Are Law Schools Exploiting Part-Time Students?

Of the 201 American law schools that filed ABA Standard 509 reports last year (I did not consider the three Puerto Rican ABA law schools), 82 reported matriculating 10 or more part-time students in their 2016 entering class. A substantial majority of these schools report that the entrance credentials for their part-time students were at least marginally lower than those of their full-time counterparts. But at many law schools, the difference was more than marginal. Thirty-one law schools had significantly lower admission standards for part-time students, with the LSAT at the 25% level at least two points lower than it was for the full-time students. At some schools, the disparity in the entrance credentials of the full-time and part-time students was so substantial that it placed the bottom quarter to half of the part-time student class in a completely different risk category.   The 21 schools with the most significant disparities in 2016 are listed below the break (alphabetically).  To ensure that this was not a one-time anomaly, I reviewed the Standard 509 admissions data from 2015 as well.  All of these law schools also admitted at least slightly weaker part-time classes in 2015 -- in most cases, substantially weaker.

School                   Full-time LSAT   Part-time LSAT   # of Part-Time Matriculants

Baltimore              155/152/150        154/150/147                      48

Cardozo                 162/160/159        157/154/151                       80                          

Detroit Mercy      156/152/149         149/145/143                       32                          

Fla Int’l U             157/156/152         156/153/148                       16                          

GW                        166/165/159         163/156/152                       35                          

Georgia St            160/158/155         158/155/152                       34                          

Houston               162/160/156         159/158/152                       27                          

Indiana Indy       157/153/150         156/150/147                       69                          

Lewis & Clark     161/158/154         160/155/149                       22                          

Loyola-Chicago  160/157/154         160/156/151                       43                          

Loyola-N.O.        153/149/146         150/146/142                       36                          

Michigan St         156/154/150        153/147/144                       23                          

Nova SE                152/150/146       150/148/144                       34                          

Quinnipiac           155/153/150        153/150/148                       24                          

Rutgers                 157/155/152        157/154/150                       66                          

U San Diego        160/158/155        160/155/152                       22                          

Seton Hall            161/157/155        155/150/147                       37                          

Southern              146/144/142       144/142/140                      64                          

St. John’s             160/158/154       157/151/148                       34                          

St. Mary’s            152/150/147        151/148/145                       42

Stetson                 156/154/152        157/152/150                      35

In contrast, there was only one law school where the part-time students had substantially higher LSATs than the full-time students, North Carolina Central, which exhibited a similar pattern in 2015, suggesting that it was not a fluke.

School                   Full-time LSAT   Part-time LSAT  # of Part-Time Matriculants

NC Central 16     148/143/141       156/146/144                       19

NC Central 15     149/144/142       152/148/145                       30

 

So why are law schools admitting substantially weaker students into their part-time classes, and should we and the ABA be concerned about it?

If asked to defend these practices, the law schools in question would probably say that when evaluating applications for part-time study, they take into consideration the applicants’ proven track record of success in the workplace and their greater maturity, as students who apply for part-time programs tend, on the whole, to be older and to have full-time jobs. Depending on the type of jobs the applicant has had, schools might also claim that the candidate has acquired some transferable skills that will be useful in law school. Consideration of “work experience” and “relevant demonstrated skills” are authorized as “sound admission policies and practices” under Interpretation 501-2 of the ABA Standards. There is also a theory that part-time students who are already working are more “focused” or “goal-oriented” because they are not just going to law school because they have nothing better to do, but have decided after some period of employment that they really want to be a lawyer even though it will be a significant sacrifice for the next four years. 

The question is: is there any actual data to support this theory? Is there any proof that part-time students do better in law school, are more likely to graduate, and/or are more likely to pass the bar than full-time students with comparable grades and LSAT scores?  This is data that is readily available to law schools which have had part-time divisions for several years, and perhaps some law schools have looked at this data, but I have never seen any such statistical analysis published. 

It seems to me that law schools who are admitting significantly weaker students into their part-time divisions, particularly students who fall into high-risk categories (149 LSAT and lower) have a duty to determine the validity of any assumptions that they are using to justify such admission practices.  My guess is that the data would not support any assertion that part-time students outperform full-time students with similar credentials.  Indeed, I would not be at all surprised if part-time students actually do worse than their full-time counterparts at many schools, with higher attrition rates, and lower bar passage rates.  It is hard to dispute that going to law school part-time in the evening while working full-time is much more challenging than being a full-time day student and living off student loans.  Part-time students must go to school year-round, and, being older on average, are more likely to have time-consuming family obligations.  In my experience (I taught at two law schools with part-time divisions and taught several evening classes) part-time students are more likely to miss class due to outside obligations, have far less time to read and study, are less likely to be in study groups, are less likely to come to office hours, are less likely to attend special academic support programs, and are less likely to be able to take off work for two full-months to devote themselves to full-time study for the bar exam.  Many evening classes are longer than day classes, and students who have already worked all day, then scrambled to commute to law school, often are very fatigued and have difficulty concentrating for the whole class. These disadvantages may outweigh any advantage such students theoretically have from being more focused and more driven, assuming those stereotypes to be accurate. 

I believe the real reason that law schools are admitting weaker students into their part-time/evening divisions is economic. An evening division needs to have a certain number of students to be financially viable.  Law schools generally must offer a full slate of classes in the evening to accommodate part-time students, and, at least for first-year required courses, these must be taught by full-time faculty.  The school may also need to offer extended library hours with librarians on staff, and provide night-time security for evening students. When the number of full-time students decline, law schools may be able to shrink the number of day sections to save money, but most law schools only have one evening section, so they can’t go any lower.  A useful rule of thumb is that a law school needs to enroll 50 part-time students for a part-time program to be profitable.  But after years of declining applications, many part-time programs are struggling to attract even half that number of well-qualified students.  Rather than simply cancel the part-time division, it appears that these schools are admitting some students who would never get into their day program, and, in some cases, students who shouldn’t be getting into law school at all.  And that means that the schools are allowing financial motives to color their admissions decisions, which is forbidden. 

Two schools which are of particular concern are Loyola New Orleans and Detroit Mercy.  At both schools, the credentials of the day division students are acceptable (barely so at Loyola-NO).  But the credentials for the part-time division are woeful, with over half the students at very high or extreme risk of failure.

School                   Full-time LSAT   Part-time LSAT   # of Part-Time Matriculants

Loyola-N.O.        153/149/146       150/146/142                       36

Detroit Mercy     156/152/149       149/145/143                       32          

These part-time credentials are perilously close to the credentials of the students at the ten other ABA schools found to be violating ABA Standard 501.  In fact, these numbers are worse than the 2016 numbers at John Marshall Law School – Atlanta, which recently received a notice of non-compliance with ABA Standard 501 from the ABA.  

The ABA should require these two schools to explain and justify their admission practices for their part-time divisions, and make it clear that Standard 501 may not be relaxed for the part-time division.  (Note - Southern University law school's part-time class is clearly not meeting Standard 501, but neither is their full-time division.  The ABA should immediately take action against Southern.)

There is a simple way to ensure that law schools do not exploit part-time students: don’t have a separate admissions track for the part-time program. That is, students should just apply to the law school, and, once admitted, the student would have the choice to enroll in either the full-time or part-time program. At the very least, admissions personnel and faculty admissions committee members reviewing the applications should not be informed of whether a student is seeking admission to the full or part-time division.  These safeguards would help to ensure that the same standards are applied to all applicants.  Schools that can't attract a critical mass of qualified students for their part-time program to make it financially viable should suspend the part-time program.

One More Question for the ABA: What is going on at Michigan State?

According to Michigan State Law School’s website, the school does not have a part-time program. Yet, its 509 report indicates that they matriculated 23 part-time students in 2016 and 2015, and 33 in 2014.  In all three years, the part-time admits had significantly lower grades and LSAT scores.  Last year, the full-time students had LSATS of 156/154/150  and the "part-time" admits (whatever that means at Michigan State) had LSATs of 153/147/144.   So what is going on there?  Is the school admitting weaker students on the condition that they take a reduced course load?  I invite the administration of Michigan State (or anyone else with information) to explain this oddity.  And I encourage the ABA to look into this.

 

 

 

Comments

[Bob]

This was an even greater problem back when U.S. News didn't include the part time scores in its calculation of the medians for ranking purposes. U. S. News closed that loop hole, and overnight, part time class sizes shrank dramatically...just like when law school funded jobs vanished immediately after that loophole was exposed and closed, showing how disingenuous the justifications given by schools for those "jobs" were. And the unemployed - not seeking scam. And on and on. There needs to be some sort of independent oversight entity with actual teeth to put a stop to law schools' ever-shifting sleaze-tactics.

[anon]

Yes, Bob, it happened at Hofstra when Nora Demleitner was dean.

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

NO. Exploitation is what President Donald John Trump did to obtain 63% of the White vote and what he did to the 12 women he assaulted.

Giving students a chance to become lawyers, even academically challenged ones, is not exploitation. It is called giving a CHANCE or OPPORTUNITY.

[anon]

So, David
you list this school

Loyola-Chicago 160/157/154 -- 160/156/151

and this one

Rutgers 157/155/152 -- 157/154/150

and this one

Stetson 156/154/152 -- 157/152/150

But not this one

152 149 146 --- 151 148 144 --- 34

All together now, which school did David leave out?

Looking forward to the distinction you will find here, David.

[twbb]

anon, if he is using schools with non-risk full-time students but at-risk part-time students, why would he mention a school where the full-time students are also at-risk?

[Paul Gowder]

Good on you, David, for talking about these problems.

[David Frakt]

anon - Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention!
Actually, the reason I left Golden Gate off the list of schools with the most significant disparities is that the UGPA of the 2016 part-time class 3.35/3.02/2.77 was significantly higher than the UPGA of the full-time class 3.32/2.93/2.52, especially at the 25%, so although the LSAT 25% was 2 points lower, it appears that Golden Gate might be balancing that out with higher UGPAs. Plus, haven't we beaten up enough on Golden Gate recently? In addition, as twbb has suggested, I chose to focus on schools which appear to have reasonable admissions practices for their full-time divisions, but which have questionable admissions practices for their part-time divisions, as opposed to schools with objectionable admissions practices for the entire class.

[anon]

Look folks, these rationalizations!

Compare these two sets of numbers:

Rutgers 157/155/152 -- 157/154/150

Golden Gate 152 149 146 --- 151 148 144 --- 34

The discrepancy is EXACTLY the same; the numbers are much worse for the latter school.

SOrry, but pulling in GPA doesn't work. THat criterion wasn't mentioned, in the compiling the big list of seventeen. I searched for "GPA" but all I saw was: "The seventeen schools with the most significant disparities in 2016 are listed below the break (alphabetically)." Again, compare the two schools above.

You focused above on LSAT scores nearly exclusively. I can agree, perhaps, that GPA scores are too variable and are not consistently derived, as are the LSAT scores. But, to argue now that was one of your criteria for listing schools doesn't wash. I would invite anyone to read the long post above, and claim that GPA scores were used to derive that first list of seventeen schools.

SOrry, David, the GPA excuse doesn't wash. You would have need to have explained that, up front, and you didn't.

twbb, I acknowledge there might be some support for your point, but not much. David stated: "At some schools, the disparity in the entrance credentials of the full-time and part-time students was so substantial that it placed the bottom quarter to half of the part-time student class in a completely different risk category. The seventeen schools with the most significant disparities in 2016 are listed below the break (alphabetically)."

In the case of Rutgers, cited above, do we find your point is verified?

[anon]

Why are you obsessed with Golden Gate?

[anon]

anon

Because it's there.

[David Frakt]

anon -

Okay, I admit it. I am part of a vast conspiracy to spare Golden Gate from criticism. Are you satisfied now?

Actually, if you read closely, you would note that I said: "Thirty law schools had significantly lower admission standards for part-time students, with the LSAT at the 25% level at least two points lower than it was for the full-time students." I went back and reviewed my data and there were actually 31, not 30. From, these 31 law schools, I chose 20 (I know the article said 17, I've now corrected it) that I regarded as having the most significant disparities. That means that Golden Gate was one of 11 schools that I omitted from the list of 31. How did I choose those 20? There were several factors that I considered. I focused on differences at the bottom of the class, where lower standards were more likely to result in attrition and bar failure. I looked at whether UGPAs were also lower. I looked at whether the lower admissions standards put students into a different risk category using my risk bands. I also went back to the prior year to see if there was a clear trend of admitting much lower qualified students in the part-time division. Based on these factors, I chose to highlight 20 of the 31 schools. Schools which also had a two point disparity at the 25% which were omitted from the list were Chicago-Kent, Pacific McGeorge, Loyola-LA, Connecticut, Denver, John-Marshall Atlanta.

One school that I omitted that on further review I should have included is Baltimore, so I have now added them to the list in the main article. Baltimore's full time class was 155/152/150 and their part time was 154/150/147, a significant disparity.

John Marshall Atlanta had comparable stats to Golden Gate:
150/148/146 for full-time, 149/147/144 for part-time. But the ABA has already cited JM Atlanta for non-compliance, so I saw no reason to include them on this list.

Arkansas-Little Rock was another school with a 3 point disparity at the 25% (150 to 147), but the LSAT's were the same at the 50% and the part-time students were actually higher at the 75%, so I did not include them for that reason.

Fordham had a 4 point disparity at the 25% from 160 to 156, but since students with a 156 LSAT are at minimal risk of failure, I did not consider that be a reason for concern of exploitation. Similarly, Georgetown had a 5 point disparity at the 25% (162 vs. 157), but 157 is still very good.

[AnonProf1]

David,

The title of your post asks whether law schools are exploiting part-time students. But admitting weaker PT students than FT students doesn't answer that question per se. Exploitation, in this context, surely depends both on input and output.

So, for instance, why didn't you include output measures like bar passage rate and employment? Several of the law schools on that list have reasonable bar pass rates and employment results. I would think we would want to congratulate the schools whose PT students pass the bar and become employed despite lower indicators. Why not include that information, or at least note the issue?

I agree that there are many schools on that list whose bar pass rates, employment results, and incoming indicators coalesce to suggest questionable practices, to say the least. Your post is quite useful on that point. But why tacitly accuse the other schools of exploitation when they actually are doing what they're supposed to do?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

(Side Note: My experience, albeit anecdotal, is that PT students generally fare better on employment results because their previous (or current) employment makes them more attractive than the 25-year-old K-JD with little to no experience).

[David Frakt]

Anonprof -

You have hit upon the precise problem: law schools are not currently required to report outputs/results separately, so we have no idea if part-time students are doing the same, better or worse than full-time students with attrition/graduation rates, bar passage rates and job placement. All we know is that some schools are admitting much weaker students, at least on paper, into their part-time divisions. Since law schools never voluntarily report anything that they are not required to report, I am suggesting that the ABA should require schools with suspicious admissions practices for part-time students to report their outcomes so we can determine if they are taking advantage of these students. If there are any schools that have high rates of success with their part-time program, I would be happy to report that.