Tuition Wars And Shrinking Class Size: More On The Philadelphia (Law School) Story

I've previously blogged about law school tuition wars in Philadelphia.  You can read those posts here and here. I've noted that underneath much of the broad-stroke reporting about law school enrollment and tuition are a variety of local markets and local stories.  This is the local market I know best.

Again this year, it appears that,  for applicants with moderately strong predictors, Philadelphia law schools offer among the lowest net tuitions in the country.  Scholarship competition in Philly is fierce.

But as this news story indicates, the Philly schools are also bringing down class size.  Overall, the six Philly area law schools have contracted 1L class size by 35% since 2009-10.  This greatly exceeds the national decline of just under 28%.  The reason parallels the explanation for such aggressive discounting in the market: every law school and every university wants to maintain quality.  Is that because of  US News?  Is it for bar pass rates?  Is it for reputation?   Is it because it's the right thing to do, given the job market?  Is it because all the schools are non-profits?  Or all of the above?   

And particular kudos is due to Widener University, which - without any US News stake (since they are unranked) - nonethess chose to shrink class size rather than seriously reduce student quality.  That was both a good choice and the right choice, but far from a foregone conclusion given the decisions of other law schools around the country.

This chart of Philly school first year enrollment  is from the Philadelphia Biz Journal article:

School	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Drexel	156	149	150	140	143	129
Penn	253	249	264	243	251	250
Rutgers-Camden	270	269	339	115	140	182
Temple	304	326	270	257	225	216
Villanova	258	252	216	220	162	155
Widener - Del.	378	388	320	223	238	126

Comments

[Jojo]

Dan,

Have prices continued to fall from where they were 2 years ago? In 2012, you indicated that someone with a 161 and a reasonable gpa could attend tuition free. Last year Villanova was offering a tuition free deal at 157/3.6.

Is it even better now?

[JillyFromPhilly]

Dan,

When you say "every university wants to maintain quality," how do you explain the substantial drop in LSAT scores of incoming students at Pennsylvania law schools? Take Drexel for example. Median LSAT scores have declined dramatically:

2010 - 159
2011 - 159
2012 - 157
2013 - 155
2014 - 154

Is Drexel maintaining quality or selling seats and naming rights to whoever will buy them in order to stay afloat?