Law Schools, Money

Top Law School Plans Tuition Hikes To Make Up For $3M Budget Deficit

The law school is looking at potentially “catastrophic” consequences. Yikes!

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Law schools across the country are falling from grace now that the new normal has taken hold. Students are increasingly less and less interested in going to law school. From joblessness to insurmountable debt, there are just too many risks now associated with the J.D. degree to make it worth their while.

Many law schools are doing everything they can to entice new students to attend, and some of their disaster-avoidance plans — like initiating freezes and cuts to their egregiously high tuition rates — have been quite popular. Other law schools are trying to control costs by offering faculty and staff buyouts or conducting layoffs. Some law schools, however, are trying to pass the buck to their students.

Which top 100 law school is planning back-to-back tuition hikes and asking for state assistance to account for its enrollment woes?

The law school in question is the University of Nevada-Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law, a school that’s still recovering from a 15-spot drop, from No. 68 to No. 83, in the U.S. News rankings. It seems that the school is looking at a $3 million budget shortfall thanks to a more than 20 percent decrease in enrollment. So what’s UNLV Law planning to do about it? The Las Vegas Review-Journal has the scoop:

Tuition for Boyd students will gradually go up, 4 percent next academic year and 4 percent the following year.

It’s the first tuition increase for Boyd students in four years.

Boyd has implemented a hiring freeze, planned phased-out retirements of faculty and is exploring the idea of voluntary buyouts for faculty, [Dean Daniel Hamilton] told regents when advocating for additional state funds Aug. 22.

Without financial assistance, the school could be forced to be more lenient with admissions, resulting in fewer students passing the bar exam. That could damage the school’s reputation, Hamilton said, making it hard to attract and retain desirable professors and students. A law school’s success hinges on top students and top faculty, Hamilton said.

As it stands, tuition at UNLV Law is on the “low” side in the grand scheme of outrageously priced attendance fees. Full-time, in-state students currently pay $23,900 per year in tuition, while full-time, out-of-state students pay $34,900 per year. At the end of these back-to-back 4 percent tuition increases, in-state students will pay $25,812, and out-of-state students will pay $37,692 per year to attend the school.

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Is it worth it to spend that much each year to attend a school where you’d have a 63.6 percent chance of working as a full-time attorney after graduation? Is it worth it to spend that much each year to attend a school that’s looking at potentially “catastrophic” consequences should the state fail to come to its aid?

Do you like to gamble? At this rate, students attending the Las Vegas law school may be rolling the dice with their futures. The members of the school’s administration better hope that Lady Luck is on their side.

Financial stresses challenge UNLV law school [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Boyd law school at UNLV asking state to help make up budget deficit; tuition hikes already set
[The Republic]

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