How much does it cost to go to law school? While average debt upon graduation now exceeds $100,000 and some schools are exceeding the $50,000 annual tuition mark, none of those figures add up the total cost.
But now Law School Transparency has done the math, adding three years of tuition to cost of living expenses, and then calculating finance expenses. The final tab for what it calls non-discounted cost is more than $200,000.
Tuition for private law schools grew from an average of $21,790 in 2000 to $37,702 in 2010, an increase of 73 percent.
Public schools have increased their tuition at a far higher percent — more than 150 percent. Tuition for residents has increased from $7,790 in 2000 to more than $20,000 in 2010.
But a handful of schools have bucked the trend, and more are now making an effort, a National Jurist study shows.
Arizona State University is the latest school to launch a program designed to hire and mentor recent graduates.
The Law Group will be a stand-alone, nonprofit firm, modeled after a teaching hospital. It will be a full-service, fee-based institution that will provide legal services to clients, focusing on those who cannot afford to pay current market rates.
Florida Coastal School of Law has announced a groundbreaking admissions program that assures law students success academically and on the bar exam, and also assures experiential learning while in school.
“Coastal Law students who have demonstrated high levels of engagement in our program have historically and consistently been successful in all areas of law school,” said Peter Goplerud, dean of the law school. “If participating students are accountable for their end of this exciting new partnership, the school will be accountable for ours.”
Florida Coastal School of Law will begin offering a two-year fast-track degree to select students this summer, a program that could save students as much as $50,000.
The JD Fast Track is an invitation-only program with the same number of credit hours as traditional three-year programs. Students will start their classes in the summer, on May 20.
Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University will now prepare students from the U.S. and Canada to seek bar admission in both countries, expanding the job market for new attorneys and creating new opportunities for international law practice.
The school’s North American Law Degree will allow students to graduate, within three years, with a J.D. designed to allow them to immediately seek licensure in Canada without further coursework, in addition to qualifying them for bar admission in the U.S.
New students at Charlotte School of Law now have the option of beginning their studies in May instead of the traditional fall start, a move that could allow them to complete law school in as early as two years.
The first semester curriculum program — called the May Advantage — is the same as the curriculum offered to fall and spring starts. However, the May Advantage semester is compressed into 11 weeks, with classes being held Monday through Thursday from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.
We have revised our Best Law School rankings that appeared in the February issue of The National Jurist to account for two errors and better data from RateMyProfessors.com.
The University of Chicago and Boston College initially brought to our attention that their RateMyProfessors grades were incorrect. They, along with other schools, also pointed out that non-law professors were included in the tabulation of the scores.
Stanford Law School has opened the nation’s only religious liberty clinic, with plans for students to help all religions.
“This is where the marriage of practice and teaching mesh so well in a clinical setting,” said James Sonne, the founding director and a new hire at the school. “We get to do real cases but get to do it through teaching. It is foremost a teaching enterprise and the chief point is to teach the students how to be lawyers.”
Philip McConnaughay is leaving Penn State University Dickinson School of Law at the end of this semester to take over as dean at Peking University’s School of Transnational Law in Schenzhen, China.
McConnaughay, who has been dean at Penn Sate Law since 2002, steps down at a time of transition for the state school. It announced in November that it would split into two different schools — one located at the main university in State College and one in Carlisle, Penn.