition plus fees) is the lowest in this profile series by roughly $10,000, and ILRG ranks the non-resident rate #430 of 275 distinct national rates — near the absolute bottom of the price table. The 2025–26 tuition year is also charged on the university's per-credit schedule in some semesters; the 509 annual lines above are the standardized comparison.

Residency rules follow the South Dakota Board of Regents policy: residents include anyone who has lived in South Dakota for twelve consecutive months before enrolling, active-duty personnel and spouses stationed in the state, South Dakota high school graduates, and anyone married to a South Dakota resident. Veterans, National Guard members, and military personnel may qualify for discounted rates or waiver of the residency time requirement. Non-resident applicants planning to practice in South Dakota should check whether the twelve-month rule can be triggered before enrollment, since the resident discount is $20,000 a year.

Cost of attendance

Expense	Resident	Non-resident
Tuition and fees	$17,113	$37,221
Living expenses, on campus	$16,452	$16,452
Living expenses, off campus	$18,034	$18,034
Living expenses, at home or military base	$11,702	$11,702
Computed total, resident, off campus	≈$35,429 (509 basis) / ≈$35,147 (U.S. News basis)
Computed total, non-resident, off campus	≈$55,537 (509 basis) / ≈$55,255 (U.S. News basis)

Totals are computed here by adding the 509 tuition, fee, and living-expense lines; the school does not publish a single annual cost-of-attendance total in the sources retrieved. Two details deserve attention. First, the room-and-board allowance has more than doubled since 2019 — from $8,538 to $18,034, an increase of 111% — the same pattern seen across this series, though from the lowest base: even at the doubled rate, Vermillion's living costs are among the lowest in the country, and the at-home allowance of $11,702 is the lowest in this series. Second, the school prices a military-base living allowance, which is rare and matters for the state's significant veteran and Guard population. An independent three-year tabulation puts the non-resident sticker cost at $165,765, with an estimated three-year net cost of $156,252 after average aid — figures that should be read against the much lower resident arithmetic.

Financial aid

Metric	Value
Students receiving grants	139 (55%)
25th percentile grant	$590
Median grant	$5,000
75th percentile grant	$10,000
Conditional scholarships offered, 2024–25	1
Conditional scholarships offered, 2023–24	1
Conditional scholarships offered, 2022–23	1

The grant profile is thin, and it is the school's principal financial weakness. At 55%, the grant-recipient rate is below the national norm for public schools, and the amounts are the smallest in this profile series by a wide margin: a median of $5,000 and a 75th percentile of $10,000 — against the $10,000–$40,000 medians at peer schools. The 25th percentile of $590 is functionally zero. The school's value case therefore rests almost entirely on the tuition line rather than on aid: it is cheaper to pay full price at USD Law than to pay a discounted net price almost anywhere else. All admitted students are automatically considered for internal scholarships (including the Honor Scholar Program), with merit and need both weighed, but applicants should not expect the five-figure awards common at private schools.

The conditional-scholarship exposure is negligible — one award offered in each of the last three years, with no reduction data retrieved — and the school's low debt figures (below) confirm that the low tuition, not the aid, does the work. The university's FAFSA code is 003474, with a priority deadline of April 1; the financial aid director is Lindsay Miller, (605) 658-6250.

Debt perspective

Average indebtedness among 2025 J.D. graduates who incurred law school debt was $94,387, with 75.9% of the class borrowing, and no loan repayment assistance program is offered to 2025 graduates. The debt figure is moderate — well below the private-school figures in this series, though higher than the tuition alone would predict because living costs now exceed tuition at the resident rate. The 75.9% borrowing rate reflects the thin grant layer: most students finance the full tuition plus living costs.

The school advertises a #2 national ranking for lowest-indebted students, and third-party tabulations support a favorable debt-to-salary picture: against a modeled Class of 2025 salary of $79,170 and the state's public-sector salaries, a $94,387 debt load is serviceable in a way that $157,002 at Seattle U Law is not. The missing LRAP nonetheless matters for the school's mission: South Dakota's rural attorney shortage is a documented policy issue, and graduates entering small-town practice, prosecution, or legal aid carry their loans without institutional backstop. Applicants targeting those paths should model income-driven federal repayment and ask whether any university-level or state loan-forgiveness program applies.

Employment Outcomes

Employment (Class of 2025)

Employment status (Class of 2025, 82 graduates, ten months out)	Share of class
Law firms — other sizes	36.6%
Judicial clerkships — all courts	17.1% (14 graduates)
Government	15.8%
Public interest	9.8%
Business and academic	8.5%
Employer not classified	1.2%
Pursuing further study	1.2%
Unemployed — seeking	7.3% (6 graduates)
Unemployed — not seeking	1.2%
Status unknown	1.2%
Overall employment rate	≈90.2%

The detailed ABA category table — the bar-required versus J.D.-advantage counts and the school-reported totals — is published in the school's Employment Summary for 2025 Graduates on its ABA disclosures page; the independent tabulation above itemizes sectors but does not reproduce the full ABA category matrix. The bar-required count of 78.0% (64 of 82 graduates) is the tabulation's figure.

Employment metric	Value
Overall employment at 10 months (Class of 2024, ILRG)	97.1% (#28 of 196)
Bar-required employment, full-time long-term (Class of 2024, ILRG)	85.7% (#65 of 196)
Federal clerkship rate (Class of 2024, ILRG)	9.3% (#13 of 196)
Big Law share, firms of 501+ (Class of 2025, third-party tabulation)	0.0%
Modeled salary across covered categories (Class of 2025)	$79,170 (79% of the class reporting)

What these numbers mean

The employment picture is the strongest component of the school's value case and one of the most distinctive in this series. The Class of 2024's 97.1% overall employment rate ranked #28 nationally — above schools ranked a hundred places higher — and the 85.7% bar-required rate ranked #65. The Class of 2025 cohort shows a softer but still strong profile: 78.0% bar-required, a 17.1% clerkship rate (all courts), 15.8% government, and 9.8% public interest, with only 7.3% unemployed and seeking.

Two structural facts explain the composition. First, the clerkship pipeline is real and nationally elite: at 9.3% federal clerkships, USD Law ranks #13 in the country — ahead of schools ranked in the top fifty — because South Dakota's state and federal judges hire the state's only law school graduates, and the school's alumni bench (Chief Judge Wollman, Chief Judge Viken) anchors that pipeline. Second, the absence of Big Law is total (0.0% of the Class of 2025 entered firms of 501+ attorneys), and the modeled salary of $79,170 reflects a market of small-town practices, prosecutor and public-defender offices, state agencies, and the region's banks and agricultural businesses. This is a school that reliably converts a degree into licensed, in-state professional employment at salaries that match South Dakota's cost of living — which, combined with the tuition table, is a coherent and defensible value proposition.

Bar passage

Graduating class / administration	Takers	Passers	School rate	Comparison	Difference
2025 — South Dakota only	43	35	81.4%	78.79% (state, ABA schools)	+2.6
2025 — 19 remaining jurisdictions	35	19	54.29%	80.32% (state, ABA schools)	−26.0
2025 — all jurisdictions combined (LawHub)	78	54	69.2%	—	—
2024 cohort (ILRG)	—	—	72.6%	78.6% (South Dakota)	−6.0 (#146 of 196)
2019 cohort (ILRG)	—	—	51.7%	68.2% (South Dakota)	−16.5

Bar passage at USD Law requires disaggregation, because the school's 2025 data splits into two very different stories. In South Dakota itself — where 43 of the 78 first-time takers sat — USD graduates passed at 81.4%, two points above the state's ABA-school average, which is a genuine success and the number that matters for the school's home-state mission. But the 35 graduates who sat in nineteen other jurisdictions passed at 54.29%, twenty-six points below those jurisdictions' averages, and that half of the cohort drags the combined rate to 69.2% (LawHub) and the school's ILRG rank to #146.

The six-year trend nonetheless shows real improvement: from 51.7% in 2019 — sixteen points under the state average and an institutional crisis — to 72.6% for the 2024 cohort, with the 2025 in-state rate now above average. Two-year ultimate passage data for recent cohorts was not retrieved in machine-readable form (the school links an ultimate-passage document on its disclosures page; LSAC's older tabulation shows 80.6% for the 2018 cohort), and applicants should request it. The practical reading: a USD Law graduate who sits the South Dakota bar passes at a rate comparable to the state average; a graduate who takes the exam elsewhere — typically because of family relocation or a job elsewhere — is, on the 2025 evidence, at elevated risk. Applicants intending to practice in South Dakota face materially less bar risk than the school's topline number suggests; applicants intending to leave face more.

Where graduates go

State-by-state employment counts for the Class of 2025 were not published in machine-readable form in the sources reviewed, but the 2023 data the dean reported to legislators — 96% employed in the legal field, 68% practicing in South Dakota — remains the clearest public statement of the school's placement pattern. The market is South Dakota: Sioux Falls and Rapid City firms, the state's attorney offices and public defender system, state agencies, the unified judiciary, and the state's banks, agricultural businesses, and Indian country legal practice. The clerkship pipeline (17.1% of the Class of 2025 across all courts, 3.7% federal) feeds directly into that system, and the alumni network of eight governors and twelve federal judges functions as the state's legal infrastructure. Out-of-state placement exists but carries the bar-passage risk documented above; applicants targeting other regions should not assume the degree travels.

Academics and Programs

The J.D. requires 90 credit hours of full-time study; there is no part-time or evening division. The school also awards the LL.M., and U.S. News lists joint-degree options with the university's M.B.A., Master of Public Administration, Master of Public Accountancy, and Master of Arts programs. Clinical training, dispute resolution, environmental law, health care law, intellectual property law, international law, business/corporate law, constitutional law, contracts/commercial law, and criminal law are among the listed program areas.

Curriculum and special strengths

The curriculum is built for general South Dakota practice, and the school's size is the pedagogical fact: 19 full-time professors against a 252-student body produces the 8.2:1 ratio U.S. News reports, and every student is known. The mandatory-clinic structure (below) and the advocacy program anchor the skills training, and the school's clerkship placement reflects a curriculum that trains students for actual judicial work.

The South Dakota Law Review is the school's flagship journal, and the law library is the state's only dedicated academic law library. The McKusick Law Library and the school's location on the university's Vermillion campus give students access to the full university's resources while sitting four blocks from the Clay County Courthouse and the First Judicial Circuit.

Academic profile per the 2025 ABA 509 report: 19 full-time faculty, 36 non-full-time faculty, and three librarians — 55 total. Faculty diversity is the school's most troubling metric: 41.8% female faculty (tied #124 nationally) but 3.6% minority faculty, ranked #193 of 196 — among the lowest in the country. Applicants who weight faculty diversity in their decision should treat that figure as a first-order fact, not a footnote.

Clinics and experiential learning

The school operates clinical programs as a graduation requirement, with placements spanning the state's judicial circuits — the only way a school with no large metro nearby can guarantee live-client experience. The clinic structure feeds directly into the clerkship and government placement pipeline documented above: South Dakota's judges hire USD Law graduates they have already watched work, and the county state's attorneys recruit from the prosecutor practicum. Applicants should request the current clinic roster and seat counts, since offerings at a school of 252 students shift with faculty availability and are not comprehensively itemized in the ABA disclosures.

Student Life and Location

Living in Vermillion

Vermillion is a college town of roughly 11,000 in the far southeastern corner of South Dakota, on the Missouri River bluffs about 45 minutes south of Sioux Falls and 90 minutes north of Omaha. The law school sits at 414 East Clark Street on the university's campus, and the cost-of-living arithmetic is the simplest in this profile series: the off-campus living allowance of $18,034 and the at-home allowance of $11,702 are the lowest in the series, and the room-and-board line — despite more than doubling since 2019 — still prices a college town, not a metro. Sioux Falls, where most South Dakota legal jobs are, is close enough for third-year externships and OCI, and the school holds four rounds of on-campus interviews a year (two fall, two spring). The Missouri River, Spirit Mound, and the university's Division I athletics round out a small-town student experience; applicants seeking urban life, large cohorts, or big-firm summer markets will not find them here, and the school's design assumes they will not want to.

Student body

Total J.D. enrollment was 252 as of October 5, 2025, all full-time. ILRG's demographic tabulation reports 47.6% men, 50.0% women, and 2.4% non-binary or other; student-body diversity detail beyond that was not fully machine-readable in the sources reviewed, and faculty diversity (3.6% minority, #193 of 196) is discussed above. The community is small by design — 88 entering students, a 55-person faculty, a single building — and the culture follows the single-state mission: most students are South Dakotans or adjacent-state residents intending to practice at home, many with family ties to the alumni network that runs the state. Third-generation lawyers are common; so are first-generation professionals. Applicants seeking a national or urban law school experience will not find it; applicants seeking a tight cohort, direct faculty contact, and a direct pipeline into a state's entire legal establishment will.

How USD Law Compares

Choose USD Law if

You are a South Dakota resident: $17,113 all-in tuition and fees, a $35,429 total cost of attendance, and a monopoly on the state's legal pipeline make this close to a default rational choice for in-state applicants.
You want clerkships. A 9.3% federal clerkship rate ranks #13 in the country, and 17.1% of the Class of 2025 clerked in some court — the school's judges hire its graduates.
You want employment security: 97.1% overall employment (#28 of 196) and 85.7% bar-required (#65) for the Class of 2024, with 78.0% bar-required for the Class of 2025.
You intend to sit the South Dakota bar: the school's in-state first-time rate of 81.4% beat the state average in 2025, and the school's 2019-era bar crisis is behind it on home soil.
You are a veteran or military-affiliated applicant: discounted rates, residency waivers, and a priced military-base living allowance.
You want small: 88 students per class, an 8.2:1 full-time ratio, and a faculty that knows every student.

Consider alternatives if

You intend to practice outside South Dakota. Out-of-state first-time takers passed at 54.29% in 2025, twenty-six points below the comparison average, and the degree's market is single-state.
You are a non-resident financing full price: $37,221 a year in tuition and fees for a degree whose placement is regional, with thin aid ($5,000 median grant) and no LRAP, is not the bargain the resident rate is.
You are scholarship-dependent: a 55% grant rate with a $5,000 median and a $590 25th percentile means most students pay close to full freight.
You want Big Law or a national market: 0.0% of the Class of 2025 entered firms of 501+ attorneys, and the modeled salary is $79,170.
You need a part-time or evening J.D. — USD Law is full-time only.
You are prioritizing faculty diversity: 3.6% minority faculty ranks #193 of 196.
You want a large cohort or an urban setting: 88 students per class in Vermillion.

The TLS Verdict

The Knudson School of Law is the purest single-state flagship in this profile series, and its numbers finally match its mission. After a 2019 bar-passage crisis (51.7%, sixteen points under the state average) that coincided with the bottom of its U.S. News standing, the school has rebuilt on three verifiable strengths: the country's lowest resident tuition in this series — one that has actually fallen since 2019, to $17,113 all-in — employment outcomes ranked #28 nationally with a clerkship rate ranked #13, and a home-state bar-passage rate (81.4% in 2025) that now beats the state average. Add the alumni network of eight governors, twelve federal judges, and twenty-nine state supreme court justices, and the case for the South Dakota-bound applicant is close to unanswerable.

The trade-offs are structural and honest. Out-of-state bar takers passed at 54.29% in 2025 — a number that should terrify any applicant planning to leave, and one the school's aggregate rates have historically concealed. The grant program is thin (55% of students, $5,000 median, $590 at the 25th percentile), so the value rests on tuition rather than aid, and the no-LRAP gap lands hardest on the rural-practice and prosecution careers the state most needs. Big Law placement is zero. The faculty is among the least diverse in the country (3.6% minority, #193 of 196). And the class of 88, at a 62% acceptance rate, is a mission institution, not a selective one — applicants should evaluate it as what it is.

The verdict is jurisdictional. For a South Dakota or adjacent-state resident who wants to practice at home — firm, prosecution, defense, clerkship, or agency — USD Law is close to the rational choice and, on the debt-to-salary math, one of the best in the country. For a non-resident intending to stay: the non-resident rate of $37,221 buys a genuine employment guarantee in a small market, provided the residency rules or the state's practice realities are understood in advance. For an applicant headed anywhere else, the bar data, the salary data, and the single-state alumni map all point to other schools — and no amount of low tuition fixes that.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is USD Law's acceptance rate?

62.47% for Fall 2025, with 253 offers extended to 405 completed applications and 88 students in the first-year class — a yield of 32.81%. Source: the 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report.

What LSAT and GPA do I need?

The Fall 2025 medians were 152 LSAT and 3.47 GPA, with middle-50% ranges of 149–156 and 3.16–3.81. Both medians have risen since 2019 (150 and 3.30) while the acceptance rate held near 63%, so the pool has strengthened without the school becoming more selective.

How much does USD Law cost?

$12,076 resident and $32,184 non-resident in tuition for 2025–26, plus $5,037 in fees — $17,113 and $37,221 all-in, matching U.S. News. Total cost of attendance computes to approximately $35,429 resident and $55,537 non-resident with the $18,034 off-campus living allowance. Resident tuition has fallen 29% since 2019.

Does USD Law have a part-time program?

No. The 509 report lists zero part-time students and no part-time tuition; the J.D. is full-time only and requires 90 credit hours.

What percentage of students receive scholarships?

139 students, or 55%, received grants in the most recently reported year, with a median of $5,000 and a 25th-to-75th range of $590 to $10,000. All admitted students are automatically considered for internal scholarships, including the Honor Scholar Program, with merit and need both weighed. The amounts are small — the school's value rests on the tuition line, not the aid.

What is USD Law's bar passage rate?

The 2025 first-time rate splits by jurisdiction: 81.4% in South Dakota (35 of 43, beating the state's 78.79% average) but 54.29% across nineteen other jurisdictions (19 of 35), for a combined 69.2% (LawHub). The 2024 cohort passed at 72.6% against a South Dakota average of 78.6% (−6.0, #146 of 196), a major improvement over 2019's 51.7% (−16.5). The school links an ultimate-passage report on its disclosures page; two-year ultimate figures for recent cohorts were not retrieved in machine-readable form.

Where do graduates work?

Primarily in South Dakota: the dean reported in 2023 that 96% of that year's class found legal jobs and 68% practiced in the state. The Class of 2025 placed 36.6% in firms (other sizes), 17.1% in judicial clerkships (3.7% federal, #13 nationally for the 2024 cohort), 15.8% in government, 9.8% in public interest, and 8.5% in business and academia, with 7.3% unemployed and seeking. No Class of 2025 graduates entered firms of 501+ attorneys. The modeled salary across covered categories is $79,170.

Is USD Law good for BigLaw?

No — 0.0% of the Class of 2025 entered firms of 501+ attorneys, and the school's placement is South Dakota practice, clerkships, and government. The clerkship pipeline is the school's elite outcome, not the large-firm one.

Does USD Law offer an LRAP?

No loan repayment assistance program is offered to 2025 J.D. graduates. Average indebtedness among borrowers was $94,387, with 75.9% of the class borrowing. The school markets a #2 national ranking for lowest-indebted students; the missing LRAP still matters for rural-practice and prosecution careers, and applicants should model income-driven federal repayment.

Who is the dean?

Neil Fulton, who was selected as dean in 2023 and delivered the Class of 2026 hooding speech in May 2026. Applicants should verify current leadership on the school's site before enrolling.

What is the Knudson naming?

The school was renamed the USD Knudson School of Law in 2017 following a $12.5 million gift — a major inflection for a school of its size.

What is USD Law best known for?

Being the only law school in South Dakota; the lowest resident tuition in this profile series ($12,076, and falling); a #13 national federal clerkship rate (9.3%) and #28 overall employment rank (97.1%); and an alumni network that is effectively the state's legal establishment — eight governors, thirteen members of Congress, nineteen attorneys general, twenty-nine state supreme court justices, twelve federal judges, Medal of Honor recipient Bud Day, and Miami Dolphins founder Joe Robbie.

Contact and Key Links

University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57070

Main Phone: (605) 658-3500 (law school); (605) 658-3508 (509 listing)

Financial Aid Contact: Lindsay Miller, Director, (605) 658-6250

Career Services Contact: Teramie Hill, Manager, (605) 658-3546

Financial Aid Deadline: July 1 (FAFSA priority: April 1)

Application Fee: $35 (U.S. News reports $36)

Application Deadline: July 1

Official links

Key documents

TLS Forum Links

Sources

University of South Dakota School of Law

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