Lower Law School Enrollments in 2013: Causes and Implications

By Rosalba Gleijeses

This year, a national trend of decreasing levels of enrollment has emerged amongst law schools across the country. The most compelling justification for this seems to be the difficulty for law school students in finding employment after graduation. Reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the availability of legal jobs does not meet the number of students graduating from law school. Not surprisingly, students have recognized this and veered away from pursuing legal studies and professions.

2010 marked the peak year for enrollment, with 52,000 students entering law school. This year, the Law School Admissions Council reported that only 33,672 people took the LSAT, exhibiting an eleven percent decrease from the number of students taking the test in 2012. From that point, the trend of declining enrollment emerged first amongst lower ranked law schools. By 2013, even the most elite schools suffered similar shift. The pattern has also a considerable effect on second-tier schools: those ranked in the top 50, but not top 15.

How are these schools responding to this? Universities are faced with choosing between two salient strategies in confronting the decrease in enrollment. One option is to lower admissions standards. The alternative is to accommodate the smaller applicant pool with decreasing funds received from tuition. The first approach is met with considerable opposition, as it runs the risk of decreasing a school’s ranking in the U.S. News & World Report. The latter strategy results in less competition for applicants, but more stress on the university to increase financial aid.

Many schools, including public universities, have been forced to spike tuition. While previously much more affordable, state school are now receiving increasingly insufficient levels of funding from the government, and have responded by increasing tuition to levels comparable to private universities.  This course of action supports the belief the professors at public universities should receive the same pay as those at private universities. Those who reject this claim, however, argue for salary and budget cuts as opposed to tuition increase.

Most schools seem to prioritize ranking over funding. A majority of law schools have chosen to decrease incoming class size—thereby reducing tuition revenue—as opposed to lowering their standards for GPA and LSAT scores. GW, however, has chosen to buck the trend—electing to increase class size by compromising their previous admissions standards. This past year, GW saw a 22% increase in the size of its newest class, but the university neglected to post the LSAT scores and GPA of its incoming class.

Bibliography

Mary Ellen McIntire, “Law School Enrollment Surges Amid National Decrease,” The GW Hatchet. News, 2 September 2013. Web. 1 December 2013.

Elie Mystal, “Second-Tier Law Schools Feel The Squeeze As They Stubbornly Keep Tuition Rates High,” Above the Law. Law Professors, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Money, 26 September 2013. Web. 1 December 2013.

Aeet Sachdev, “Law Schools Adjust to Lower Enrollments,” The Chicago Tribune. Business, 1 December 2013. Web. 1 December 2013.