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.