Earlier this week, Reuters published an article about the current predicament of the nation’s for-profit law schools. We have been meaning to add our two cents to the article but we have been extremely busy helping our applicants and are just now going to publish this before the close of business.
Ten years ago, six for-profit law schools were accredited by the ABA with a total enrollment of roughly 5,000 students. That equated to an average of over 800 students per school and made them larger than the vast majority of nonprofit law schools. More students means more extracurricular opportunity and more career services needs.
According to the Reuters article, there are now only an estimated 900 students enrolled in for-profit law schools. Substantial misrepresentations to current and prospective students is one of many factors that has contributed to this precipitous decline. Another is the for-profit schools’ reliance on tuition. Traditional schools can fund raise much more effectively and many schools, especially the top law schools, boast large endowments.
Finally, traditional schools are less “risk seeking” in terms of admitting applicants who have low LSAT scores and other indicators that they may be at risk of not being able to pass the bar upon graduation. The higher bar passage rates equate to higher rankings and lower loan defaults. All three of these help keep these schools in the good graces of the Department of Education and allows them to continue to offer federal student loans.
We are not entirely anti for-profit law schools and we hope this blog isn’t misconstrued in that way. We simply want to ensure that our blog readers think very carefully before enrolling in a for-profit law school and consider the associated risks.
