Law by the Numbers » Commentary

Law-School Debt Loads

grosin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:02:26 +0000

In her article, “Linking Debt and Income,” Inside Higher Ed, January 18, 2010, Jennifer Epstein reports that the U.S. Department of Education recently proposed that vocational and for-profit colleges meet minimum standards for debt-to-income ratios for recent graduates. The average debt repayment could be no more than eight percent (8%) of expected earnings in the field. The presumptive expected earnings would be the 25th percentile of incomes in the field for which they had been trained.

How would that work for law schools? Going to law school is expensive, and often financed with debt. The 2009 Survey Results of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement tells us that 29% of the students surveyed expected to graduate with law-school related debt of at least $120,000. The following chart from page 14 of the 2009 Annual Survey of law students shows the law-school debt levels expected by current law students.

According to the May 2008 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (National Cross-Industry Estimates [.zip file]) the 25th percentile of annual income for lawyers was just under $75,000. That would make the maximum annual payment just under $6,000. Assuming a modest ten percent (10%) interest rate,* the maximum average school debt would be just over $45,000.

But over two-thirds of students surveyed in 2009 by LSSSE expect to graduate with law school debt of $60,000 or higher. According to Epstein, schools that don’t meet the eight percent (8%) of presumptive earnings could show

actual-median earnings to average-debt ratios of 8% or below,
a 75% loan repayment rate , or
program completion and in-field placement rates of at least 70%.

The following chart from the National Association of Law Placement shows the distribution of salaries of the Class of 2008:

Class of 2008, Distribution of Salaries (NALP)

The overall median of $72,000 is just under the May 2008 25th percentile of lawyer salaries ($75,000), so there is no wiggle room there.

Should law schools start reporting salary and debt-load information for its recent graduates?

posted by Gary Rosin

*Interest rates on guaranteed student loans in repayment are now about 2.5%. I’ll have to check on the current average for non-guarnateed loans. In event, current interest rates are abnormally low.

GPAs and Standardized Test Abuse

grosin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:21:58 +0000

An article by Scott Jaschik, More Testing, Less Logic? (Inside Higher Ed) comments on an article by Anne VanderMey, GMAT: The MBA Job Seeker’s Best Friend (Business Week). VanderMey reports on a disturbing trend in the MBA job market:

For a select group of companies, mostly top consulting, finance, and banking firms, employers routinely look to MBA graduates’ GMAT scores as a reliable standard measurement of academic prowess…. Particularly when jobs are tight, and every element of each résumé takes on added weight, test scores can be the difference between an interview and the dustbin.

According to both VanderMey and Jaschik, some schools are advising students to retake the GMAT.

VanderMey observes that while employers looking for people to do “heavy quantitative lifting” find the quantitative portion of the GMAT useful, the real problem is that GPAs are not always useful:

Many MBA programs have grading systems that vary widely or are solely pass-fail, making it difficult for recruiters to compare applicants from different schools, and others don’t provide grades at all. Even at schools where grades are released, grade inflation may render As and Bs poor markers for actual skill. The tests can be a boon by virtue of their standardization….

The problem with GPAs is that they are not objective measures of performance. Rather, they just sort each cohort of admitted students. The strength B-school cohorts vary from school to school, and even from year to year.

Jaschik suggests that the problem is more acute at lower-ranked B-schools:

At the very top ranked business schools, … “companies assume that everyone there is strong, and don’t care about their scores as much. McKinsey or Goldman Sachs is going to hire 20-30 grads from there every year.” But … at other business schools, “where Goldman may only hand out a few job offers, they’ll look more carefully at everything in a student’s profile (including the GMAT) to determine who the lucky few will be. That’s not a knock on those lower-ranked schools; I think it’s just the reality of the situation.” (quoting Scott Shrum, director of admission consulting research at Veritas Prep, a “high end GMAT test-prep company”).

Jaschik’s main focus is on the use of GMAT scores for purposes other than as a guide to first-year MBA grades. He argues that testing companies, such as the GMAC (presumably, the Graduate Management Admissions Council), should more actively resist the use of test scores for purposes other than admission.

U.S. News uses LSAT scores of entering classes as one of the factors in its rankings of law schools. The LSAC and the ABA also report the LSAT profiles of entering classes in their annual Office Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools. Of course, they also provide a wealth of additional data about each law school.

Has anyone heard of law firms and other employers of lawyers using LSAT scores in evaluating job applicants?

posted by Gary Rosin

Flat Demand and More Law Schools

grosin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:34:12 +0000

In Do We Need More Law Schools, I commented on the number of new law schools that have been in the works. In that post, I used the number of JDs granted per year, largely as a matter of convenience. But what about the demand for law school itself–the number of persons interested in going to law school. Several commenters suggested that the proper measure is the demand for lawyers, especially by firms that employ lawyers. While employment opportunities, and starting salaries, are a major factor affecting the demand for legal education, it is not the sole factor. Whatever the underlying causes, the demand for legal education says something about the need for more law schools (as opposed to more lawyers).

The above chart uses information drawn from the current (as of October 2, 2009) LSAC Volume Summary (under the “Data” section). For the Fall 2000 entering classes, 74,600 persons applied, of which 50,300 (67%) were admitted. For Fall 2008, 83,400 persons applied, of which 55,300 (67%) were admitted. From Fall 2000 through Fall 2004, the number of applicants increased to 100,600, of which 55,900 (56%) were admitted. From Fall 2004 through Fall 2008, the number of applicants fell by 17,200 persons (17%), but the number of persons admitted fell by 400 (less than one percent). During that same period, the number of law schools increased by 9%, from 183 to 199.

But compare that with the number of applicants for Fall 1991 through Fall 1995 (estimated by combining data from the applications per applicant chart in the LSAC report, National Applicant Trends–2008, with Table 1 in Charles Longley, Law School Admissions, 1985 to 1995, Assessing the Effect of Application Volume (1998) (LSAC Research Report Series, No. RR-97-02)). The estimated number of ABA applicants to fell from a high of 86,700 for Fall 1992 (176 schools) to 72,800 for Fall 1995 (179 schools). Thus, since 1992, the number of applicants has fallen, risen, and fallen again, for a net loss of 3,300 persons (almost 4%), while the number of ABA law schools has increased by 22 schools (over 12%).

Because Longley focused on ABA applications and admissions, rather than persons admitted, I do no not have the numbers of the number of persons admitted. As shown in the ABA’s table, Enrollment, and Degrees Awarded, first-year enrollments have seen some dips since Fall 1991 (44,050), but have increased to 49,414 in Fall 2008 (an increase of 12%). That tracks the JDs awarded by ABA law schools (see the chart in Do We Need More Law Schools?).

So we have more law schools chasing the same number of applicants, but enrolling more students. I don’t think the increased competition has hurt the elite law schools. That means that the rest the law schools, particular those in U.S. News Tier 4, have more competition for students, and will have to dip deeper into the applicant pool. For a law school, lower academic credentials tend to translate into lower Bar passage rates, especially in high cut-score states, such as California.

So, if you concluded from my earlier post that, as a professor at a Tier 4 school, I must be in favor of more law schools, you were wrong. Apparently, the numbers do not speak for themselves, so let me be clear:

Flat Demand + More Law Schools = Trouble

That said, since Fall 2003, law schools have held the number of admitted applicants relatively flat, and even cut the numbers somewhat. Yet enrollments have still gone up. That’s because more of the admitted applicants are choosing to go to law school. For Fall 2003, 48,900 out of 56,800 admitted persons (86%) actually enrolled, while, for Fall 2008, 49,414 out of 55,500 (89%) enrolled (LSAC Volume Summary).

Gary Rosin

Part 5 the Legal Education at the Crossroads conference

jrensberger — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:33:15 +0000

The Big News from the Conference on Assessment: Steve Bahls, Chair of the Student Learning Outcomes Subcommittee of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar’s Standards Review Committee, presented the draft of the new Standards on assessment. From his presentation, it sounds as if some form of these Standards will be recommended by the ABA.

Where do the new Standards take us? First, the ABA, fortunately in my view, is not taking an extreme position. The proposed Standards would require that all schools do some assessment of certain required competencies, such as “legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem solving, written and oral communication in a legal context.” Beyond that, each school is required to identify additional learning outcomes based upon its own mission. So, the ABA appears to be seeking to preserve a good degree of law school autonomy.

The real sea change comes, however, from the requirement that each school must “employ a variety of valid and reliable measures systematically and sequentially throughout the course of the students’ studies.” Thus, a school simply will not be able to use a single summative final examination in the future, at least not in all its courses. This is no doubt a good thing, but it will involve a huge change in how we teach.

Jeff Rensberger

Part 4 the Legal Education at the Crossroads conference

jrensberger — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:30:33 +0000

One key group missing from the Conference was Deans. I would have loved to hear from some Deans on how they would implement broad-based assessment when they are the same time trying to manage budgets, get their faculty to write more, and improve their school’s US News ranking. As to the latter, does one gain anything at all in US News rankings by having a state of the art assessment regime? There is a huge issue of aligning what should be the prime goal of law schools–legal education–with other institutional imperatives, some of which, like US News, are imposed from without.

Jeff Rensberger

Part 3 the Legal Education at the Crossroads conference

jrensberger — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:28:51 +0000

So, the Big Question is how does one perform a meaningful assessment in a large doctrinal class of, say, 90 students? One of the most cogent remarks of the Conference was David Thompson’s observation that for assessment to penetrate deeply into law school classrooms, it must be made “dumb easy.” Methods that work in small group settings do not easily transform to a larger group unless a huge investment is to be made in additional teaching resources.

Long before the ABA’s interest in assessment, I wondered, like many doctrinal professors, what exactly is the reason I get away with giving only a single final exam for a course, with no quizzes and no mid-terms. The answer I came up with, which I think is sound, is this: Law schools and students strike a deal. Students forego the more regularized feedback and assessment present in most educational settings in exchange for getting a full professor and no teaching assistants. One obvious way to make assessment work in a large doctrinal class is to farm it out to TAs. But that breaks the bargain traditionally struck. So, other than through TAs, how do we do assess in large classes? If this is to occur, it is going to either change the historic bargain or involve the magic genies of technology. And there are some cost and time-effective means of assessing through technology such as on-line quizzes and audience response software. But nothing is free. If there is a cheap way to assess, it is probably less effective as a means of assessment than a costly and time-consuming one.

Jeff Rensberger

Do We Need More Law Schools?

grosin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:36:11 +0000

According to The National Jurist (September 2009), there are 10 new schools on the way (pp. 12-13). That doesn’t even count

the new campus the University of Idaho plans to open in Boise (mentioned in the article), or
the new public law school (approved earlier this year) the University of North Texas will open in Dallas in Fall 2010.

According to the ABA, there are now 199 provisionally or fully ABA-approved law schools offering JDs. The following chart shows the growth in ABA-approved law schools since 1923, when the ABA began approving law schools.

Twenty years ago (1989), there were 174 ABA schools. That’s 25 more law schools, or a growth of just over 14%. Assuming that all 12 of the law-schools-in-formation make it to at least provisional ABA approval, the United States will have 211 law schools.

How much of this is demand driven? According to the ABA, the number of JDs granted each year peaked in the 1996-1997 academic year, at 41,115, and then dropped for several years to a low of 37,910 (2000-2001). The number of JDs did not recover to at least the 1996-1997 level until 2004-2005 (42, 672 JDs). During that period the number of law schools increased from 180 (1997) to 184 (2001) to 191 (2005). That growth was not driven by demand .

One of the new law schools mentioned in the article is Louisiana College, who cites unmet demand in Louisiana. Here’s the most recent information from the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools (2010 edition) on the 4 Louisian law schools, as well as Mississippi College (mentioned as the fall-back for would-be lawyers from Louisiana):

LSU: 499 offers on 1299 applications (38%); medians of 156 (LSAT) & 3.51 (GPA)
Loyola-NO: 799/1,611 (50%); 152 (LSAT) & 3.33 (GPA)
Southern: 376/1,114 (34%); 145 (LSAT) & 2.83 (GPA)
Tulane: 931/2,612 (36%); 162 (LSAT) * 3.59 (GPA)
Mississippi College: 621/1166 (53%); 150 (LSAT) & 3.22 (GPA)

The Bar-passage data for Mississippi College shows that 13 persons took the Louisiana Bar exam, out of 157 total persons taking a Bar exam for the first time. More Mississippi College graduates from Louisiana might have taken the Bar exam first in Mississippi, but still intend to return to Louisiana.

In the article, Bill Henderson (Indiana, Bloomington) wonders whether there will be enough high-paying jobs to let an ever-increasing number of graduates pay off their college–and law school!–loans.

Gary Rosin

More on the Legal Education at the Crossroads conference

jrensberger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:40:21 +0000

The conference was weighted toward clinical and skills faculty in terms of the composition of the panels and the audience. This is not meant as a criticism. My take is that skills faculty have long been engaged in a richer and more meaningful assessment of students than have doctrinal faculty. One way to characterize the increased emphasis on assessment in law school is that the clinicians (and the MacCrate and Carnegie reports) are ascendant. So, it makes some sense that many presentations would give examples of assessment in a skills setting. But if the mission is to change the practices of doctrinal faculty, more of them need to be at conferences like this and more of them need to be present to answer the Big Question, which is taken up in my next post.

Jeff Rensberger

Notes on the Legal Education at the Crossroads, v. 3.0 Conference

jrensberger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:30:53 +0000

Last week, I attended the Legal Education at the Crossroads conference at Denver University. A useful conference, with a lot of demonstrations.

There was much more coverage of student assessment than institutional assessment. That is, most of the sessions focused on ways to assess student performance other than through the standard one-shot end of semester final exam. The classic law school model is an example of summative assessment with no formative assessment. The conference provided a useful counterweight to that model by discussing options for formative assessment (i.e., assessment that occurs while the learning process is going on).

But the other half of the equation is assessing on an institution-wide basis what the individual student assessments tell you about the learning that is or is not going on. There were sessions devoted to the topic of institutional assessment, but–at least the ones I attended–ended up with a student assessment focus.

Jeff Rensberger