UMass Dartmouth SNESL Merger: Questions that a Board Ought to Ask

Recently, Dan Filler reported on the continuing efforts of UMass Dartmouth to acquire the Southern New England School of Law (SNESL).  Dan properly suggested that from an academic quality perspective if the UMass system wants a law school it would best be advised to create the program from scratch and place it on a research-intensive campus (i.e. the Amherst site).

Dan’s brief blog post nevertheless got my juices flowing.  So I want to ask Dan’s question from the perspective of the UMass Dartmouth campus rather than the UMass system.  In my analysis I assume UMass Dartmouth wants to seek ABA accreditation promptly.

UMass Dartmouth is an intriguing entity.  The university has over 9,000 students, 4,000 of whom live on campus.  The UMass Dartmouth campus has academic ambition.  It currently has a good but not outstanding reputation.  It is ranked 61st (and 16^th among state supported institutions) in its US News cohort.  The campus has a broad range of undergraduate and graduate offerings, including a selected number of Ph.D. programs.  The campus wants to increase its research footprint and desires to be an engine of regional development.  The campus faces significant economic stress as a consequence of reduced state funding.  This has resulted in layoffs and hiring freezes.

The first question a board should ask is what the likely economics of acquiring SNESL be?  Would the campus have to contribute operating funds to make the law school a go?  Press reports suggest that the law school intends to charge about $23,000 for in-state tuition.  There is good data available on what it costs to run an ABA accredited law school.  The average direct expenditure per student for publicly approved ABA schools is in excess of $31,000.  Typical indirect expenses raise the average fully allocated expenditure per student to at least $35,000.  On a fully allocated cost basis only a handful of ABA state-assisted law schools spend less than $23,000.  All of these law schools are in very low cost communities outside the Northeast.  And none of the low expenditure schools face the financial aid demands that UMass Dartmouth would face.

Publicly available data suggests SNESL has a bar pass rate in the low 40s.  The ABA bar pass standard is particularly convoluted, but in shorthand the standard requires a pass rate of 75%.  To attract students at the quality that leads to an acceptable ABA law school bar passage rate, UMass Dartmouth would need to discount heavily, raising its costs in a dramatic manner.  Moreover, press reports suggest that the law school would have to invest significantly in new faculty, library and technology to meet ABA standards.  So a skeptical board ought to think that the near-term per student costs of running SNESL as an ABA school would significantly exceed the planned tuition level.  Hence, UMass Dartmouth will have to subsidize the law school from other campus resources at least for some number of years.

So is it in UMass Dartmouth’s strategic interest to merge with SNESL?  It would be far from a costless transaction.  Major fiscal and other resources would have to be contributed to the law school to create an academic program that adds luster to the campus.  Thus the opportunity cost is high and realistically the returns are likely to be many years in the future.  My advice: move with caution!!

Comments

[Joe]

If this school has already been subjected to layoffs and hiring freezes, how can they even hope to acquire an existing law school? It doesn't sound as if they have the cash to pull that off.

[matt]

where are you getting your stats ?? Your SNESL Bar passage rates are much lower than they really are. This merger would be a wise investment that will creat lots of money for the state. Check your facts please

[Bobby]

Shouldn't the first (and second and third and fourth) question be - does the state need more lawyers than existing law schools are producing?

Does anyone seriously not know the answer to that?

[Roger Dennis]

here is one story on the bar pass rate

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/11/06/law_school_takes_on_its_detractors/

[Bob]

Many of Dean Dennis's comments are sensible, but there are other important factors, apparently. First, UMass-Dartmouth has been seeking this for several years, and the likely reason is status within the state system. Whether or not it's correct, it's not looking to the direct revenues and costs, it's looking to some form of long term enhancement of the campus. Second, the bar passage rates are probably misleading because the school is not ABA approved and this negatively impacts admissions. It is surely betting, rightly or wrongly, that with provisional accreditation it will be able to improve the statistics of its entering students, with a resulting improvement in bar performance. The fact that other private law schools in the region are so vehemently opposed to this merger suggests that SNESL will become a credible competitor if part of the state university system.

[SNESL is a bad deal for the taxpayers of Massachusetts]

This merger is a bad deal not only for the University but the taxpayers as well. In this bad economy does the state need to be wasting money on a substandard law school? I had friend that attended that school, it is more like a community law school or junior college than a real law school.

I think it would take a lot of time and money to turn this school around and why should funds that could be spent on needy students attempting to get their first undergraduate 4 year degree be diverted to this mess?

I would compare SNESL to "The Big Dig" any money spent there is a waste. Why should we throw the baby out with the bath water?

[ERC]

It won't cost taxpayers anything...its a private school that runs on its own already.

The private schools are worried that if a public school comes along, they will have to lower their rates to compete. Harvard and BU obviously not but shitty schools like Suffolk and NE will. Its all about money...the bottom line.