When Is Something NOT Worth $0? When It's A Scholarship To Indy Tech Law

Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200 from Indy Tech Law.

Indiana Tech Law School, having failed to secure accreditation from the ABA, is offering a full scholarship to all of its 57 students. Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog also reports that the school will offer a free ride to anybody who matriculates in the fall. The school is really hoping to get 20 additional 1Ls.

It’s a nice gesture for the 57 kids who were unlucky moronic hopeful enough to enroll at the school in the first place. The entire story of Indy Tech (follow along with our previous coverage here and here) could be a case study on everything wrong with legal education. The school has no reason to exist other than the fact that there will be students uninformed enough to attend. But the school opened right at a time when prospective students (and their parents) became more aware about the dangers of legal education. I can only assume that the kids who are there are people who really want to go to law school but don’t know how to use Google. Letting these guys chase the dragon for free seems like the least Indy Tech can do.

That said, Indy Tech students should quit. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Just fold up the board and go home.

I know that sounds harsh. I know telling people to give up on their hopes and dreams makes me sound like a “hater.” But as Al Pacino says in the Devil’s Advocate: “I’M A FAN OF MAN!” I don’t want to see these kids waste any more time on a dead end.

Indy Tech isn’t going to charge them any more money, but is it going to give them the years back? Is Indy Tech going to give them back THE TIME that they could be spending developing other marketable skills? Opportunity costs are real costs too. Spending another year chasing a degree that costs less than the paper it will be printed on is another year wasted. And let’s remember that the pursuit will still cost Indy Tech students money. The kids still have to live, still have to eat — it’s not like Indy Tech is paying them to go to law school. Just because something is free doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cost something.

Think about all the other things Indy Tech students could do with that year of their lives. They could learn refrigerator and air conditioner repair. They could learn how to code in Javascript. They could build up a year of seniority at the Applebee’s. Don’t laugh: fixing appliances or making malware or serving drinks are real skills — skills that you can make a living with. Nobody cares where you went to school to learn to snake a toilet, but clients do care if you went to an unaccredited law school with the Google footprint of a port-o-potty.

Instead of offering free tuition at Indy Tech Law, the administrators should offer a free transfer to Indiana Tech College. Go get your associate’s degree in Recreation Management and go run a Little League. That’s a career Indy Tech can help you with. Staying at Indy Tech Law is just throwing time down the drain. And time is money.

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Indiana Tech Law School Gives 100% Scholarships To Every Student In Effort To Retain 57 2Ls/3Ls, Recruit 20 1Ls In Wake Of Accreditation Denial [TaxProf Blog]

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