Law Schools, Money, Unemployment

Which Law School Is Offering Partial Tuition Refunds For Students Who Can't Get Jobs?

Is this consolation prize enough to defray the costs of attending a law school that can’t net you a job offer?

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As a law school dean, what do you do when your employment statistics have been middling at best and your enrollment numbers have dropped year after year since you took the helm in 2012? You obviously spend your time thinking up and testing proposals to see which one will put the most asses in your otherwise empty seats.

That seems to be what’s happening at Brooklyn Law School under Dean Nicholas Allard’s leadership. In April 2014, Brooklyn Law was lauded for cutting its tuition by 15 percent, making it the cheapest private law school in New York City, with tuition clocking in at a whopping $45,850 for the 2015-2016 academic year when the cuts take effect.

The school is now attempting to one-up itself with another 15 percent offer. The New York Times has more information on the law school’s latest program for its graduates:

Beginning with students entering this year — whether in two-, three- or four-year programs — Brooklyn Law School is offering to repay 15 percent of total tuition costs to those who have not found full-time jobs nine months after graduating. That, according to school officials, is how long it typically takes graduates to get such jobs and, if necessary, to obtain the requisite licenses. …

The introduction of the program, called Bridge to Success, comes as law school graduates across the country face increasing competition in a depressed job market that is only slowly recovering from the economic downturn.

If any law school graduates are in need of a bridge to success, it’s graduates of Brooklyn Law School. The class of 2013 was nationally the largest law schools had ever seen, and nine months after graduation, with plenty of competition in the job market, 57.3 percent of Brooklyn’s 478 graduates were employed in full-time, long-term jobs where bar passage was required. Just one year later, only 52.4 percent of the school’s much smaller graduating class of 382 would-be lawyers were employed in jobs of the same kind.

Dean Allard says this program “builds on the overall approach that we’ve taken to be very student-centric, to listen to what students need” — and what students clearly need are jobs to service their tremendous student debt burdens. Thankfully, as of May 2015, Brooklyn Law had a $133 million endowment that will support the Bridge to Success program.

So, how does one go about getting 15 percent of their tuition refunded from Brooklyn Law?

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To qualify [for the tuition-reimbursement plan], students must take the bar exam after graduating, though they need not pass it. They must also demonstrate that they have actively searched for full-time work and have made use of the school’s career resources.

The 15 percent reimbursement applies only to out-of-pocket tuition expenses, including loan payments; scholarships and grants are not covered.

How can graduates prove they’ve been making use of the school’s career resources? Who will be the arbiter of how hard graduates have been searching for employment? Does this program apply only to graduates who haven’t found employment as lawyers, or graduates who haven’t found employment, period? Not even the school’s press release on the Bridge to Success program — which dubiously claims that the school’s “job placement record over the last two years has been a strong 90 percent” — has the answers to these questions.

To see how much money someone is likely to be refunded, let’s take a Brooklyn Law student who attends the school without any scholarships or grants, and pays full freight. Three years of undiscounted tuition at Brooklyn Law, including the recent cuts, costs $130,500. A graduate who is unable to get a job as a lawyer after nine months will receive a lump sum of $19,575. Is that consolation prize enough to defray the costs of attending a law school that can’t net you a job offer? Probably not, but nice try.

When we mentioned this program earlier today, one of our commenters mused that “it should probably be a big red flag if your school feels the need to make such an offer.” While the jury is still out on this program, and it may be a great thing for struggling Brooklyn Law, we should point out that we only know of one other company that is willing to pay out “hush money” when it can’t deliver on promises it made to law students at the beginning of their legal education, and that’s InfiLaw. Take that for what you will.

Brooklyn Law School Offers a Safety Net for New Students [New York Times]
Brooklyn Law School Announces ‘Bridge to Success’ Program [Brooklyn Law School]

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Earlier: Which Law School Just Cut Tuition By 15 Percent?

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