IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, Brian Tamanaha on what to do about the Law School Bubble.
My interview with Tamanaha is now available on YouTube.
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GOOD QUESTION: The Law School Bubble: How Long Will It Last if Law Grads Can’t Pay Bills? “In 2010, 85 percent of law graduates from ABA-accredited schools boasted an average debt load of $98,500, according to data collected from law schools by U.S. News & World Report. At 29 schools, that amount exceeded $120,000. In contrast, only 68 percent of those grads reported employment in positions that require a JD nine months after commencement. Less than 51 percent found employment in private law firms.” Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.
A LAW SCHOOL BUBBLE? I talk on WSJ TV.
I’LL BE ON OPINIONJOURNAL VIDEO at the WSJ in a few minutes, talking about the law school bubble.
THE LAW SCHOOL BUBBLE: An InfoGraphic.
LAW SCHOOL BUBBLE BURSTING? LSAT Test-Takers Down 10%, Law School Applications Down 12%. I suspect that potential applicants are beginning to react to the stories of law-school grads with heavy debt and no jobs.
Or maybe they’re seeing things like this.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Dean of Columbia Law School Resigns Amid Anti-Semitism Scandals: Gillian Lester’s likely replacement is David Schizer, a former dean who helped deepen Columbia’s ties with Israel.
The law school has been battling accusations of anti-Semitism ever since Hamas’s Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel, which Lester initially described as the “violence that erupted in Israel and Gaza.” Her statement, which did not mention Hamas or anti-Semitism, touched off weeks of damage control at the elite law school, where pro-Palestinian students recently occupied a campus building and disrupted class in violation of school policy. Columbia declined to break up the protest or say whether the students would be punished.
Though the law school has not announced Lester’s replacement, an alum with ties to the administration said that David Schizer, who served as dean from 2004 to 2014, is the leading candidate. A scholar of tax and energy law, Schizer was tapped this month to help lead Columbia University’s task force on anti-Semitism. As dean, he also helped deepen ties between the law school and the Jewish state, opening a Center for Israeli Legal Studies in 2006 that brings prominent Israeli scholars to campus.
Nice to see some pushback against the hate that has infested that institution.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: 25% Through The Fall 2024 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down -3.7%, With Biggest Decline (-10.2%) In The 170-180 LSAT Band. So the smartest applicants represent the biggest decline.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: For-Profit Law Schools, Once Flourishing, Are Nearly Extinct.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: West Virginia Law School Faces Major Cuts As Part Of University’s ‘Unprecedented’ Budget Retrenchment. “West Virginia University announced sweeping budget cuts, including terminating 7% of faculty.”
If only there had been some sort of warning.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Golden Gate Law School Sends Discontinuation Notices To Tenured Faculty, Paving Way For Possible Termination In FY25.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: U.S. News, Department Of Education, And Law Schools Take The Gloves Off In Rankings Battle.
The real objection to the rankings is that they make it harder to discriminate on the basis of race, and they want to discriminate on the basis of race. There are legitimate concerns with the rankings, but that’s what’s driving this.
Meanwhile, U.S. News is fighting back by asking the Secretary of Education “to demand that all schools – including elite law schools – provide open access to all of their undergraduate and graduate school data, using a common data set. This would enable prospective students and their families to make meaningful comparisons between institutions, based on factors such as financial information, admissions data, and outcome statistics, including employment rates at graduation.”
That’s fair. These schools, whether public or private, sit atop a geyser of public funding. They wouldn’t exist in their current form without it.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: 14% Of The Way Through The Fall 2023 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applicants Are Down -14%, With Biggest Decline (-25%) Among The 160-180 LSAT Band.
As we saw earlier, MBA applications are plunging, too.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rutgers Seeks Dismissal Of Lawsuit Claiming Business School Created Fake Jobs For Graduates To Goose Ranking. “The amended complaint alleged that Rutgers inflated the school’s rankings in publications such as U.S. News & World Report by hiring graduating MBA students who were unemployed and placing them in “token permanent positions directly with the university.” The purported scheme duped prospective students about the potential employment opportunities that come with attending the school, according to the complaint.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Under Federal Scrutiny, NYU Law School Faces Uproar Over Anti-Semitism.
Why is higher education, and legal education in particular, such a cesspit of hate?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LAW SCHOOL EDITION: The percentage of deans who allocated a lot of time to diversity, equity, and inclusion increased from 16% in 2019 to 79% in 2020.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: WSJ: Law School Loses Luster As Debts Mount And Salaries Stagnate.
Recent graduates of the University of Miami School of Law who used federal loans borrowed a median of $163,000. Two years later, half were earning $59,000 or less. That’s the biggest gap between debt and earnings among the top 100 law schools as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data found.
Graduates from a host of other well-regarded law schools routinely leave with six-figure student loans, then fail to find high-paying jobs as lawyers, according to the Journal’s analysis of the latest federal data on earnings, for students who graduated in 2015 and 2016.
When Miami students asked for financial assistance, some graduates told the Journal, school officials often offered this solution: Take more loans.
“I had no work experience, life experience, anything like that before I signed on to this quarter-million-dollar loan,” said Dylan Boigris, a 2016 Miami Law graduate, who began his career making about $45,000 as a public defender. “I thought I would come out making much more than I did.”
A law professor at the university, Anthony Alfieri, said law schools “foster this kind of cruel optimism” in students, letting them think six-figure salaries are attainable, when in reality, those high-paying jobs are largely reserved for students at only the top-ranked law schools. “Law schools encourage a kind of magical thinking in order to keep the lights on,” he said. …
Federal data suggest the value of a law degree from nonelite schools has diminished. Salaries haven’t kept pace with inflation over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, tuitions have soared. A three-year juris doctor program, including living expenses, now can cost more than $250,000 at private law schools.
Graduates who finished law school in 2019 earned a median $72,500 the following year, according to the National Association for Law Placement. That is about the same as graduates who finished school a decade earlier earned soon after graduating. …
Just 15% of recent University of Miami Law graduates had begun repaying their student loans after two years—the lowest rate among law schools at elite private research universities, as defined by categories the Education Department uses.
And yet applications overall are still up.
Related: The Wall Street Journal Have An Axe To Grind Against Law Schools? I think the WSJ is right on the long term trend, but the short-term trend is bucking it at the moment.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University of Washington law school wants to tell students what to say on social media.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: The Fall 2020 Law School Class … And An Early Look At The Incoming Fall 2021 Class. “As of today, the total number of JD applicants is up 38.2% compared to this time last year.” Trump saves another industry! But there will be no gratitude . . .
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Season Opens With A Bang: Applicants Are Up Over 35%, With Biggest Increases Among The Highest LSAT Bands.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Law Schools In Chicago And Cleveland Consider Removing Chief Justice John Marshall From Their Names.
The beauty for the Deans is that they can posture as woke — then sell the naming opportunity thus created to the highest bidder.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Which Law Schools Will Thrive (46), Survive (65), Struggle (23), Or Perish (18) In The Age Of COVID-19?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Law Schools Scramble To Retain Foreign Students Amid ICE Online Education Ban.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Is A Law School Meltdown Coming? “The health arguments against live instruction may be seriously overstated.”