Law School Applicants Plunge, Rising Calls For Reform

"The primary cause of this situation lies in the fact that law schools have failed to perform their function of nurturing the legal profession."

More news about the dramatic 80% drop in law school applicants...
in Japan...
here.

Comments

[JM]

There is a lesson here for American Law Schools. If prospective law students behave as rational economic actors, then there is still a long way to go to reach the bottom of the applicant decline.

There are three positive law school outcomes for a rational actor:

1) A Biglaw job

2) A Government/PI job that qualifies for debt forgiveness

3) Any decent job and under $50,000 in total educational debt

There are probably 12,000 law graduates annually that fall into one of these three categories. That means that first year enrollment can still decline another 100% from current levels. I do not think it will ever get to that point, but I can see first year enrollment of about 20,000 sometime in the next decade.

[Jojo]

Yes, and the sooner we get uncle sam out of the GRAD PLUS business, the sooner that we can give 75% of the law schools the educational death penalty.

You have glutted the market, underprepared your graduates to practice law, and lied to the youth. You are horrible people, law faculty.

[Anon]

Jojo: paint with a broad brush, much?

[JM]

Jojo, I disagree. Keep the GRADPLUS loans, but make schools repurchase any loan that is 6 months delinquent for the full outstanding balance. That keeps predatory private lenders out of the fray, but still brings a huge amount of accountability to the schools.

20-30 law schools would shut down immediately. 50-100 would shut down within 10 years. 50-80 remain viable.

A perfect outcome.